Dr. Conca reports that Japan better get used to generating all of its electricity from fossil fuel, and to having a permanent trade deficit, now that the new nuclear regulatory agency is throwing its weight around to impress the public with a tough-on-nuclear stance. The administrators at the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority (JNRA) have decided to redefine what an active geologic fault is with respect to nuclear power plants, contrary to all the other scientists in the world, and have decided that an active fault is one that has moved within the last 120,000 years. That is almost funny, because geologists have always defined an active fault as one that has moved within the last 10,000 years. This is not some nerdy dispute among geoscientists, however. The costs of not restarting their nuclear fleet are considerable.
Adversaries were betting that Japan would move from nuclear to renewables, but that has not occurred at all (Bloomberg News). To compensate for the nuclear shutdown, the use of gas, oil and coal in Japan has skyrocketed, as have the carbon emissions and trade deficit. Japan is spending an extra $35 billion every year in fossil fuel to compensate for shuttering their nuclear plants. Japan reported a trade deficit of $112 billion for 2013, quadruple the deficit in 2011 (WNN), not to mention the $65 billion trade surplus in 2010.
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