The Japanese government is moving to speed up the environmental assessment process for new coal-fired power plants. According to Japanese media reports, the government intends to make 12 months the maximum period for assessing and approving new coal-fired power plants as its utilities seek to develop more power stations to stem surging energy supply bills. With the government considering the closure of much of the installed nuclear capacity over the medium term, the spotlight is back on coal as the cheapest energy source, notwithstanding plans to cut carbon emissions. A commitment to slice 2020 carbon emissions by 25 per cent from their 1990 level will be revised by October, according to Japanese newspaper reports. --Brian Robins,
The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 April 2013
Japan is likely to abandon an ambitious pledge to slash greenhouse gas emissions by a quarter, the top government spokesman said on Thursday. Asked to confirm if the new administration would review Tokyo’s 2009 pledge, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the government was “moving in that direction in principle”. “I have been saying for some time that it is a tremendous target and would be impossible to achieve,” he told a regular news conference. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s business-friendly Liberal Democratic Party ousted the Democratic Party in December elections after pledging to review the emissions cut target in light of the post-Fukushima switch to fossil fuels. --
AFP, 24 January 2013
New technology and a little-known energy source suggest that fossil fuels may not be finite. Estimates of the global supply of methane hydrate range from the equivalent of 100 times more than America’s current annual energy consumption to 3 million times more. --Charles C Mann,
The Atlantic, May 2013
Across Europe, both policy makers and the public remain wary of the potential environmental impact of technologies like hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, used to extract shale gas. A slowdown in Europe’s efforts to exploit its shale gas reserves, roughly 10 percent of the world’s deposits, could not come at a worse time for Europe’s companies, which are already suffering from a continental debt crisis and anemic growth and are becoming increasingly uncompetitive compared with rivals in the United States. --Mark Scott,
The New York Times, 25 April 2013
MPs criticised the government on Friday for unnecessarily delaying development of shale gas, saying it should now encourage companies to come up with more accurate estimates of recoverable reserves. The lack of progress over the past two years in exploration and development of UK shale gas is disappointing and needs to speed up, members of the influential cross-party Energy and Climate Change Committee in parliament said in a report. --
Reuters, 26 April 2013
The 18-month moratorium on shale gas drilling was a “scandal”, member of the UK House of Commons select committee on climate change Peter Lilley said late Monday. Lilley said that a fortnight’s trip to the US — the birthplace of the shale gas revolution — could have answered all the questions surrounding the risks of hydraulic fracturing, enabling shale gas production to start that much earlier. “Most of the concerns are either exaggerations or lies,” he said. --
Platts, 24 April 2013
Europeans have spent hundreds of billions of euros on renewable energy – ultimately borne by taxpayers, consumers and Europe’s competitiveness – for no gain. As the shale gas revolution spreads, it promises to swamp the economics of green energy, leaving it dependent on unaffordable subsidies. --Rupert Darwall,
City A.M. 25 April 2013
