BBC “후쿠시마사고 대안 떠올랐던 日재생에너지 ‘고비용’으로 원전회귀 조짐”

[아시아엔=최정아 기자] 2011년 3월 후쿠시마 원전사태로 인해? 48개 원전을 모두 폐쇄한 이후, 일본 재생에너지 산업이 활기를 띄고 있다. 하지만 비용이 많이 든다는 이유로 원자력발전을 다시 부활시켜야 한다는 주장이 거론되고 있다.

후쿠시마 원전사태 이전엔 일본 전력의 30%가량이 원자력발전으로 생산됐다. 부족한 전력량을 보충하기 위해 2011년 이후 일본은 화력발전소를 늘렸다. 후쿠시마 사태 이후?세계최고 천연가스 수입국이 된 일본에선 지난 4년간 온실가스 배출량이 급증했다.

환경오염을 줄이기 위해 일본은 태양에너지, 수력 등 재생에너지 발전소를 늘리기 시작했다. 2011년 일본 태양에너지 발전량은 4.9GW에 불과했지만, 2014년엔 23GW로 급증했다. 현재 일본의 태양에너지를 통해 생산된 전력량은 세계최고라고 평가받는 이탈리아 태양광 발전량보다 높은 수준이다. 이밖에 가고시마현 등 일본 곳곳에서 태양광 발전소를 건설중이다.

문제는 ‘비용’이다. 일부 의원들이 비용 대비 효율성이 떨어진다며 원자력 부활을 주장해 아베 정부의 재생에너지 정책에 혼란을 가중시키고 있다.

 

[BBC] Japan’s renewable revolution at risk

Japan has been surviving surprisingly well without nuclear power for the last four years. Following the Fukushima disaster in March 2011 all of Japan’s 48 other nuclear reactors were shut down. The predicted blackouts did not happen, the country kept running just fine.

But there has been a cost. Prior to the Fukushima disaster nearly 30% of power came from nuclear. That has been replaced by burning lots more coal and gas – Japan is now the world’s biggest importer of liquefied natural gas.
It also means that since 2011 Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions have climbed significantly.

The Fukushima disaster created a new nervousness in Japan about nuclear power
Higher fuel bills and higher emissions are bad for Japan, bad for the planet. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s answer? Turn the nuclear plants back on.

But in the four years since the nuclear plants were shut down, Japan has also begun to witness something else – a renewable energy revolution. And the return to nuclear power may be putting that under threat.
Japan is a mountainous island nation with a sunny climate and lots of active volcanoes. In other words there are lots of potential ways to generate renewable energy – hydro, wind, tidal, solar and, the big one, geothermal.
And yet prior to 2011, just 9% of Japan’s power came from renewables – and almost all of that from hydropower. Only 1% came from solar.

The installation of solar panels across Japan leapt in the years after the nuclear power ban
But desperate times called for desperate measures. Following the Fukushima disaster, the Democratic Party government enacted a “feed-in tariff”.
Anyone could put solar panels on their roof, connect up to the grid and the power companies would be required to pay them a generous 40 Yen per kilowatt.

The response was dramatic. Money poured in to solar, and not just on people’s rooftops. In 2011 Japan had just 4.9 gigawatts of installed solar capacity. Just three years later, at the end of 2014, that had leapt to 23GW. It put Japan ahead of Italy as the number three solar energy producer in the world.

In November 2013 electronics giant Kyocera began producing power from Japan’s biggest solar array so far, nearly 1.5 square kilometres of panels built on the site an old shipyard in Kagoshima bay. It can produce 70MW of power, enough to power more than 20,000 homes.

That is just the beginning. The company has plans to build a 430MW plant on one of Japan’s many offshore islands, big enough to power 130,000 homes.

It’s all great news, except it has all suddenly ground to a halt.
At the end of last year Japan’s big power companies began telling solar producers they could take no more electricity from them. At the same time the government dropped the price utilities would have to pay for electricity from new solar to 27 Yen per kilowatt.
Suddenly the calculus for building more solar has been put in serious doubt.

Many Japanese are still firmly opposed to a return to nuclear dependency
No-one is suggesting a conspiracy. But the timing is significant.
In the face of widespread opposition, the Abe government is pushing ahead with a return to nuclear power. His most persuasive argument for doing so is that Japan needs the cheap reliable “base load” power that only nuclear can provide.
That claim flies in the face of scientific evidence that Japan could greatly increase its output from renewable sources. Japan’s geothermal potential is huge. It has 119 active volcanoes. Geothermal is cheap, reliable and works 24 hours a day.

But so far only a tiny fraction of it is being exploited.
It is odd that at the same that it is focusing so much time and energy on a return to unpopular and risky nuclear power, the Japanese government’s policy on renewables appears to be in such complete disarray.

 

링크:?http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32603553