Japan's New Leader Sets Ambitious Goal of Carbon Neutrality by 2050 (nytimes.com) 48
Japan will be carbon neutral by 2050, its prime minister said this week, making an ambitious pledge to sharply accelerate the country's global warming targets, even as it plans to build more than a dozen new coal-burning power plants in the coming years. From a report: The prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, laid out the goal during his first major policy speech since taking office in September, when Japan's longest-serving leader, Shinzo Abe, abruptly resigned. The announcement came just weeks after China, Japan's regional rival, said it would reduce its net carbon emissions to zero by 2060. Addressing Japan's Parliament, Mr. Suga called for the country to "be carbon neutral in 2050," a declaration that drew loud applause from lawmakers. Achieving that goal will be good not only for the world, he said, but also for Japan's economy and global standing. "Taking an aggressive approach to global warming will bring about a transformation in our industrial structure and economic system that will lead to big growth" in the economy, he said, answering critics who have warned of the economic consequences. Japan's new climate pledge is a major upgrade of its previous commitment to reducing greenhouse gases, and necessary if the world hopes to keep a global temperature rise well below 2 degrees, as called for in the 2015 Paris climate accord.
Japan will probably do it (Score:4, Interesting)
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they're pretty Nationalistic, so importing oil & coal probably doesn't sit well with them.
What are you going to do given you are tossing Nuclear out? I really don't see windmills and solar doing enough here.
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Why not? Normally the only impediment to those two would be geography, but I'd bet Japan would be willing to try offshore wind.
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No nukes, need wind and solar ... annex Australia?
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Japan has incredible wind resources, some of the best in the world. They have relatively shallow waters off their Pacific coast because the whole country sits on a shelf.
Offshore windmills could power the whole country several times over, 24/7/365.
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Offshore windmills could power the whole country several times over, 24/7/365.
How much would that cost?
Here's an idea -> https://www.iea.org/data-and-s... [iea.org]
Offshore wind costs more than new nuclear power plants in Japan. Cheaper yet would be work on extending the life of existing nuclear power plants.
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Yes, because they haven't built very much of it. Like nuclear it gets cheaper if you set up a production line and start making tens of thousands of them.
After all it's cheaper than nuclear in other countries so there must be some reason why Japan is lagging behind.
Also the cost for nuclear in that chart looks wrong. How was the cost of Fukushima included in the figures? The full cost isn't even known yet. According to Wikipedia "the IEA has been strongly criticised for having consistently highly inaccurate
Re:Japan will probably do it (Score:5, Informative)
From the fine article:
Restarting nuclear power plants may also be on the table, despite widespread public resistance to the idea. In his speech on Monday, Mr. Suga said that Japan would continue to develop nuclear power with “maximum priority on safety,” a remark that drew a round of boos and hisses from members of Parliament.
They're not tossing nuclear; in fact, they are continuing the process of restarting some plants that were mothballed in 2011. Progress has been made on three in this article [neimagazine.com] and one in this one [world-nuclear-news.org] this year alone.
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They are definitely tossing Nuclear, into the sea as it happens...
Fukushima is as we speak causing #Ecocide leaking into the ocean.
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZwB... [blogspot.com]
Convince me nuclear is safe, and that placing plants next to the ocean is a wise thing to do when sea level rise is projected to an alarming degree in the order of decades , not centuries. Every single year is a record breaker, with forest fires and extreme weather all projected to be worse than before.
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/asset... [www.ipcc.ch]
This year a
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They did not have the best nuclear reactor designs and the ran they pretty badly, storing waste on site, not a good idea. A much better nuclear reactor design is possible, long life, more stable output and no risk of meltdown, so it is not wise to ignore nuclear at this time.
Japan is currently stuck in a holding pattern and has been for some time, trying to keep on going like it will be the nineties for ever and not adapting to current geo-politics or changes in energy generation. Japanese companies were s
Meanwhile... China Builds (Score:1, Flamebait)
60 new coal fired power plants...
Meanwhile... Japan plans to build coal plants too (Score:2)
Japan will be carbon neutral by 2050 [...] even as it plans to build more than a dozen new coal-burning power plants in the coming years.
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So, yeah, apparently their plan is to achieve net 0 carbon while building new coal plants by using carbon capture. So unfortunately there is a "then a miracle occurs" thought-bubble in the diagram here.
The article shows a pretty big aquatic solar arr
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They SAID they would and cancelled NONE.
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[oilprice.com]
But at the same time that China is talking about getting its carbon footprint down to nothing, the nation is also returning to coal at a breakneck pace. Problematically for the country’s climate goals, its coal-fired power fleet is still quite young, and China is still adding capacity and has hundreds of more coal-fired plants that are already in the planning phase. In fact, China has already added 11.4 gigawatts of coal power capacity just in the first half of 2020, which accounts for more than half of the coal capacity added in the entire world in the same six months.
[cnn.com]
On the coal-rich plains of Inner Mongolia, thick white smoke curls from the huge chimney of a thermal coal power plant which the Chinese Communist Party had pledged to stop constructing two years ago.
[business-humanrights.org]
For more than two decades, Zimbabwe has been trying to break ground on a giant coal-power complex by the world’s biggest man-made reservoir. China just agreed to get the $4.2 billion project underway
But it flies in the face of a growing global consensus that has seen financial institutions from Japan to the U.S. and Europe shun investments in coal projects. That retreat leaves the way open for Chinese companies—many with state backing—even at the risk of undermining the spirit of China’s international commitments to fight climate change.
“We are very pleased that the project is going ahead, especially as major banks in the world are forced to stop financing coal-fired power stations,” Caleb Dengu, chairman of RioZim Energy, the company that owns the project, said in a response to questions. “This is testimony of Chinese commitment to development projects in Africa. The Chinese are interested in joining hands.”
BTW, this one is interesting. it is from 4 years ago, and said that China will likely add 1 new coal / week, WHICH THEY HAVE.
[nytimes.com]
The Chinese government is trying to slow down the approval of new coal-fired power plants because of overcapacity, but projects already in the pipeline, as well as loopholes in policy, mean China is on track to add an average of one new coal-fired plant a week until 2020, according to a report released on Wednesday by Greenpeace East Asia.
In the end, this is what matters: [phys.org]
China plans to add new coal power plants equivalent to all of the EU's current generating capacity, putting the world's biggest emitter out of sync with its commitments to combat climate change, researchers said Wednesday.
China built enough new plants between January 2018 and June 2019—nearly 43 gigawatts worth of capacity—to cancel out the decrease in the rest of the world, said the US-based Global Energy Monitor.
...
Another 147.7 gigawatts of coal plants in the country are currently under construction or likely to be reopened, nearly as many as the entire European Union's 150 gigawatts of existing capacity, the report said.
Until the far left accepts the idea that ALL NATIONS MUST DROP THEIR EMISSIONS, we will NEVER be able to solve our AGW issue. And China is by far the WORST of all nations. They continue to add HUGE amounts of new coal, to CHina, Africa, etc. while you and Chinese trolls like Caffeinated Bacon conti
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2017 vs 2019/2020 along with reality.
So if I did something three years ago I actually haven't done it? You said "They SAID they would and cancelled NONE". Clearly that is a lie since they cancelled ~100GW worth of coal plants some times ago. How does this whole irrelevant Gish gallop help your lies?
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China had already set the goal to become carbon neutral by 2060. China has been planting lots of trees, including in deserts, increasing their forest coverage by over 10% of their country's size in the past ~60 years. They are projecting to have solar provide over ~30-40% of their country's electricity by 2050, have built solar power plants in their western regions.
OTOH, America withdrew from the Paris Accord, not have any intention to become carbon neutral, and is aiming to restart the coal industry and c
PolygamousRanchKid Carbon Neutral by 2050! (Score:2)
. . . because I'll probably be dead by then . . . or old enough, that I would wish that I were dead.
. . . and what do I think about politicians that make commitments for stuff that is long past their "best before" date . . . ?
Yeah, it looks good.
But the next generation are the folks that will really have to follow through.
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But the next generation are the folks that will really have to follow through.
It will be too late. Either all NATIONS stop adding new fossil fuel plants, AND keep shutting them down, OR we accept that we have lost.
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2050 is far too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Ambitious it is not .
"Without increased and urgent mitigation ambition in the coming years, leading to a
sharp decline in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, global warming will surpass 1.5C in the following decades,
leading to irreversible loss of the most fragile ecosystems, and crisis after crisis for the most vulnerable people
and societies. "
From the IPCC Report.
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/asset... [www.ipcc.ch]
Our CO2 Emissiions are still increasing every year.
Our Ice Caps are no longer freezing over, taking with it the Albedo Effect
Our Permafrost is destablising because of this and releasing methane into
the atmosphere - a far more potent greenhouse gas.
This is happening now .
Our planets forests are either burning because of climate change , or deliberately burned or deforested to make so called "bio-fuels" , or vast plantations of Palm oil plantations which cause ecocide and biodiversity loss on a grand scale.
2050 is a ludicrous target.
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This. 2025~2030 is ambitious, 2050 is setting a reminder for yourself to check if something's gone horrendously wrong. I don't think capitalism would let fossil energy survive past 2030 anyway at this rate, that would take some serious corporate welfare.
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I don't think capitalism would let fossil energy survive past 2030 anyway at this rate, that would take some serious corporate welfare.
huh? What do you base that on?
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The falling cost of renewable energy, mainly.
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Already in Australia the Federal government is trying (and failing) to find buyers for coal power plants rather than have the current owners shut them down, and financing coal mines that no commercial interest will go near.
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It's a shame Japan is really lagging in this regard. It's not like they lack the technology or expertise, they just seem to lack the will.
A lot of it seems to be down to existing industries not wanting to change. Take the car industry as an example. Forced to adapt to tightening emissions limits around the world but mostly went for hybrids instead of battery electric. Missed out on the big patent rush and only has much of an automotive battery industry because Tesla asked Panasonic to build cells for them.
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Septembers Arctic sea ice was the second lowest ever but the problem is it didnt't start reforming in late September and still hadn't really started in late October. We are a month behind. If there is significantly more open water by late June 2021 we are fucked. The extra energy sucked up by open dark water vs bright white snow in a portion of the world exposed to the sun 24 hours a day will be significant.
Nice, what about the next 4 years? (Score:2)
These long terms plan are great. Except that politicians almost never have the short terms goals to achieve it. If you are currently at 30 and want to be at 0 in 30 years, well your plan should be to be at 26 by the next election in 4 years. If you are at 32 by then you failed.
Sometimes it's even explicitly no effort for 10 years, and then somehow magic would allow reducing the emissions drastically to meet the target. Of course that magic only happens AFTER the politicians retired.
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I keep speaking of the fact that most western nations are headed in the right direction. We continue to drop. However, adding new fossil fuel plants will only add to your CO2, and to make matters worse, adding new plants and nations will NOT shut them down for the next 30-60 years.
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Plenty of places are shutting down coal plants less than 30-60 years old. What the fuck is wrong with you? Why all the lies?
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I keep speaking of the fact that most western nations are headed in the right direction. We continue to drop.
You mean you're an American apologist giving America a free pass. Who pretends America is doing a good job by blaming the much cleaner countries.
Coming down from 2x as bad as everyone else to 1.98x as bad as everyone else. Guess what. You're still much worse than everybody else... [ourworldindata.org]
America was failing its Paris goals so badly it decided the best thing was to give up and pull out.
Not going to happen if adding fossil fuel plants (Score:2, Informative)
If this leader is going to make it happen, they have to use a mixture of renewables( solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, tidal, etc) combined with nuclear power. ADDING coal and/or nat gas will not lower their emissions. As it is, Japan has been sitting at the same level since 1990 with regard to per capita. [europa.eu]
(Does mental math) ... (Score:2)
Empty promises (Score:2)
If the stated goal of a politician is beyond their time in office then it's an empty promise that they have no intention of doing anything to reach.
If the promise was to lower CO2 emissions by at least 3% every year that they were in office so that in 30 years it was zero then I might believe them. Putting a goal so far out that they won't be in office, and quite possibly they will be dead, means nothing.
Building new coal plants is certainly not helpful in reaching this goal. Restarting some nuclear power