Japan calls time on nuclear by Bloomberg New Energy Finance

Japan decided to join the "no-nuclear" club last week, bowing to public aversion to these plants after the Fukushima accident in March 2011. At the same time, it projected significant investments in renewable energy.

Japan will have no nuclear power by the end of the 2030s, according to the new energy policy approved by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on 14 September. Idled reactors will however be allowed to restart during the 27-year wind-down period. On the flip side, the policy also envisages investment of JPY 38 trillion (USD 487bn) on solar, wind and other types of renewable energy over the next two decades, with an additional JPY 84 trillion investment in energy-efficient technology.

Japan has already introduced what are seen as fairly generous feed-in tariffs for renewable energy, beginning 1 July 2012. There have been multiple announcements of projects subsequently. Two large renewable power initiatives were announced last week: a 1GW wind farm with 500 turbines on the island of Hokkaido, to be developed by telcommunications company Softbank, and a 250MW solar project backed by the Goldman Sachs Group, IBM, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone and Toyo Engineering, among others. Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that about 900MW of utility-scale solar projects - or those larger than 1MW - have been announced this year, of which 350MW are already under construction.

In Europe, France was also looking at energy and emissions, decades ahead. President Francois Hollande said he favoured a 40 per cent cut in emissions from the EU bloc by 2030 from 1990 levels, and to 60 per cent by 2040. The current target is to lower carbon emissions by 20 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020.