Japan's Tipping Point: Crucial Choices in the Post-Fukushima World
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About this ebook
JAPAN'S TIPPING POINT is a small book on a huge topic. In the post-Fukushima era, Japan is the "canary in the coal mine" for the rest of the world. Can Japan radically shift its energy policy, become greener, more self-sufficient, and avoid catastrophic impacts on the climate? Mark Pendergrast arrived in Japan exactly two months after the Fukushima meltdown. This book is his eye-opening account of his trip and his alarming conclusions.
Japan is at a crucial tipping point. A developed country that must import all of its fossil fuel, it can no longer rely on nuclear power, following the massive earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster of March 11, 2011. Critically acclaimed nonfiction writer Mark Pendergrast went to Japan to investigate Japan's renewable energy, Eco-Model Cities, food policy, recycling, and energy conservation, expecting to find innovative, cutting edge programs.
He discovered that he had been naive. The Japanese boast of their eco-services for eco-products in eco-cities. Yet they rely primarily on imported fossil fuel and nuclear power, live in energy-wasteful homes, and import 60% of their food. That may be changing in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Maybe. But as Pendergrast documents, Japan lags far behind Europe, the United States, and even (in some respects) China in terms of renewable energy efforts. And Japan is mired in bureaucracy, political in-fighting, indecision, puffery, public apathy, and cultural attitudes that make rapid change difficult.
Yet Japan is also one of the most beautiful countries in the world, with friendly, resilient people who can, when motivated, pull together to accomplish incredible things.
As an island nation, Japan offers a microcosmic look at the problems facing the rest of the globe. And as Japan tips, so may the world.
Mark Pendergrast, the author of books such as For God, Country and Coca-Cola, Uncommon Grounds, and Inside the Outbreaks, entertains as he enlightens. As he wrote in Japan's Tipping Point: "The rest of this account might seem a strange combination of critical analysis, travelogue, absurdist non-fiction, and call to action. It might be called 'Mark’s Adventures in Japanland: Or, Apocalyptic Visions in a Noodle Shop.'"
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Japan's Tipping Point - Mark Pendergrast
Japan’s Tipping Point
Crucial Choices in the Post-Fukushima World
by
Mark Pendergrast
Copyright 2011 Mark Pendergrast
Published by Nature’s Face Publications at Smashwords
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the copyright holders.
ISBN 978-1-4660-6838-4
Cover design: Rita Toews
eBook formatting: Maureen Cutajar
For information on books by Mark Pendergrast, or to contact him, visit www.markpendergrast.com.
Dedicated to Chiaki Kitada,
who pretends to be a Dragon Lady
and without whom this book
would not have been possible
Table of Contents
A Stranger in a Strange Land
Tetsunari Iida's Vision
Politics, Power, and Puffery, Japanese-Style
Off to Kitakyushu and the Former Sea of Death
Eco-Town on a Slag Heap
Yusuhara: The Japanese Tibet of Tibet
The Matsumoto Farm
Yusuhara’s Renewables
Do You Kyoto?
Endangered Machiya
Masaaki Naito’s Critique
The Toyota Way
Yokohama’s Big Plans
Tokyo’s Super Eco Town
Solar PV Panels, the Only Renewable Energy Everyone Likes
Solar Hot Water: A Besmirched Technology
Geothermal: Potential Unrealized
Geo-heat Can Be Used Anywhere
The Winds of Japan
Taking Advantage of All That Water
Biomass: Getting Energy from Plants
The Machiya With the Double-Glazed Windows
Travel, Community, and Tramlines
Japanese Camouflage
Far-Out Solutions, Rule-Bound Responses
A Sense of Irony
A New Japan?
Notes
Bibliographic Note
About the Author
Photographs
(all photos taken by Mark Pendergrast except those in which he appears)
Cover: Woman planting rice in Yusuhara
Wedding at Meiji Shrine
Original Nippon Steel plant
Osamu Tezin, volunteer at Environment Museum
Wind turbines on Kitakyushu's landfill island
Mark Pendergrast riding hydrogen bicycle
Electric bicycles under solar panels
Tunnel on Shikoku
Kagura demon in Yusuhara
Yusuhara River with swimming area
Town of Yusuhara, tucked into mountain valley
Jiro Matsumoto
Ryoe and Jiro Matsumoto
Turbine in white building
River below dam, choked with shrubs
Wood pellet plant
Compost made in Yusuhara from human excrement
Therapy Trail
Washi wallpaper with ferns
Torii gate and steps leading to Wadatsumi Shrine
Boats at Wadatsumi Shrine
Steps up through torii gates at Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine
A plugged in Mitsubishi iMiEV
Machiya houses in Kyoto
Judith Clancy's renovated traditional home
Toyota's hydrogen car
Little girl in park studying her bug
"I ought really not to say a word about Japan, I suppose, with only six weeks of scurrying to and fro in it."
-- Harry A. Franck, Glimpses of Japan and Formosa, 1924
Japanese trains run to the minute, and the country's businesses pride themselves on energy-efficiency. The Japanese boast of their eco-services for eco-products in eco-cities. Yet they rely primarily on imported fossil fuel and nuclear power, live in energy-wasteful homes, and import 60% of their food. That may be changing in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Maybe. Japan is at a crucial tipping point. As an island nation, it offers a microcosmic look at the problems facing the rest of the globe. And as Japan tips, so may the world.
I landed at Tokyo’s Narita Airport on May 11, 2011, exactly two months after the magnitude 9.0 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake triggered a devastating tsunami wave that killed an estimated 20,500 people on the coast of northeastern Japan’s Tohoku region and left a swath of destruction up to six miles inland. That zone included the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, where the loss of electric power led to a full meltdown of three out of six reactors.
In the same way that we now refer to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon of September 11, 2001, simply as 9/11,
the Japanese shorthand for March 11, 2011, the day of their triple disaster, is 3/11.
I had purchased my airplane tickets for Japan before 3/11. Until mid-April, the U. S. State Department was advising against travel to Japan, and many people were fleeing the country. But by May 1, the situation seemed to have stabilized. Tokyo water and food were declared safe. I had already lined up interviews. And besides, what an incredible time to be researching renewable energy in Japan!
I had been awarded an Abe Fellowship for Journalists, an annual grant given to selected writers who then spend six weeks in Japan. It is administered by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), based in New York City, but with a small branch office in Tokyo. [1]
When I learned about the program in the summer of 2010, I was working on a book proposal called 2084 (a sly reference to Orwell’s 1984), in which I would examine the likely impact of climate change, fossil fuel depletion, and global population growth. What kind of world would our grandchildren inhabit in 2084? So I was deeply immersed in studying renewable energy options.
Hmm, I thought, as I held the Abe pamphlet. Japan imports virtually all of its fossil fuel. It’s a technologically sophisticated country. So the Japanese must be doing some innovative things with renewable energy. I googled a bit, and within 15 minutes I had discovered the Eco-Model Cities program, begun in 2008. Thirteen Japanese cities had been designated as Eco-Model Cities, and they were using various renewable strategies, including solar panels, micro-hydro generators, wind turbines, electric vehicles, hydrogen power, biodiesel, wood pellets, and geothermal systems. Perfect.
I quickly threw together an application. I figured I would spend the first week in Tokyo, interviewing government officials, academic experts, and renewable advocates, then would visit four cities in four weeks, return to Tokyo for a wrap-up week, and fly home. The four locations I picked ranged from a big industrial seacoast city to a remote mountain village. The grant program suggested that I affiliate with a Japanese organization, so on the Internet I found a likely-sounding institute in Tokyo and emailed its executive director, Tetsunari Iida. Fortunately, he knew English, and he emailed back on August 7, 2010: You are welcome to ISEP, Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, that is top leading independent institute in Japan working on sustainable energy pathway from fossil and nuclear energy. Let me know what you expect us to support. Best regards, Tetsu.
So I applied for the grant, not really knowing much about what I was getting into. And to my great surprise, I got it. I asked Tetsu Iida if I might interview him and perhaps set up my laptop on a desk at the ISEP offices. Sure, no problem.
Then came 3/11. From my home in Vermont, I watched the unfolding tragedy with sympathy and horror. Then, after fretting about whether to go or not, off I flew….
The rest of this account might seem a strange combination of critical analysis, travelogue, absurdist non-fiction, and call to action. It might be called Mark’s Adventures in Japanland: Or, Apocalyptic Visions in a Noodle Shop.
It turned out that I was incredibly naïve about the Japanese situation. I soon learned that Japan lagged far behind Europe, the United States, and even (in some respects) China in terms of renewable energy efforts. Although there is enormous potential for geothermal, wind, and biomass, it has not been utilized. When I arrived in Japan, there was only a federal subsidy for solar photovoltaic panels on residential homes, reinstated in 2009 after an ill-planned suspension. Even solar hot water – a venerable, proven technology – is not popular. And Japan is mired in bureaucracy, political in-fighting, indecision, puffery, public apathy, and cultural attitudes that make rapid change difficult.
Yet Japan is also one of the most beautiful countries in the world, with friendly, resilient people who can, when motivated, pull together to accomplish incredible things. I happened to land there at a crucial time for Japan, when the country has an opportunity to rethink its energy policy and entire future. It could show the way to create an ecologically sustainable world. In a way, Japan is the proverbial canary in the coal mine. As an industrialized island country, it is facing the same issues as the rest of the globe, only sooner and more urgently.
In 2010, Japan’s total energy consumption derived primarily from imported fossil fuels: 45% oil, 19% coal, and 14% natural gas. Nuclear power accounted for 15% and renewable energy 7%. Almost all of that small renewable share came from large hydro dams built a half century ago. In 2010, the Japanese government announced plans to build 14 more nuclear reactors to boost the country’s nuclear share of electrical generation to 50%.
Now that plan has been scrapped. In addition to the Fukushima installations,