On April 26, Prime Minister Kishida announced emergency measures to deal with soaring prices, including gasoline subsidies and benefits for low-income households (Photo: Afro)  But France says it is going to build 14 more nuclear power plants.   Macron has pledged to do so. But at the same time, the previous administration’s plan to reduce nuclear power from 66% of electricity generated in 2020 to 50% by 2035 has not been changed so far, and we will have to wait and see how feasible this plan is.  France is currently one of the countries in Europe where wholesale electricity prices are rising the most, due to a series of nuclear power plant failures in addition to the Corona and Ukraine problems. When a large power plant has trouble, the entire country suffers power shortages. That is one of the risks of being dependent on nuclear power plants.    Electricity Potential Lying Within Japan So what should Japan do?  The IEA has set a goal of increasing the share of renewable energy in the power supply to 90% by 2050. Nuclear power is not zero, but renewable energy is the priority.  Renewable energy is not affected by the situation overseas, as in the case of the recent Ukraine issue. They can be produced almost entirely domestically. There is an international agreement to promote the introduction of renewable energy. But for some reason, there is little discussion about it in Japan. They can only count up the reasons why we can’t do it. One of the reasons for not doing so is that it might cost too much.  The cost of renewable energy is falling rapidly, and in some parts of the world, it has already reached the same level as fossil fuels. Moreover, fossil fuels are likely to increase in price in the future. It would be more natural to assume that continuing to use fossil fuels risks driving up electricity prices.   Another is that they are unstable because they depend on the weather. The government seems to have decided to increase the production of storage batteries by 20 times by 2030.   He said, “At Japan’s current projected level of renewable energy deployment, there is little need for storage batteries. There are many other ways to deal with fluctuations in renewable energy.  And storage batteries are not the only form of energy storage. One of them is hot water storage. Cold and hot water are produced together in one place and then supplied to buildings and communities through pipes. Hot water can be made from surplus electricity generated by wind power generation when the wind blows too much, and then stored for use when there is little wind. In Germany and Scandinavia, this system is already practically used. It is an ultra-low-tech system for storing hot water that is many times cheaper than storage batteries. The March 16 earthquake caused thermal power plants to shut down, and then a cold wave hit, resulting in a supply-demand crunch on March 22 in the service area of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). At that time, pumped storage power generation came into play. When there is a shortage of electricity, water is pumped up from the downstream dam to the upstream dam, and the water is dropped from the top to generate electricity.  This is another form of renewable energy. It is wonderful that it worked.  There are also many low-tech, well-established technologies, such as hot water storage and pumped storage power generation. If we combine them appropriately, it is possible to provide a stable supply of electricity from renewable energy sources.”   But is it possible to meet the power needs with renewable energy alone?  The Ministry of the Environment estimates that if wind turbines were to be set up on any available offshore location, excluding various limiting factors such as shipping routes and fishing grounds, approximately 3,200 TWh of electricity could be generated in one year.  Japan uses about 1,000 TWh of electricity per year, and offshore wind power alone could provide more than three times that amount, which means that Japan has a tremendous amount of resources lying idle. If we include solar power, geothermal power, and small- and medium-sized hydroelectric power using small rivers, we have a potential of about 7,300 TWh,” he says. The IEA’s goal of 90% renewable energy by 2050 is not a pipe dream if they are willing to do it. While France has said that it will build more nuclear power plants, Germany has announced that it will reduce its nuclear power plants to zero by the end of the year.  In Germany, there was a debate about whether the previous policy was wrong. One is that we relied on Russia for natural gas, and another is that we should have promoted renewable energy more. If we become an advanced renewable energy country, we can sell our technology to other countries. At a time when the world is moving toward renewable energy, Japan will be left behind technologically if it continues to do so.