The three Es stand for the first letters in Energy Security, Economic Efficiency and Environment and the letter S stands for Safety. Safety is crucial to the energy plan in the wake of the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl when the devastating tsunami and earthquake hit northeast Japan in 2011. Since the disasters, Japan’s electricity generation mix has drastically changed.
The fear of nuclear power plants led to the shutting down of 54 of the nation’s nuclear reactors, which used to provide about 30 percent of the nation electricity. To make up for the loss of electricity supplied by nuclear means, Japan turned its heads toward coal and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). The nation’s sharp increase in fossil fuel demand caused the price of LNG, linked to crude oil import price, to soar.
The transition from nuclear to fossil fuels caused the nation’s energy self-sufficiency percentage to plummet to a mere 6 percent and Japan’s greenhouse gasses to hit an alarming record high in 2013. The increase cost of fossil fuel imports and the nationwide feed-in tariff (FIT) program has also increased electricity prices by 30 percent for industry users and 20 percent for residential consumers.
New Plan to Reverse the Effect of Fossil Fuels
The 3E + S plan aims to reverse the effects brought by the increased consumption of fossil fuels. Japan specifically wants to improve its self-sufficiency to 25 percent above the pre-disaster level. It also hopes to control and reduce electricity cost for the nation’s industry to gain back a competitive advantage while reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the same level as the Western nations.Read More Here