By Vijay Jayaraj – March 30, 2022

Approximately 1.3 billion Indians have been informed that their cooking gas price will go up by 65 cents per liter. In a country like India, higher fuel prices can have quick and dangerous repercussions, resulting in greater morbidity and mortality.

The situation is similar in other developing countries and the poor economies of the African continent. Unfortunately, the establishment media does not sufficiently report on how hostility toward fossil fuels has contributed to the current energy crunch.

The populations of developing countries have been ill-served by leaders who waste precious resources on “green energy” infrastructure when they could have easily used those funds to improve the production and importation of coal, oil and natural gas.

Consider India and Vietnam, two fast-growing Asian economies that have been undone by the “green” distraction that has squandered their domestic energy security in the name of climate wokeism.

Despite the acceleration of coal production, India finds itself in an energy mess thanks to billions of dollars invested in poorly performing renewable energy technologies. Between 2014 and 2019, India’s renewable energy industry received $64.4 billion in investments.

The country instead could have directed money to reliable and affordable coal power plants that would have cost only a fraction of the “green” boondoggles. In 2016, India’s renewable energy investment was equivalent to the construction costs of 11 coal power plants. Likewise, several small-scale oil refineries could have been commissioned and made operational in the last 10 years, reducing the need to import refined fuel at higher prices.

Many argue that a country like India is already using too much fossil fuel. But this argument falls flat when the nation raises fuel prices for those who can least afford it. There are 230 million people in India who earn less than $5 per day. For these people, and millions of middle-class households, the hike in fuel prices means an increase in commodity and transportation costs and an overall stagnation of economic development.

Another rapidly growing Asian economy is Vietnam, where leaders appear committed to increasing the share of “green” technologies in the energy market. This ignores problems created by the country’s move away from fossil fuels.

During the past many weeks of volatile oil prices, analysts have rued Vietnam’s missed opportunity to strengthen its domestic oil and gas infrastructure. Since February, gas retailers have faced severe shortages, with more than 300 petrol and oil retailers across the country stopping sales.

Situations like these could have been minimized had the country not been apathetic about energy security. A key reason for high gas prices is decreased production at Nghi Son Oil Refinery, which did not receive enough government support to avoid financial difficulties and a 90 percent reduction in output in January. The refinery serves 35 to 40 percent of the domestic petrol market.

Economist Dinh Trong Thinh says, “When the plant’s production is unstable or has a problem, it will affect the Vietnamese petroleum market because the market share of Nghi Son refinery is large. The risk of a factory shutdown is an important issue for the petroleum sector in particular and the economy in general, which urgently needs the intervention of state management agencies.”

However, this urgency is not reflected in government actions to retain an environmental tax that boosts fuel prices and continue investing in renewable energy projects that do nothing to improve energy security.

It is time that developing economies stop experimenting with proven failures like wind and solar and start developing infrastructure that can address international price volatility.

Vijay Jayaraj is a contributing writer to the CO2 Coalition and holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, England. He resides in Bengaluru, India.

This commentary was first published on March 30, 2022 at the westernjournal.com website.

Nuclear’s suddenly the answer to “Net Zero” — Japan wants to triple its nuclear power by 2030

It’s the third largest economy in the world, and a large but quiet vacuum of global fossil fuels. Right now it’s the second largest importer of gas in the world after China, and the third largest importer of coal (not that Extinction Rebellion seems to care).

Before the Fukushima disaster in 2011, nuclear power generation produced almost 30% of Japan’s energy mix, but that’s now fallen to just 6%. Japan has just six operating nuclear reactors left with a total capacity of 6,190 megawatts, down from 54 before the Fukushima incident. Just a few days ago polls showed that that Japanese people have shifted opinion in just the last few months.  One little war can change everything. But the Japanese government wants to get back from 6% to 20% nuclear in just 8 years.

OilPrice.com

Prior to the Fukushima disaster, nuclear power generation accounted for almost 30% of Japan’s energy mix.

Though some plants have resumed operation since then, nuclear energy currently accounts for only around 6.2% of Japan’s energy mix. To make up for the nuclear shortfall, Japan stepped up imports of natural gas; liquified natural gas (LNG) imports jumped 12,621 thousand tonnes between 2010 and 2011.

PM Kishida’s administration …aims to leverage Japan’s nuclear infrastructure to help achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, hoping to have nuclear energy take up between 20-22% of the energy mix by 2030.

The Economist in 2020 lamented that the energy transition was not transitioning

Half of those renewables in the graph are from hydropower:

The Japanese government tried to help renewables, but nuclear power was replaced with coal and gas:

IN THE WAKE of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, enthusiasm for renewable energy in Japan swelled. Kan Naoto, the prime minister at the time, declared that the country would draw up a new energy strategy “from scratch” and “elevate” renewables. One of his government’s last acts before losing power was to pass a law to stimulate renewable energy. Dozens of small firms sprang up. Fukushima prefecture itself pledged to get all its power from renewable sources by 2040.

The hoped-for transformation, however, has been slow. Renewable generation has grown from 10% of the power supply in 2010 to 17% in 2018, almost half of which comes from old hydropower schemes. Most nuclear plants, which provided more than a quarter of the country’s power before the disaster, have been shut down, at least for the time being. But for the most part they have been replaced not by wind turbines and solar panels but by power stations that burn coal and natural gas.

They’re all returning to nuclear power –  Germany, France and the UK.