Japan's Richest Man Unveils Scheme for $26 Billion Renewable Energy Supergrid

GO JAPAN !

bored? lets go mine the stars... ^^

Not so renewable wind and solar with green storage and 4 times transmission cost covered starts at $1.40 a kwh.

Nuclear power costs less than 3 cents a kwh heading to 2 cents with mass production.

Good luck with the scam.

God Bless Japan and I wish their country grows vivid and strong!

I can only imagine that this giant spenditure is actually a cover-up for some elaborate scheme with China and/or North Korea. I guarantee you that Japan wouldn't spend that much money all of a sudden on renewable energy. Stupid sheeple of America will believe anything our Asian friends tell them, open your eyes everyone.

im not american ^^

and american will see a conspiracy evrywhere ^^ (jkin ^^ but still funny as ... ^^)

bored? lets go mine the stars... ^^

This sounds like it is more about the distribution grid than the power generation, so you could use any source you wanted for the electricity. I think abandoning nuclear is a mistake, but a modernized grid is a great idea.

Every time I get on board and say go Solar, it seems a whole bunch of na sayers come back and point out how inefficient it is compared to all the ground energy sources, oil and gas and coal. I know! I know!

Still I just feel instinctively it would be just a much better world if we could just make clean energy and in the process create more jobs for USA citizens. It will take USA citizens to install and maintain solar and wind project, water too.

I am also idealistic to the idea to stub my nose to the local utility company and well just create my own juice in my roof top or back yard. The local state and city like to promote its a free market, but somehow some way, I always buy electricity from the same electrical company. It just feels the game is rigged, ya know what I mean.

Doesn't just spelling freedom for any person as they grow more knowledge, more money, more energy, more power in life. Growing independent is our path to freedom.

Well, I am a dreamer and I just wish everyone to live a clean and free life.

Good for Japan.

So here we are in America, quickly closing in on 2012 and every US President going back to Nixon has been talking about energy independence yet we remain in a stalemate on the best methods to utilize whether it's wind, solar, natural gas, nuclear, oil or coal.

The problem with the US is that we look at every initiative from the standpoint of profit and when that profit will come, who's going to pick up the initial tab, who will regulate it and who's feet are we going to step on if we start moving away from one of our current energy sources.

I am no expert on energy by any stretch of the imagination but a few things I can say with 100% certainty. Natural gas does not last forever, coal does not last forever, oil does not last for ever and nuclear does not last forever. We need to start looking at wind and solar as an "additional suppliment" to our current energy sources and begin expanding.

The worst decision that can be made is to make no decision at all.

@vt007
I'm an american and I don't believe any conspiracy theories!
...Said the guy in an aluminum foil hat with an alien UFO as his avatar...
Remember, America = The World!
-Spouting a fountain of nonsense since 1995-

@ aldron's last dope:
Seeing as how the imperial domination, destruction and sensational warcrimes of "Japan" were largely inflicted on both of the nations you figure are "in cahoots" w/said Japanese it's hardly conceivable to any but the most backwoods rube that such a conspiracy exists. In fact it's obvious that the greatest enemies of Japan in the 21st century are those nations which you have implied Japan being allied with. Halfwit!

@ Seeker72 - I'd like to state here and now that I would support a larger movement to wind and solar, but caution on abandoning nuclear.Its not entirely accurate to say that nuclear fuel will not last for ever, rather, it depends on the context of 'forever'.Do you mean litterally to the end of time (even the sun, and therefore solar power, has a finite lifespan).

Current reactors and thier respective uranium reserves have a generally more finite life span as far as fuel longevity is concerned, you are correct, and estimates tend to range from 50-170 years and up to a few centuries depending on what one considers an 'economic feasible' extractraction price for the fuel ore (speaking of uranium here), and whether secondary sources such as military weapons stockpiles are considered available for dillution and use. This also assumes we only use a fuel loading once (called the 'once-through' cycle) and we dont reprocess and use the unused fuel leftover.

Now, if we consider other than the once-through cycle, alternative fuels like the plutonium economy cycle, thorium (VERY abundant), or using new or possible future reactor designs (breeders, traveling wave reactor, and many more), some organizations and individuals (at a quick glance, IAEA, Bernard Cohen) have estimated these methods could sustain nuclear power production anywhere from 47,000 years up to the remaining life of the sun. Both, in my opinion, are effectively 'inexhaustable'.

**A quick side note on the 'economic' fuel extraction costs I mentioned above... an ice thing about nuclear is its relative immunity to fuel costs. A Finnish study in 2000 found that doubling the cost to extract and produce ruanium fuel for a reactor would only increase the cost per kWh by about 6% (for comparison, oil was 31%, and Natural Gas was 66%, and yes.... I know I'm making a comparison to very exhaustible energy sources...)

I guess I am stating the obvious, but I hope at they install these windmill units, they make them earth quake, hurricane and tsunami proof in construction. Historically there local environment tends to repeat itself. I wish Japan good luck!

1200 miles of multiple energy sources including wind, solar, and geothermal will produce only 60% of JAPANs power??

Please correct me if I am wrong but I do not believe that to be effective to try on a global scale.

Live through Wisdom and Faith

@Lord Elliot the..
Well at least i see that ure not very smart by not understanding that it was a joke...

bored? lets go mine the stars... ^^

When people talk about nuclear power as being efficient and economical, I notice that the discussion never includes the element of nuclear waste dispossal. The waste is by far one of the most dangerous aspects of that energy source. I don't promote oil, natural gas, coal, or likes of any derived pollutants, but to say Nuclear is the way to go is Damming our future civilization. We can't continue to bury waste and hope it won't come back to haunt us. Even Geothermal has shown dangerous effects by creating mini tremors in the surrounding areas which scientist are worried it will lead to pre-mature earthquakes.

I would say this guy is full of $$$$ and his plan wont work, mainly becuase he is Japanese... but he isnt!!! He is Korean.
So I think this guy might be able to pull it off.
I love japan. I live there and my wife is Japanese, but anyone in power here is older than dirt, and they dont have the b$$$s to do anything drastic that needs to be done becuae they dont want to be shamed if it fails.

This dude was denied Japanese citizenship, so he said $$$$ you and came back to japan anyway to become their richest man. I mean what a great $$$$ you story. You wont let me "become Japanese" then fine, now your richest man isn't even a Jap!

If you listen to political back and forth in regards to the power in japan they have no idea what they want to do. A little of this, a little of that. Some want no nuke, some want more nuke. but NO ONE will say this is what we need and this is what we will do. This guy is!

@ Tamiko " it seems a whole bunch of na sayers come back and point out how inefficient it is compared to all the ground energy sources, oil and gas and coal. I know! I know!"

Well i have an answer to all these people who are against going green, and say that nuclear energy and oil, gas and coal is more efficient then using other green tech.

Well my answer to that is: What they say it True, Nuclear, oil, gas, and coal energy are more efficient than the current "green technologies" that are available at the moment. But, that is only because we have been using these energy sources for so long. If people start using green tech's, there will be more research done in order to improve both the cost and energy efficiency for these technologies.

So the excuse that all these "Na sayers" use; "nuclear, oil, gas and coal energy is more efficient" is nothing but an excuse to stay the way we are now "in a pile of S***" either because of the profit it brings the people who work in these sectors or because of our lack of wanting to change things around us.

My opinion is to try to get off our butts and do something about it. A perfect example for me is this dude "Masayoshi Son", sure he is richest guy in Japan and he probably doing this because he has ulterior motives or is probably gona make big profits from this. But this doesn't change the fact that this is way better than contaminating our world on the long run. Anyway i really want to meet a person who hasn't done something for their personal gain.

Anyway i will stop bugging everyone with my super long comment :D. Have a great day all!

@Traehflow1 - First I apologize for another nuclear waste rant... Agreed, the waste is a big issue thats yet to be satisfactorily addressed. But, in the interest of fairness, even solar has similar issues (not to divert attention from the topic at hand), such as very harmful waste from producing battery systems to store energy from solar panels for night use.

Back to nuclear waste, there are a number of very responsible programs aimed at working on this problem. Most of the waste produced is generally not a storage issue (gloves, water filters, air filters, etc with short lived, low level radioactive isotopes) and can be stored short term onsite and reintroduced to a normal waste stream over a number of years. The real problem is long lived isotopes that pop up in used fuel.

When we talk about 'nuclear waste' that is a long term problem, we're almost exclusively speaking of used fuel, with some small amounts of other materials such as irradiated structures used inside the cores (which still have relatively short term implications compared to the fuel). Currently, we have no long term solution to handle the fuel, and that is a big problem. Its generally stored on-site because no national repository has been developed (rather, none has been approved, see Yucca mountain).

One solution (not the most ideal, but a start) is developing a secure storage point for these spent fuel loads, or any other long term waste. I know some will say that that location is no safer than storing it on a nuclear site, which, in part, is true, no where is 100% safe, but a purpose built facility would be far safer, as we could tailor the site to the needs of safe storage, rather than the needs of a reactor (near water sources, above ground/near the surface for easy access, etc.).

We are also constantly working on methods of reusing the spent fuel. Very little of the usable fissile material in a fuel loading is ued by the time it is discarded. If reprocessed or run in reactors design to handle this fuel, the long lived waste stream from the nuclear industry could be drastically reduced.

I just personally think that killing a promising long term solution with no clearly feasible replacement solely because we have no perfect solution currently is irresponsible. To assume there is no solution because we dont have one in place runs against everything human innovation has accomplished to date.

@ Gravity99 - Agreed. Just like every other industry, green energy efficiency is improving over the years, and will eventually be a competitor to some of the traditional methods. We do have to take a serious look, though, at our power conumption going forward before we can commit to drawing energy entirely from renewable sources. nfortunately, renewable sources are intermittent, and our power demand is absolutely not. I expect it will be difficult for a long time to come for renewables, on thier own, to handle the grid baseline, especially with demand only increasing.

I would like to see a renewables grid designed around a community-centric approach, with grid power providing a consistent baseline supply and the renewables handling demand fluctuations. If a community can manage its consumption and renewables supply well, awesome. Some areas thoguh will just be unable to go to completely renewable sources, especially our heavy urban centers.

@ iambronco I totally agree with what you say. And i know that solar energy for example creates a lot of waste. What i was saying above is that we should start to use and implement green technologies more then we have been doing up until now.

This like i said before will help us improve the current technologies and make them more sustainable and more efficient.

I believe that we should balance the use of different types of energy sources, since a combination of all of these together would be ideal. That in my opinion would be the best way to improve our way of living and hopefully also improve the earths condition. And i am happy that there are people like "Masayoshi Son" who help developing this type of energy source. Anyway happy to be able to have interesting conversations on these topics =) not many people my age (in Italy at least) follow this stuff or know what they are talking about.