Recently, I participated in Agrion's panel discussion, "Japan's Clean Technologies and Collaboration Opportunities”, as a panelist.

Many views were expressed from different perspectives—of a journalist with intense familiarity with Japanese culture, of an investor with Japanese funds, and of a large Japanese trading company. Most of all, Mike Kanellos did an excellent job of moderating. It was a pleasure to spend one and a half hours discussing this matter.

As I prepared for the panel, I went over my notes and read many more articles in Japanese newspapers. Whether or not Japan adopts more renewable energies, with 52 out of 54 of its nuclear reactors halted and the remaining two to be shut down come April, and with current renewable energies far short of the capacity to compensate for the loss of nuclear power, a power shortage should be imminent.

Before the disastrous quake last March, nuclear reactors generated about 30% of the total power produced in Japan. When you lose 30%, you gotta do something about it. What Japan did last summer was to:

• Mandate energy savings of 15% from the previous year at manufacturing facilities and businesses.

• Restart thermal and hydro power plants.

Power saving went very well. Average consumers were not ordered to save power by law, but people pitched in. Large factories shut down on Thursdays and Fridays and operated on weekends instead. Most businesses started early in the day and stopped early to save power. Small factories started their day late at night when power demand is not severe. People were working in offices in 86°F conditions. Parents with small kids had a hard time finding a caregiver on weekends because child-care facilities were usually closed on weekends. Small restaurants around factories were forced to change business hours because they had very little business on Thursdays and Fridays. On the weekends, workers at factories could not find restaurants open for lunch nearby. Although this worked, people are now fed up with hardship. Don't believe everything you read in the media. The US and Western media praised Japan for its calm reactions to the disasters and the hardships that came after. However, there is always a breaking point for anything. If that point is passed, people may snap.

Restarting old, dormant thermal and hydro power plants did not go so well. Far more thermal than hydro plants were restarted. Those thermal plants were old and very inefficient and were to be demolished. It was only because of the emergency that they were brought back into service. But they had been neglected for some time, and some of them broke when restarted. Even the plants that did not break have been shaky.

With the two methods mentioned above, Japan survived the power shortage last summer. This winter is going relatively OK, except in the Osaka area served by Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO), which has more than a 45% dependence on nuclear power. As of now, all 14 of its nuclear plants are shut down. Even though 45% of its power supply is gone, the Osaka area (including Kobe, Kyoto, and Nara) appears to be holding out. I exchanged email with one of my friends in Osaka who works at a subsidiary of KEPCO. He wrote that because KEPCO wanted to show that they were saving power, his company set thermostats at 50°F throughout the facility. He had to work in a heavy jacket and a blanket.

As you know, TEPCO lost four nuclear reactors in Fukushima and is required to pay compensation to the people who evacuated from the region. It is clear that TEPCO alone cannot pay all the claims. The loss of land and houses, though very costly, might not be too much. But the people who lost their jobs because radiation is preventing them from going back to their places of work need money every day and every month. This amount keeps rising. TEPCO is on the brink of bankruptcy, and there is talk of nationalization.

TEPCO is proposing to hike its fee for electricity by 17%. People in the TEPCO region are furious. Even though everyone is angry, one individual cannot do much about it. The vice governor of the Tokyo Metropolitan government tried to send a strong message to TEPCO to request power from Chubu Electric Power Co. (CEPCO), which serves the Nagoya region, as reported here.

The Tokyo government uses about 11 MW, roughly the power required by several good-sized data centers. The local utility for the Tokyo government is TEPCO, and if they import power from CEPCO, they need to:

1. Find a way to bypass the TEPCO distribution infrastructure or get an agreement to use TEPCO's and reconcile later.

2. Convert power from 60 Hz (CEPCO territory) to 50 Hz (TEPCO territory). Conversion capacity is limited to 1,100 MW.

Because it is not possible to lay a transmission line to connect the CEPCO side and the Tokyo government, CEPCO needs to connect to the transmission line owned by TEPCO. They can lay a set of distribution lines from one or more substations to the Tokyo government facilities. Or they can cut a deal with TEPCO to use all of their infrastructure and reconcile later.

CEPCO turned down this offer by citing their need to help their western utilities, especially KEPCO, which desperately needs power. Both KEPCO and CEPCO use 60 Hz, and they are adjacent to each other for easy sharing of power. (See the figure below.) It is speculated that Tokyo's attempt was a bluff to force TEPCO to reconsider the price hike.

Utility company territories.

The current administration seems to be coping with the power loss by:

1. Restarting as many thermal and hydro plants as possible.

2. Restarting selected nuclear plants.

The thermal plants use mostly natural gas, which Japan must import. They seem to have an agreement to import natural gas from the US. It is an exceptional gesture because US policy is to use natural gas as a strategic means for energy security and to embargo any exports of the fuel. This surely will increase GHG emissions.

Restarting some nuclear plants is much more controversial. It appears that the central government is running out of options to compensate for the power shortage. It is likely that some nuclear reactors will be restarted before summer.

Is the US ready for a power shortage? Before the disaster, Japanese utilities executives fended off my questions about the long-range energy policy by saying that Japan's power infrastructure was solid and there was plenty of power available. Are we saying the same thing in the US now?