China defeats Japan!

...in the battle of rational energy policy, that is.

Japan still has all but 2 of its 54 nuclear reactors in shutdown. Meanwhile the Nuclear Regulatory Authority, denigrated by some as being in cahoots with the nuclear industry and thus untrustworthy when it comes to safety, is actually threatening public safety by not allowing as many plants to restart as possible. It's guidelines that have been imposed nationwide are unnecessarily and prohibitively expensive and time-consuming.

Politically and economically, Japan is falling further and further behind a rising China. Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the two countries' divergent energy policies. Following the accident at Fukushima, China temporaily halted construction of new nuclear plants pending a nation-wide safety review. Construction cautiously resumed in October 2012, and there are now 30 plants under construction, which will add another 33 GW of production. By 2020, when the total capaciy of China's units will reach 58 GW, the country will have the third largest nuclear fleet in the world, behind the U.S. and France. China is developing its own technology and is now a world leader with the accelerated development of the ACPR1000, as well as the world's first commercialization of 4th-generation nuclear technology that uses a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor.

Yet in the face of this revolution in energy production on the part of its rival, Japan is seemingly obsessed with navel-gazing and is in danger of turning away from nuclear altogether. In fact it is returning to pollution-intensive fossil fuels which immeasurably enrich the coffers of oil, gas and coal companies. Every time an anti-nuclear protest interrupts the traffic in downtown Tokyo, oil and gas company executives open another bottle of champagne. The mothballing of nuclear power in Japan is costing 10s of billions of dollars yearly and is causing the country's ballooning trade deficit, which didn't exist before 2011.

It is no wonder this country is becoming an economic and political backwater.

Japan's untenable position is further demonstrated almost nightly with alarmist reports on television about P.M. 2.5 drifting over from China. This particulate matter is largely created by China's coal-burning power plants, which provide electricity for China's rapidly expanding industries...many of which produce things which were once made here in Japan. It is a serious problem which the Chinese government is genuinely addressing through the best means available - rapid expansion of the nuclear industry. It is truly interesting that anti-nuclear 'envirnomentalists' are nowhere to be found when the issue of PM 2.5 is raised...an irony which does not escape the observant among us.