Co-Authored by Lauri Myllyvirta, Greenpeace
After the Tohoku earthquake three years ago in March 2011, Japan was in a seemingly impossible situation. A tremendous amount of conventional generation capacity, including the entire nuclear fleet, was unavailable and the country faced the risk of power cuts during summer consumption peaks. But miraculously, or seemingly so, in just a few short weeks Japan managed to avert the rolling power cuts that many believed inevitable. Even more impressive, they have turned these emergency measures into lasting solutions. So how’d they do it without forcing people back to the stone age? Japan overcame this daunting task by tapping the cheapest and most widely available source of energy we have – energy efficiency and energy savings.
Much of the electricity savings were initially driven by a popular movement known as ‘Setsuden.’ This movement emerged to encourage people and companies to save electricity and prevent rolling power cuts. Simple measures such as increasing temperatures in homes and offices, ‘thinning’ lighting by removing some of the bulbs and tubes, shutting down big screens and exterior lighting – and even electric toilet seats, a Japanese peculiarity, enabled Japan to dramatically reduce power demand almost overnight (albeit at the cost of a small amount of personal comfort). In addition, to these measures the dress code in offices was eased to reduce the need for AC and both large and small companies were audited to identify savings potential.
These temporary measures have proven to have long term impact. They’ve dramatically increased the awareness of energy use and energy efficiency, with large companies running high-profile lasting programs. As a result, power consumption never rebounded despite GDP growth, as energy conscious practices became ingrained. More importantly, there is huge potential for technical measures to reduce energy usage even further – a resource that has only begun to be tapped into.
What’s more surprising than Japan’s impressive energy savings is just how far off the very serious energy punditry was on the impact this would have on the nation. Aside from worrying that the sky would fall, this punditry made dire predictions about the need to replace the nuclear fleet with ‘cheap coal’ (a myth we debunked here). Of course through a combination of common sense energy savings measures that begun as temporary behavioral changes, they’ve instead turned to permanent efficiency gains. In the process, the Japanese people, and its business community, proved the punditry wrong.
The key lesson from the Japanese experience, the one pundits failed to appreciate, is that coal plant construction is simply too slow to be relevant in the modern world where resiliency is highly valued. To cope with rapid loss of generation capacity, Japan needed fast, nimble and modular 21st century solutions. That means efficiency and clean energy. Despite major hurdles to deploying these solutions, due to a complete absence of renewable energy policies prior to Fukushima, solar power surged in 2013 blowing away earlier predictions. In fact, Japan invested the most money in solar power of any country in 2013 and this investment will grow rapidly in the coming years.
In contrast, coal power projects proposed in the wake of Fukushima are still sitting on the drawing board. By the time they are online their output will be rendered obsolete due to the rapidly dropping price of renewable energy. Worse, these investments lock Japan into a volatile international coal market. Japan need look no further than India’s recent imported coal debacle – Tata Mundra – for a warning of what that market can do to energy security.
At the end of the day energy security is important, but aligning energy investments with the need to address climate is an even more pressing concern. Replacing half of the nuclear fleet with efficiency and the other half with fossils (mostly gas) is of course not enough for an advanced country like Japan. As global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak urgently, Japan must begin reducing its emissions. The easiest and most important step it can take is giving up on the illusion of the need for new coal plants. Because after all, the efficiency gains and promising developments with renewable energy show that Japan can be a leader in 21st century energy solutions.
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18 Comments on "How Japan Replaced Half its Nuclear Capacity with Conservation and Efficiency"
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Interesting article, which seems to promote the message that reducing energy use is easy if you put your mind to it.However, the article is missing an important feature of the Japanese success in averting rolling blackouts after the political shutdown of its nuclear power fleet. Namely it ignores the people who literally gave their lives and sacrificed their health in order to save electricity.Quote:From June 1 to July 10, the latest period available, 26 people died from heatstroke, compared with six in the same period last year,according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. The number of people taken by ambulance to hospitals for heatstroke more than tripled to 12,973, with 48 percent in the most-at-risk group aged 65 years or older.“There’s a risk the number of patients will continue to rise if people stop using air conditioners at home,” said Yasufumi Miyake, associate professor at Showa University Hospital, who led a nationwide study of heatstroke. “Elderly people are the most vulnerable as they try to tough it out.”http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-12/heatstroke-deaths-quadruple-as-japan-shuns-ac.htmlThe author of this article calls this sacrifice of the Japanese people “the cost of a small amount of personal comfort”. One wonders how the author defines the word ‘comfort’. Surely, deliberately risking one’s own death or hospitalisation is more than merely sacrificing ‘a small amount of personal comfort’? IMO, the author has not done justice to the ability of the Japanese people to compromise their own health in the service of enabling the political shutdown of its nuclear fleet and the massive increase in fossil fuel imports which resulted from that.
Hi Joris, thanks for the comment. I would not recommend anyone shut off a very sizable chunk of national generation capacity overnight. The earthquake did not ask for my recommendation though. I believe overall the Setsuden effort saved lives by preventing brownouts; I am not sure what more could have been done to protect risk groups who you rightly say should not be exposing themselves to high indoor temperatures, but I would have very much supported any such steps. If it sounded like we lack understanding of the scale of the disaster that faced the Japanese people, please let me assure that’s not the case. I spent a month in Japan shortly after the disaster and even that short period left me with a deep appreciation of both the seriousness of the tragedy and the resilience of the Japanese people. It is unclear to me how people participating in the electricity saving movement have enabled the ‘the massive increase in fossil fuel imports’. What they have done is mitigate the increase in imports.Best regards,Lauri Myllyvirta
These numbers are impressive though I think the correct term is reduction rather than efficiency. On the above ~110 TWh decreaase versus 2012 generation, that is about an 11% drop. Another article addresses this below.Despite the significant drop, the carbon intensity of Japan’s electricity is estimated by some to have increased dramatically. I would be interesting to see what would happen when nuclear is brought back.http://theenergycollective.com/jessejenkins/199016/friday-factoids-fossil-fuels-replace-nuclear-japan
Hi Justin,This is a really interesting case study/example for the world to learn from for sure. I’m curious though: how much of the reductions in demand came through what we would generally consider efficiency improvements — increasing the ratio of productive outputs to energy inputs — versus conservation — consuming less, with a corresponding cut in productive outputs? For example, increasing the temperature on the AC to avoid rolling brownouts certainly saves energy, but it also comes at the cost of higher temps. That may just be a lifestyle change people are happy with or adjust to over time, but it generally comes at some kind of real cost. Energy efficiency measures on the other hand look differently. They also tend to take a lot more time to implement, so my guess would be that most of this is actually conservation not what we generally call efficiency. What are your thoughts?Jesse
Also: you’re right of course that building new coal plants takes too much time to be an immediate response to the challenge of replacing Japan’s nuclear output, and that conservation measures reduced the need for generation significantly. But you also can’t ignore the very large increases in LNG and fuel oil consumption post-Fukushima, despite these efficiency gains, and the increases in Japan’s CO2 emissions and carbon intensity of energy supply that resulted. The long-term impacts are clearly uncertain: will Japan really want to stay so dependent on very expensive LNG and fuel oil? They must import coal as well, but could it have a long-term cost advantage over LNG and oil? How quickly can renewables ramp up to fill the gap? Or should Japan turn back torwards nuclear for some share of their energy needs, as the current PM seems to forsee?
Hi Jesse, thanks for the comment! I tried to look specifically into your question: “how much of the reductions in demand came through what we would generally consider efficiency improvements?” – and I am afraid the only answer one can really give based on data I was able to find is “way too little, but more than people think”. As you know, measuring energy efficiency improvements on macro scale is really tricky. There is research that could be done – e.g. looking at sales of highly energy efficient AC units, LED lighting, smart power use control hardware etc etc. Given how dominant office, residential and service sector savings are, there is also a gray area that could be counted either as savings or efficiency – turning AC down or off in an office while people work would certainly count as savings, but which is it if you get people to turn the AC off when an office is empty, and which is it if you improve the automation to do this? However, both data and anecdotal experience show that not enough effort is being put into technical efficiency improvements as opposed to behavioral changes, so much more could be achieved. This is what our Japanese colleagues emphasized as well when we sent this article for comments. On the other hand, reduction in electricity use per unit GDP has continued, not tapered off, while public attention on savings has reduced from the peaks during the first summers. This at least suggests to me that all the corporate efficiency programs and government audits are achieving efficiency improvements, that of course are not as readily visible as the Setsuden efforts. Best regards Lauri Myllyvirta
Jesse you’re absolutely right. We can’t ignore the LNG increases and the increase in CO2 which are a real issue. We have good news on coal but bad news on gas that requires attention. But the point of this piece was to pull out a lesson we don’t think got enough attention – the ability to save energy and to generate lasting energy efficiency gains.As for what Japan should do going forward I think it will be interesting. I think the biggest lesson here is that enormous, chunky, capacity increases are not the wisest use of public policy or scarce public dollars. Incremental capacity additions likely make the most sense going forward particularly given the lasting impacts of EE on the economy as a whole. Given that RE and EE solutions are best placed for that approach I’d expect to see a heavier emphasis on those interventions going forward. However, Japan clearly wants to bring a portion of its nuclear capacity back on line. Clearly the gov’t is pushing but the public is so adamantely against it they have an uphill battle so it is still an open question. The Tokyo elections are an interesting case in point.As for your first question vis a vis RE, I’ll let Lauri my co-author opine. Glad you read the piece!
Justin, what you regard as “enormous, chunky capacity increases” engineers and economists view as economies of scale:The simple meaning of economies of scale is doing things more efficiently with increasing size or speed of operation. Economies of scale often originate with fixed capital, which is lowered per unit of production as design capacity increases. In wholesale and retail distribution, increasing the speed of operations, such as order fulfillment, lowers the cost of both fixed and working capital.EOS are also manifest in physical terms: the resistance of electricity through a conductor; inefficiencies of stopping and starting; skin-effect and proximity effect losses. In energy all of these phenomena are minimized by size and volume. From a view of public policy, engineering design choices favoring “larger and simpler” usually translate to “cheaper and more reliable”, and thus make for the most prudent investment of resources.Bigger is not always better. It’s very possible to overbuild, and unsupervised monopolies in energy suffer from the same tendency as monopolies in other industries of becoming complacent and unresponsive to consumer needs. What many apparently don’t realize is that this competition has been largely played out. A tremendous amount of back-and-forth has established a utility regulatory structure and profit model which exist in a tenuous but healthy equilibrium.It seems that much current advocacy, under the bewitching spell of renewables, is not well-versed in the painful lessons which have already been learned, and unappreciative of the idea that starting over could be a disastrous mistake. While bigger is not always better, neither is “newer”.
Bob, the key word in the description of economies of scale is “per unit of production”. Large coal (and nuclear) plants are individual products made to order while renewable technologies tend to be modular. That’s a big part of why the costs of renewables have been plummeting while the costs of new coal power projects tend to be unpredictable and trending upwards. It’s like the difference between mass produced and tailor-made clothes. Conversion efficiencies do increase with unit size, but that’s mainly relevant for thermal techologies.
Lauri, the product I’m referring to is energy, measured in units of megawatthours (MWh) or gigawatthours (GWh), not the hardware that generates it.While the price of solar panels has dropped significantly the cost of the electricity they generate remains well above most other technologies.
“ I think the biggest lesson here is that enormous, chunky, capacity increases are not the wisest use of public policy or scarce public dollars.”Why would you say that? The average electrical demand in Japan for 2012 was 118 GWatts (source). At that scale, if each power plants lasts 50 years, Japan must build new power generation with 2.4 GWatts of average output each year. Given that scale, any capacity increment up to 2 GWatts or so makes sense, so it’s really other factors such as economics, resource availability, and pollution/CO2 emissions that should drive the decision. Throwing in a few percent per year of efficiency improvements doesn’t change the picture much at all.Now that the threat of blackouts is under control, Japan must get back to the business that should be on the mind of all developed nations: phasing out fossil fuel use.
This is an excellent example of the Japanese mindset of finding the most economical solution to a problem and focusing on it until it’s resolved. No conflicts, just see a problem and fix it.Of course, they did give us “Human Centipede.”
Yes, great problem solving by the Japanese; it’s too bad they chose to solve the wrong problem. The most important problem is that fossil fuel use is polluting the environment and changing the climate. The fossil fuel lobby has convinced the Japanese people that it is nuclear power that is the problem. The Japanese people have in turn convinced their government to shut down the nuclear plants and needlessly evacuate an enormous area. Meanwhile, the environment movement aligns itself with renewables, which may work fine in the California desert, but have no chance of working in densely populated and cloudy Japan. These actions virtually assure that the fossil fuel problem will not be solved.Additionally, Japan has a problem of high energy costs and may have a problem with municipal tsunami safety, but these aren’t getting discussed since nuclear safety is the current obsession.
As I understand it, they had a huge tidal wave kill about 20,000 people and knock out a big nuclear plant. Some contamination was spread. I’ve read that the area around that nuclear plant has quite low contamination. People got scared. They evacuated a huge area around the nuclear plant moving long time residents elesewhere. They shut down the rest of their nuclear plants even though there was nothing wrong with them.I just wonder if those 20 some odd people had to die do to unwarranted conservation measures.Since their normal power supplies were shut off, they had to use more expensive supplies. If I saw my electric bill go sky high, I’d shut off the AC and turn the lights out too. I’m not sure the conservation measure was a noble endeavor or just people keeping the electricity bill low. If my electric bill tripled, i’d break out the Coleman lantern and minimize electrical expenses.
Residential power prices are up about 15% since the quake, with half the increase happening only recently as a result of weaker yen. Less than 10% increase does not normally lead to significant changes in demand, let alone this dramatic
Hi Lauri, you raise important points, thanks. I’ll try to explain myself better.”I believe overall the Setsuden effort saved lives by preventing brownouts; I am not sure what more could have been done to protect risk groups who you rightly say should not be exposing themselves to high indoor temperatures, but I would have very much supported any such steps.”Most of the nuclear reactors should never have shut down, which would have made Setsuden unnecessary and probably would saved lives and prevented hospitalisation during the heat waves. It would have also saved billions of dollars in fossil fuel import costs, money which could have been spent on rebuilding the coastal disaster zones. Instead, the money went to grinning fossil fuel salesmen.”It is unclear to me how people participating in the electricity saving movement have enabled the ‘the massive increase in fossil fuel imports’. What they have done is mitigate the increase in imports.”Actually, they caused maximal fossil imports, albeit indirectly. By choosing Setsuden instead of fighting the anti-nuclear hysteria, the Japanese people successfully prevented blackouts, which unfortunately prolonged the nuclear shutdown and thus the heavy imports of fossil fuels. If they had rejected Setsuden, the government would have been forced to open at least a few nuclear plants to prevent blackouts (which are unacceptable to any people, nomatter how propagandised they are). And if the government had been forced to at least open a few plants, than a momentum could have been achieved leading to the quick return of all undamaged reactors.As we know though, Setsuden and heavy fossil imports actually prevented the need to reopen any nuclear plants, let alone all operable plants. The lack of nuclear plants is the indirect cause of death, hospitalisation and massive fossil fuel imports in Japan. Is it clear what I mean? It is a bit of an unintuitive situation, but that is often the case when Big Lies are used to destroy the intelligence of the masses.
Very interesting article, but one detail seems to be missing: The share of nuclear power from the total electricity need in Japan before Fukushima.Please correct me if I’m wrong, but what I see from IEA statistics (http://www.iea.org/stats/WebGraphs/JAPAN2.pdf) nuclear power was roughly 30% of the total energy mix in 2010, where 60% was coal, oil and gas. From your information about two thirds of the lost nuclear electricity has been replaced by more fossil. The remaining part covered by Setsuden is thus about 10%. It may still be an impressive feat, but a ten percent reduction of the total electricity use sounds less impressive than what the title of your article is trying to convey.
It sounds less impressive than the word “half”, but if you read the headline properly, it says that they replaced half the energy from nuclear with efficiency. Not really misleading.Regardless, in my opinion, a 10% reduction virtually overnight is ASTONISHING. Just imagine what we could achieve in countries where design is historically not energy conservation friendly, like Spain (my location) for example. How many shops have you entered during the summer where it is chilly inside and they leave the doors OPEN?! Or vice versa in the winter. We complain a lot, with justification, about politicians and power companies causing climate change, but the public also has a part to play.