Japan plans new coal powerplants

This is so unfortunate. I really hope political opinion slowly changes and people get a clearer idea about the risks vs benefits of latest nuclear tech.

Or will other countries wait till China shows them the way ? I have heard that German end users already pay one of the highest electricity rates in EU.

My understanding is that we need 1 good baseload alternative to wind & solar (even with storage) for events where extended blackouts due to weather events are expected.

Good news for Australia. I once flew from Sydney to Tokyo and the person sitting next to me turned out to be the negotiator for coal prices and volumes from Australia to Japan. He was a government employee and it made for a very interesting flight.

If they build these new powerplants in the right location, they can externalize polution. Would be nice if costs of such polution had to be paid by the same country/region, to disincentivize new coal use.

> Japan is second to China in financing coal plants in developing nations.

It's hard enough for me to consider China a developing nation these days, but Japan?

Im surprised they didn't go for a renewables + storage approach. Partly as they'll have to import coal (avoiding imports was why they went nuclear to start with I think) and partly because they have pretty abundant opportunities for offshore wind and wave/tidal power...

The united states shut down 50 coal power plants since Trump took office.

https://phys.org/news/2019-05-coal-power-trump.html

What isn't the rest of the world doing its part to address climate change?