Hosokawa challenges Abe's energy policy as Tokyo governor race begins

toshiko, they will probably be on the first helicopter away as its usual with high ranking politicos ;-)

@zichi: I agree with you that there are other major issues on the election agenda. Kanto area had Kanto Daishinsai (Great Earthquake) once upon a time. Hope candidates will explain how they will prepare for earthquake if they are elected.

This is vacant fill up election. none of candidates expressed recommendation of gas, oil etc. At least they are not as old as when Japan used charcoal hibachi and kotatsu for warming up. Face it. Nuclear Energy is out of dated. Solar Energy era for quite many years in even USA now. Of cause Sanyo, and Mitsubishi dominate solar energy panels and utility plants in Ca,if and other USA states, Hosokawa never mentioned about back to old coal time. LDP is busy flattering natural resource rich Africa. This is Tokyo Governor election to fill up gap after Inose resigned, Are there any candidates who are talking about Tokyo people's benefit?

Wipeout, but who pays for any of it? Do the electric companies pay for the added health related costs? Have they ever? The costs of nuclear are extreme if and when it goes wrong - as we've seen with Fukushima but the costs of global warming are equally extreme... it basically comes down to Risk Management. Had they managed Fukushima better and had a bigger wall this would never have happened.

I keep mentioning Hydro because of what happened in China in 1975 - Fukushima is miniscule compared to that.

Nothing is perfect - but you look at the risks and you look at the benefits. From a health point of view, from an environmental point of view it points to nucelar. And the risks are massively reduced with the new, modern reactors which should be part of Japan's future.

Unfortunately some people have read Enews and believe everything that's been written.

Zichi, you've previously mentioned that you support Hydro - have you now reversed your opinion?

Japan previously had 60% fossil fuels, 30% nuclear. Now it will have an extra 15% fossil fuels. Or an additional 25%. So it's safe to assume that a further 25% of people will die because of a policy that you promote.

*>Personal stuff? Let's see. Lived off the grid for about 20 years in total during which time I grew and produced most of my own food. I haven't owned a car for 35 years, since 1979 and I've never hired one. Less than 5 air flights in the last 20 years. Live in an energy efficiency way and we are old so we have the ac on, but not full blast, when are life and health is in danger, usually about one or two months of the year. Our monthly energy consumption is way below average rates. All the lights in our home are low wattage energy lamps.

My carbon footprint is probably a lot less than yours and only equal to some who live in India.*

But why, you've said that Japan adding a further 25% of fossil fuels will have no impact. Why on earth would you bother to do such a small, insignificant amount.

Zichi, you promote an anti nuclear policy, a policy that is guaranteed to kill thousands of people in Japan a year. Why do you feel comfortable with that?

And Zichi, yet again you throw an insult at me. Every single one of my posts has been researched and I can provide numerous links to support it. Yet you don't provide anything except waffle. No facts, just your opinion.

And as ever, you've failed to post a single point on topic. And before you say anything this is my first since yesterday that hasn't mentioned Japanese political policy.

60% of Japan's population are against nuclear. So that would be everyone who voted from the opposition and abstained at the last election.

Your energy policy is guaranteed to kill more people. You say that there will be a reduction of 15% from nuclear so an increase of 25% for fossil fuels. Going forward 25% more people will die because of your energy policy. Fossil fuels kill at a rate substantially greater than nuclear. This is without question. Yet you seem determined to promote it as a way going forward.

According to you, an increase of 25% in pollution won't affect global warming. By that logic I guess you have your air con on full all the time and the brightest light bulbs you can buy. Afterall, if an energy guzzler like Japan won't make a difference then how will you?

You say that nuclear is bad because of the seismic issues in Japan. Yet you continue to promote the use of Hydro electric.

This is the perfect opportunity for the Japanese lawmakers to follow the lead requested by the scientists. To improve their nuclear capability and to improve their renewable capability. This is the potential to save lives, unfortunately your policy will continue to kill people. And you seem to be happy about that.

In March/April 2011 I said that Japan should be looking at bringing in the new nuclear power plants and got record negative ratings. For a future energy policy they should be increasing their use of renewable and should be bringing the new nuclear plants.

Until then there options are increasing Fossil Fuels or the existing nuclear plants.

And as I've posted on many occasions the stats, the facts and the figures support the latter. And I'm yet to see any convincing evidence to say they shouldn't be. And waffle or nuclear is bad erm kay is not what I would call convincing evidence.

In all of the posts I've made, I've stayed clear of blogs and gone with what I would call major scientific publications. I did read on a number of blogs that there were 4000 times more fatalities per unit from fossil fuels than nuclear but I haven't used that (and I'm not now) because I haven't been able to corroborate it.

Heda, what does restarting 50year old nuclear plants has to do with development of advanced nuclear energy Fact is those plans are cheaply built, mostly paid under the table and extremely poorly maintained.

currently in Japan there is no proper oversight, the companies that run those plans, has abysmal knowledge how to operate or maintain them.

I am all for advanced nuclear energy, especially since there are safe and self sustaining designs available but Japan would not be the right place to test them due to amazing amount of seismic activity and amazing level of political corruption.

In USA, nuclear energy is out of dated.

Solar power in the United States includes utility-scale solar power plants as well as local distributed generation, mostly from rooftop photovoltaics. In mid-2013, the U.S. passed 10 GW of installed photovoltaic capacity with an additional 0.5 GW of concentrated solar power. In the twelve months through October 2013, utility scale solar power generated 8.46 million megawatt-hours, 0.21% of total US electricity The largest solar power installation in the world is the Solar Energy Generating Systems facility in California, which has a total capacity of 354 megawatts (MW). The United States conducted much early research in photovoltaics and concentrated solar power. The U.S. is among the top countries in the world in electricity generated by the Sun and several of the world's largest utility-scale installations are located in the desert Southwest. There are plans to build many other large solar plants in the United States. While the U.S. has no national energy policy, many states have set individual renewable energy goals with solar power being included in various proportions. Governor Jerry Brown has signed legislation requiring California's utilities to obtain 33 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by the end of 2020 A total of 4,324 MW of utility scale solar power plants are under construction and an additional 25,926 MW are under development, with 19,060 MW under construction or development in California. The use of solar water heating and solar area heating is less common in the U.S. than in some other countries Above is a partial copy from Wikipedia. Because power companies are involved, night or bad weather do not matter. However, our area in USA use Mohave desert solar energy plants. Some people have own rooftop solar panels. During daytime, it accumulate solar energy on Sanyo created solar paned I did not go on that but these people do not pay to utility company. We subscrive utility company's electricity. Our state do not have nuclear energy plant, anyway.

With how many fatalities? Oh yeah, it's not important.

Dear People of Japan,

We, your leaders, are ignoring what the scientists are telling us. We are ignoring what the climate scientists want us to do. And we are ignoring the facts. And as such we are going to adopt a policy which may cost more money. But will ultimately cost more deaths (by the thousands) of our citizens. Because we think that's correct. Money is more important to us than your health and welfare.

Yours

Hosokawa

PS Japan will get hotter due to the added air pollution but please use your air con less

*To those influencing environmental policy but opposed to nuclear power: As climate and energy scientists concerned with global climate change, we are writing to urge you to advocate the development and deployment of safer nuclear energy systems. We appreciate your organization's concern about global warming, and your advocacy of renewable energy. But continued opposition to nuclear power threatens humanity's ability to avoid dangerous climate change. We call on your organization to support the development and deployment of safer nuclear power systems as a practical means of addressing the climate change problem. Global demand for energy is growing rapidly and must continue to grow to provide the needs of developing economies. At the same time, the need to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions is becoming ever clearer. We can only increase energy supply while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions if new power plants turn away from using the atmosphere as a waste dump. Read more about the letter and the controversy surrounding it Renewables like wind and solar and biomass will certainly play roles in a future energy economy, but those energy sources cannot scale up fast enough to deliver cheap and reliable power at the scale the global economy requires. While it may be theoretically possible to stabilize the climate without nuclear power, in the real world there is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power Continued opposition to nuclear power threatens humanity's ability to avoid dangerous climate change.

We understand that today's nuclear plants are far from perfect. Fortunately, passive safety systems and other advances can make new plants much safer. And modern nuclear technology can reduce proliferation risks and solve the waste disposal problem by burning current waste and using fuel more efficiently. Innovation and economies of scale can make new power plants even cheaper than existing plants. Regardless of these advantages, nuclear needs to be encouraged based on its societal benefits. Quantitative analyses show that the risks associated with the expanded use of nuclear energy are orders of magnitude smaller than the risks associated with fossil fuels. No energy system is without downsides. We ask only that energy system decisions be based on facts, and not on emotions and biases that do not apply to 21st century nuclear technology. While there will be no single technological silver bullet, the time has come for those who take the threat of global warming seriously to embrace the development and deployment of safer nuclear power systems as one among several technologies that will be essential to any credible effort to develop an energy system that does not rely on using the atmosphere as a waste dump. With the planet warming and carbon dioxide emissions rising faster than ever, we cannot afford to turn away from any technology that has the potential to displace a large fraction of our carbon emissions. Much has changed since the 1970s. The time has come for a fresh approach to nuclear power in the 21st century. We ask you and your organization to demonstrate its real concern about risks from climate damage by calling for the development and deployment of advanced nuclear energy. Sincerely, Dr. Ken Caldeira, Senior Scientist, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution Dr. Kerry Emanuel, Atmospheric Scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Dr. James Hansen, Climate Scientist, Columbia University Earth Institute Dr. Tom Wigley, Climate Scientist, University of Adelaide and the National Center for Atmospheric Research*

Going on the WHO figures, there were around 4000 extra cancers as result of Chernobyl. So in this case that would be an extra 800 fatalities a year. You want to compare that to the annual number of fatalities from fossil fuels?

The ScientificAmerican reported that nuclear has saved 1.8 million lives that would have been lost to fossil fuels and will save a further 7 million more.

It’s worth noting that the authors consider only deaths and exclude from the model serious health crises such as heart failure, bronchitis and other respiratory problems; including these problems would further weaken the case for fossil fuels.

And yes, as I have said Japan should be focussing on greener fuels but it can't do it now. Why have you advocated Hydro Electric yet at the same time say that Japan is too dangerous for nuclear. You want to compare the deaths from Fukushima to those from a failing dam?

The question that the politicans should be asking is whether Japan can cover the extra costs required for a non-nuclear? Can they afford the health related costs and other costs associated? Can they afford an already shrinking population to shrink forward? Or maybe if we kill off all of the week it would reduce the power problems.

Whether the benefits are outweighed by the risks is very much a matter of debate.

It's really not a debate. Substantially more people die from fossil fuels than nuclear.

Coal and gas are far more harmful than nuclear power - NASA. You won't find anyone to disagree with this.

When you consider how many people would have died in Japan over the past 50 years if Japan hadn't have nuclear.

What these politicians are doing, is what politicians do the world over. They're playing on the electorate's emotions as opposed to using facts. They say that Japan should have more renewable energy. I don't think anyone would disagree with that - it SHOULD! But it's not going to happen tomorrow. And renewable energy is not always safe... just look at Hydro and the risks involved in that.

The world's leading climate scientist are begging for the world's politicians to adopt a nuclear/renewable policy.

And the Japanese politicians have the perfect opportunity to listen.

LunchboxJAN. 23, 2014 - 07:17AM JST He should come out here to Chiba and smell the air now that all the fossil-fuel power plants have been turned back on after 3-11 to supply power for energy hungry Tokyo. Fossil fuel power plants that were all phased out over the last 20 years to ease pollution. Nuclear energy isn't safe, but burning coal and natural gas is not the right alternati.......

Hosokawa never recommended burning coal and natural gas, Hosokawa Koizumi groups are familiar with solar energy power plants that has been implemented successfully in California and other states in USA. Utility scale solar plants and Rooftop photovoltaies (sic), etc.

All readers back on topic please. Posts that do not refer to the Tokyo gubernatorial election will be removed.

Zichi - 3:03 pm >We are discussing the situation in Japan, Zichi - 4:20 pm >How can power be provided to all the 7 billion people of the world? Can that be achieved by using nuclear energy. no because it would require building an impossible number of reactors at an impossible cost?

Question for you Zichi - do you think Japan is correct to be using coal/gas/oil now to make up for the short fall? Do you support the continued use of Hydro power in Japan?

Zichi - since they turned off the nuclear power plants how has Japan made up the shortfall of energy?

Coal...gas... oil

Marcelito

In answer to your question, I honestly don't know. But globally 2 million people die each year from air pollution. Now that obviously includes car emissions, so it's not all from fossil fuels. But I think it's fair to say that fossil fuels, globally, kills more than nuclear.

In the past 50 years Japan has had one major nuclear accident. How many people do you think would have died had Japan not adopted nuclear and continued with the coal/gas/oil option that Zichi and others advocate?

Nuclear has a risk. But the benefits are far outweighed by the risks. Potential deaths v Guaranteed deaths should win every time.

I don't live within 30 km of a nuclear power plant. I did when I was studying Environmental Geography and the effects of Chernobyl. My guess is the world's experts don't live within 30km from nuclear power plants either and I would also guess that that doesn't negate their opinions.

By forcing Japan to move away from nuclear you are guaranteeing that people will die. Not to mention increasing the number of people who have asthma and other bronchial problems.

Coal Gas Oil.

That's the present. And the future.

It really is the only option isn't it? And we, as a society, should accept the thousands of deaths each year, and the untold damage done to the environment.

Very well said Alex. We don't need another one of those guys in office or Japan.

Nice to hear all the N-power supporters banging on about "smelling the air " and facing "scientific " facts from the safety of their armchairs. No doubt you are a safe distance from any N-power sitting near a seismic faultline. As someone who lives within a 30 km evacuation zone near a N power plant in an earthquake prone area I say - Go Hosokawa / Koizumi . No N power plants on an earthquake prone Japan - renewables need all the govt. support and incentives that N-power got over the years. Get to it.

And there's the head in the sand approach.

You think smelly air isn't bad? Check out the number of people that die each year because of the burning of fossil fuels (in 1953 more people died in a week in London than died from Chernobyl). And yes, we're not in the 1950s and the way that fossil fuels is burned has changed but it's still one of the biggest killers on the planet. And we're also not in the 50s when it comes to nuclear power.

And the scientific facts are available if you bothered to look for them.

And yes, Japan should be looking at improving it's renewable fuel - without a doubt.

But read what the climate scientists say. But oh yeah, they're paid by TEPCO aren't they...

The fun begins. Hope he wins before Japan becomes a totalitarian state under shinzo abe.

it does not matter, Hosokawa is the better choice when the opposite is an extremist nationalist

i honestly don't think japan can survive w/o some type of nuclear energy. fossil fuels are a finite source while solar, wind and hydro power are extremely inefficient sources or energy. it's wishful, and a bit hysterical, thinking that japan should eliminate all nuclear plants.

Sorry guys you've got it wrong. Nuclear is dangerous and coal, oil and gas are the future. And claims that 2013 was the 4th warmest since records began and the recent storms are not at all connected with global warming and fossil fuels. And claims that tens of thousands die each year because of fossil fuels is purely propaganda from the nuclear industry.

Nuclear is evil. And nothing will change people's minds. Especially science. And facts.

/sarcasm off

come out here to Chiba and smell the air

That's the smell of money, son! Breathe deep!

People seem to have forgotten that Koizumi sold off the national oil company back in 2003. All that extra oil that Japan is using is a massive profit for the oil companies. Profit that will disappear quickly if Japan reverts to nuclear.

Solar and wind don't matter - even an aggressive plan to put windmills on every street corner would take decades before oil, gas and coal profits start to hurt. Nuclear is an immediate threat to profits.

The Tokyo government has absolutely no power to determine whether or not nuclear power plants in the rest of Japan are online or off. But the Tokyo governor tends to play a large role in swaying national public opinion. Enter Koizumi, no longer on the national payroll and thus free from nasty questions about his personal finances and a lame duck former PM who had no problems taking bribes to keep the oil flowing.

And despite all this, people will support them - simply because they said the magic words: "No Nukes!".

He should come out here to Chiba and smell the air now that all the fossil-fuel power plants have been turned back on after 3-11 to supply power for energy hungry Tokyo. Fossil fuel power plants that were all phased out over the last 20 years to ease pollution. Nuclear energy isn't safe, but burning coal and natural gas is not the right alternative.