Thanks for another thought-provoking article. I live near Japan's largest geothermal energy plant in Kyushu. While it took a while for the locals--including many onsen proprietors--to accept this facility, now everything seems to be going smoothly. Why not develop this abundant natural resource throughout the country?
It's just amazing to see the determination not just in Japan but elsewhere to stick heads in the sand and avoid serious confrontation of these issues. You'd think that with red lights flashing everywhere, policymakers would engage their brains and will to find credible solutions. But apparently not. The survival of most of humanity doesn't seem to be a big enough motivator. What are these people drinking?
Mr. Katz, METI's vision that you dissect here is absolutely critical, not only for molding the entire character of Japan's energy policy, but also for the future of the energy transition throughout the Asia-Pacific. METI's pessimism toward renewables creates a justification for its support for "advanced" fossil fuel technologies, which it claims are green and pushes to other Asian countries.
I'll be writing about the role that these narratives play in the next week or so. I'll keep you posted.
Japan as a whole gradually slides into a developing country. More Japanese investments keep sliding down internationally. I haven't seen any Japanese company (an individual one not a whole group of companies pooling together) taking a single project of billions of dollars like what Samsung/TSMC does with semiconductors or Chinese companies with electric cars/AI or American companies at doing anything. Japan's credit rating is dangerously reaching to A- as it's currently at A. If Bank of Japan fails to suppress yield rates, then it will be a trip down below A- which will be lower than Malaysia. Officially, Japan will become a developing country by that measure since credit rating is highly crucial for any company/any nation to gain financial resources globally. A good Nikkei Asia article on this matter.
If any of you spends times to actually reading Japanese articles in Yahoo News, more Japanese experts echo this sentiment more. It's just JICA and METI pretending Japan to be "rich" which still is. More like the Argentinian type of richness. At least, Shinzo Abe was well aware of Japan's decline to force the weakening of the Yen through Abenomics. It helped to rally foreign investors (Asians but mostly Chinese) into Japan that can now enable some growth in the country at the detriment of poor Japanese population akin to the UK being swallowed by Indian/Middle Eastern elites for years!
Just ran across this on Semafor, for those interested in this issue:
https://www.semafor.com/article/08/25/2023/japans-climate-ira-missed-opportunity
Thanks for another thought-provoking article. I live near Japan's largest geothermal energy plant in Kyushu. While it took a while for the locals--including many onsen proprietors--to accept this facility, now everything seems to be going smoothly. Why not develop this abundant natural resource throughout the country?
It's just amazing to see the determination not just in Japan but elsewhere to stick heads in the sand and avoid serious confrontation of these issues. You'd think that with red lights flashing everywhere, policymakers would engage their brains and will to find credible solutions. But apparently not. The survival of most of humanity doesn't seem to be a big enough motivator. What are these people drinking?
Mr. Katz, METI's vision that you dissect here is absolutely critical, not only for molding the entire character of Japan's energy policy, but also for the future of the energy transition throughout the Asia-Pacific. METI's pessimism toward renewables creates a justification for its support for "advanced" fossil fuel technologies, which it claims are green and pushes to other Asian countries.
I'll be writing about the role that these narratives play in the next week or so. I'll keep you posted.
Japan as a whole gradually slides into a developing country. More Japanese investments keep sliding down internationally. I haven't seen any Japanese company (an individual one not a whole group of companies pooling together) taking a single project of billions of dollars like what Samsung/TSMC does with semiconductors or Chinese companies with electric cars/AI or American companies at doing anything. Japan's credit rating is dangerously reaching to A- as it's currently at A. If Bank of Japan fails to suppress yield rates, then it will be a trip down below A- which will be lower than Malaysia. Officially, Japan will become a developing country by that measure since credit rating is highly crucial for any company/any nation to gain financial resources globally. A good Nikkei Asia article on this matter.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Bank-of-Japan/BOJ-unwinding-stokes-fears-of-government-bond-downgrade
https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Japan-s-SMFG-looks-outside-traditional-banking-for-growth-CEO
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Japan-s-low-credit-rating-keeps-good-companies-down
If any of you spends times to actually reading Japanese articles in Yahoo News, more Japanese experts echo this sentiment more. It's just JICA and METI pretending Japan to be "rich" which still is. More like the Argentinian type of richness. At least, Shinzo Abe was well aware of Japan's decline to force the weakening of the Yen through Abenomics. It helped to rally foreign investors (Asians but mostly Chinese) into Japan that can now enable some growth in the country at the detriment of poor Japanese population akin to the UK being swallowed by Indian/Middle Eastern elites for years!
METI's lack of "ambition" is the real issue.