Nuclear-free Japan braces for power shortages

Japan's $5 trillion economy has relied heavily on nuclear power for decades, with its reactors providing almost 30 percent of electricity needs, but last year's massive earthquake and subsequent nuclear crisis spurred a public backlash against atomic energy. Cabinet ministers have largely failed to win over the public to allow the restart of the country's plants - shut one by one for scheduled maintenance and unable to resume operations because of concerns about safety.

Japan's Asahi newspaper said public sentiment was "wavering between two sources of anxiety" - fear over the safety of nuclear power and doubts on whether Japan can live without it. "The public shouldn't just criticise (the government) but make its own decision on energy policy that involves burden and responsibility, such as through cooperating in power saving," the paper said in an editorial on Sunday. The government hopes to come up with an estimate by mid-May of expected shortages this summer, and will then produce a plan to conserve energy that could include compulsory curbs on use of power, Japanese media say. But setting a long-term energy policy or a clear timeframe for restarting the plants will take time given strong public opposition and a divided parliament that has paralysed policy-making, analysts say...
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/05/06/nuclear-japan-idINDEE84503H20120506

See also: Table showing status of 50 reactors with capacity of 46,148 megawatts:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-07/japan-nuclear-power-free-after-shutdown-of-last-reactor-table-.html

What is energy for?

So familiar has the social economy of energy become in modern societies, so routine its extraordinardinary wastefulness, so toxic its effects, that the capacity for a better way can be missed. By questioning the how, why and what of energy use, says Rebecca Willis, new possibilities - of living, travelling, eating, working and buying - can open.

Today, in industrialised societies, we use fifteen times the amount of energy per person than we did before the industrial revolution. But we have become so accustomed to it that we have no conception of its importance in political and social life. Progress in education, social mobility, science and technology are celebrated; the role of abundant energy in making them happen is largely ignored.

Modern dairy cows can produce up to sixty litres of milk a day, five times more than a calf needs. This is seen as a triumph of agricultural science and technique. But it’s as much to do with energy inputs. The American ecologist Howard T Odum points out that the reason a dairy cow does so well is because she relies on a steady stream of oil. She produces lots of milk because she eats lots of food - not just grass, but feed grown with oil-based fertilisers. She’s kept in a heated shed, and doesn’t even need to waste energy walking, because the farmer brings her everything she needs. Once you start looking in terms of energy inputs and outputs, the modern dairy cow no longer seems such a good deal. The rangy cattle of subsistence farmers, whose only inputs are grass and water, actually provide better value in converting energy into human food...

http://www.opendemocracy.net/rebecca-willis/what-is-energy-for