Nuclear? New Clear.

Nuclear? New Clear.

Continuing with the nuclear discussion from last week, despite all the critism on Germany for shutting down their plants out of fear, the notion of replacing nuclear power with more sustainable alternatives is very much viable in a long term process. However, the road is long and getting the way of getting there can be troublesome.

Let's look at Japan. After the catastrophic event in Fukushima in 2011, Japan has increased its coal and natural gas consumption in order to fill in the energy gap created by the phasing out of nuclear power plants, which supplied 30% of total power generated in Japan. Because finding viable alternative power source can be time consuming, today's Japan still largely relies on nuclear power for its electricity generation. Until this day, nuclear generated power still make up over 20% of its total power production. Renewable energy sources such as solar panel, tide-powered energy, wind energy are still in the process of being realized, which can take a few decades.

Also, the islands of Japan itself almost hosts no significant fussil fuel deposits. It has to rely on import to get coals, natural gases and oil. This is one of the reasons for building so many nuclear plants in the first place. Giving up nuclear means Japan has to put its energy supply almost entirely in the hands of other nations such as Russia. The technological innovation in sustainable energy will be the long term solution but in short term, Japan is in a tough spot, for giving up nuclear power plants.

As for now, there is no perfect solution to world's energy problem. We are eventually buying time byburning fossil fuel and nuclear, for our scientists to realize sustainable energy technologies. It's not ideal, but it will have to do. That can conclude my personal feeling to nuclear power.

Reference:

http://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/energy-japan-post-nuclear-future-sustainable