> Japan should move to wind, solar, and batteries rapidly instead of coal
There is no such technology Japan can move to at this stage, to cover the needs of major cities. DOn't forget that land is extremely expensive in japan (as it's rare to get stable and flat surfaces) and there is no place in which you can build large areas of solar farms just next to cities that need it. For high energy density production there's only fossil fuels (which is awful on so many levels) and nuclear (which is very safe even when accounting for Fukushima and Chernobyl and Three Miles Island). Pretending that there is right now more to renewables than just maybe up to 10% of energy needs is lying to the public.
Of course, we should continue to invest in renewables to make their costs drop as much as possible, but at the same time we all need to keep investing in nuclear too (and build new generations of reactors that reduce further the risk of meltdown).
Its easy for the public to be panicked by old unsafe plants causing pollution. They should have voted for new plants to replace the old ones. It was a choice, probably emotional. As is the reluctance to move forward with renewable nuclear plants as our energy future.
There is no such technology Japan can move to at this stage, to cover the needs of major cities. DOn't forget that land is extremely expensive in japan (as it's rare to get stable and flat surfaces) and there is no place in which you can build large areas of solar farms just next to cities that need it. For high energy density production there's only fossil fuels (which is awful on so many levels) and nuclear (which is very safe even when accounting for Fukushima and Chernobyl and Three Miles Island). Pretending that there is right now more to renewables than just maybe up to 10% of energy needs is lying to the public.
Of course, we should continue to invest in renewables to make their costs drop as much as possible, but at the same time we all need to keep investing in nuclear too (and build new generations of reactors that reduce further the risk of meltdown).