Japan's Richest Man Outlines Renewable Energy Plan 224
itwbennett writes "Speaking at the launch of his Japan Renewable Energy Foundation, Masayoshi Son, founder and CEO of Softbank, outlined a plan to rebuild Japan's energy infrastructure. Son said the country could shift to renewable energy sources for 60 percent of its electricity requirements over the next two decades. He called for a 2 trillion yen (US$26 billion) 'super grid' across the country, and underwater off the coast, that would zip electricity around cheaply and efficiently to meet demand."
Business plan a little sketchy (Score:2)
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That grid, would it be... (Score:2)
...50 or 60 cycles? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan [wikipedia.org]
My Grid Haiku (Score:5, Funny)
Electricity
Fifty, sixty, whatever
Gojira stomps all
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It'd be 0 cycles [wikipedia.org].
Re:That grid, would it be... (Score:5, Informative)
DC
Please (Score:3)
Do it just to show up the lack of a coherent energy policy by the United States. They can't even install solar panels on the White House without some hoo-hah involved.
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Some hoo-hah involved?
I'm not even sure what you mean, but Carter had some solar *water* heating panels installed, that Reagan removed.
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Did you forget to post as AC for your racist comment? Might I point out solar panel already exist on the White House, they just need to install newer more modern ones so it already happened.
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Can you please point out the racist remark in parent's post?
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He saw the word African, followed by the word American and stopped thinking. Maybe it's racist because they weren't capitalized.
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You don't really think that's the reason they don't have solar panels on the white house right? Carter put solar panels on the white house and Regan took them down. That's all you really need to know to understand the issues involved..
Jimmy Carter warned about the wrong path... (Score:2)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/carter-crisis/ [pbs.org]
"We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure. All the tradi
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Well said. If you haven't read Hunter's essay on a pre-presidential Carter speech, it's worth it. I can't find an online copy, but I believe it's in The Great Shark Hunt. I was able to find this nice video summary which is pretty well produced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SLeFZFTIco [youtube.com]
Having spent the last two years as a political appointee in DC, I have to say that while it's not too late to go back, I am not seeing much in the political character (either of the nation or the politicians) that suggests th
Ruling out nuclear entirely may not be wise (Score:2)
With so few traditional energy resources, Japan will a very difficult time reaching that goal. A few judiciously placed Gen-IV nuclear reactors would be a good idea unless they think they can reach their goal solely through wave energy and geothermal. Not sure what their solar and wind potential might be but they need a solid baseload option to replace nuclear.
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Well, at the very least he's on the right track about the grid itself. If it weren't for the 50-60 split, they wouldn't have had to worry about power outages.
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Yes, he is. I left that out of my previous post but I fully support his plan to revamp the electrical infrastructure which is also long overdue for America.
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Currently Gen IV plants are in the research stage. Since they take 20+ years to build, I don't think Japan can afford to risk building a theoretical device to meet today's demand. Since Japan is an island, offshore wind power is probably ideal.
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You're right, I got the Generation classification wrong; I meant Gen III+ designs such as the Advanced CANDU or the AP1000.
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Isn't there some risk to expansive use of geothermal in an earthquake-prone zone? I recall an earthquake in Switzerland that was blamed on geothermal drilling about 4-5 years ago which to concerns being raised in California and Germany.
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Of course the GE, Westinghouse etc reactors were crap so the Japanese put a lot of money into development. The more recent design from Westinghouse is really from Toshiba since the US nuclear industry puts less money into R&D than manufacturers of cheming gum.
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Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
- Probably have significantly less money that can be invested in ANY project (not that you would bother investing in Japan if you did).
- Probably do not even HAVE any assets in Japan at risk.
- Did not even take the time to look up what Japans real alternative energy profile looks like.
Yo
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Ever heard of Chernobyl, which nearly made the whole of Europe inhabitable, required 600,000 "liquidators" to be mobilised to build a cover on top of the reactor (most of which died of severe radiation poisoning less than 20 years later), bankrupted the USSR (it cost hundred of billions of modern dollars), and removed 10 million of acres of land from Belarus and Ukraine?
The Fukushima disaster is not close to being the w
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Inhabitable Sir? So therefore Fukishima should reverse the ongoing decline in the Japanese population instead then?
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Uninhabitable, sorry.
For my defense, this word is kinda tricky.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever heard of Chernobyl, which nearly made the whole of Europe inhabitable, required 600,000 "liquidators" to be mobilised to build a cover on top of the reactor (most of which died of severe radiation poisoning less than 20 years later),
I lived in less than 100km to the North from Chernobyl power plant, and my health is better than one of most people posting here.
The scale of Chernobyl disaster was massively inflated for political reasons, and to promote the policy of replacing nuclear power plants with less efficient coal-burning ones, that you see now in Europe.
bankrupted the USSR (it cost hundred of billions of modern dollars),
It didn't, because government was on both sides of all contracts related to the cleanup. It's not US, where contractor companies gorge on money thrown at them by the government every time there is any excuse for doing so.
and removed 10 million of acres of land from Belarus and Ukraine?
Swamp land. The power plant was build in the midst of swamps.
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Not so much...It's a bit in between both of your extremes...
However deaths appear to be limited to about 1,000 or less (quite possibly under 100) except children getting thyroid cancer.
Large areas of the land are livable again with basically double normal background radiation (comparable to living in a city with a lot of stone buildings like New York).
Substantial areas are still (and will be for about 600 years) uninhabitable.
From here...
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Chernobyl/chernobyl.pdf [iaea.org]
Quote
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Clearly you don't understand the scale of the Chernobyl incident.
Fukushima was nothing like it.
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No, clearly you do not understand the scale of the accident or you wouldn't make such comments.
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I've always been a staunch support of renewables but they have to be appropriate to the demand and the location. As one of the world's largest consumers of energy as well as a very developed society, they really can't afford to react out of fear. While this was a great disaster, how many of the 50-odd nuke plants were affected? The biggest problem is that divided grid with only 3 frequency converter stations in the whole country.
Re:Ruling out nuclear entirely may not be wise (Score:4, Informative)
Japan is one of the few places that could possibly be powered completely by geothermal. There isn't nearly enough wave energy to supply the planet, nor is there sufficient wave energy near Japan to supply Japan. With a combination of geothermal, wind, hydro, and possibly some solar or wave, Japan might be able to go completely renewable. Most industrialized countries don't have access the the abundant geothermal resources Japan has (due to their location on the edge of the "ring of fire").
Of renewable sources, solar and wind are the ones that can supply enough power for the world, but both are intermittent sources that are not well suited to supplying either base-load or peak-load power without a significant amount of on-demand energy storage added to the grid. On demand energy storage can be in the form of batteries, super capacitors, gravity reservoirs (e.g. pump water uphill to a reservoir during periods of excess generation, release it through turbines when needed), etc. However, solar requires huge amounts of land. Solar and wind each need more than 4x average demand installed (even with on-demand storage, more still without on-demand storage) because they only average ~25% of installed capacity. Neither solar or wind is viable in all areas, and with it's intermittent nature, the grid must have significantly more capacity to route from locations with excess to locations with a shortage.
Bottom line, for most of the world, nuclear and/or fossil fuels are the only currently viable means to meet the difference between renewable capacity and peak demand. Fossil fuels will be exhausted in 50-250 years (~50 yrs oil, slightly longer for natural gas, 200+ years coal). Since plants have a 40-80yr life span, fossil fuel plant built today, could run out of fuel before the plant is used up. Nuclear is the only long term solution that is viable today, and even that needs to move to a thorium fuel model with breeder reactors and fuel reprocessing in order to last more than a few hundred years.
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Even beyond all of the roofs that are readily available for such use?
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Yes. Peak solar radiation on the ground is ~ 1kW/m2 in the summer (may be higher in the tropics), and you get that on a cloudless day for a few hours in the middle of the day. It drops off pretty quickly as the sun drops out of the peak. Clouds also lower it dramatically, and you get less in spring, fall, and winter. And less at higher latitudes. And of course, there is none at night.
Assuming a 2000 sq ft, 3 level home (upstairs, downstairs, and basement), that's about 667 sq ft (~62 m2) of flat roof area.
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Your post is very informative. I think I see an obvious solution from what you've posted.
Most industrialized countries don't have access the the abundant geothermal resources Japan has (due to their location on the edge of the "ring of fire").
On demand energy storage can be in the form of batteries, super capacitors, gravity reservoirs (e.g. pump water uphill to a reservoir during periods of excess generation, release it through turbines when needed), etc.
Let's use the ground as a battery and then geothermal to recapture it!
Let's make our own "ring of fire"!!!! It worked for Johnny Cash.
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Perhaps if we built a large wooden badger.
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What I can't figure out is why nobody in Japan is talking about geothermal. There has been a lot of talk about increasing wind power (and it is noticeably expanding at a good rate already), and building big solar farms (some at sea, which seems like a completely daft idea). But I haven't heard a single word on expanding geothermal, which should be the key for this kind of undertaking. What I'd like to know is why not. The existing geothermal plants seem to be working acceptably, so it should be feasible
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In Japan a 20 MW geothermal plant would cost $50 million. Let's say 4,000 MWs is a typical nuclear plant and that its cost is $6 billion. Japan would have to build 200 geothermal plants at a cost of $10 billion just to replace a single Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. That's $4 billion more than necessary. And it'd be even worse figuring in the cost of infrastructure to connect 200 power plants to the grid. Perhaps that's why nobody is talking about geothermal in Japan.
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Sorry, we're closing down your onsen so we can turn it into a power plant.
Somehow I don't think that would go down too well in Japan.
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Ignoring how there are lots of energy storage solutions that are improving from batteries to hydrogen stored in metal hydrides, what about simple thermal storage in molten salt?
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-gemasolar-solar-thermal-power-hours.html [physorg.com]
"The Gemasolar 19.9-MW Concentrated Solar Power system is a âoepower towerâ plant, consisting of an array of 2,650 heliostats (mirrors) that aim solar radiation at the top of a 140-m (450-ft) central tower. The radiation heats molten salts that circ
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Converting electricity to heat and vice-versa is not very efficient. Converting solar PV to heat is a terrible idea for that reason. You'll lose energy converting electricity to heat, then even more converting back. Much better to just use solar thermal in the first place. Carnot's theorem [wikipedia.org] says the efficiency of heat to work conversion is limited by the ratio of absolute temperatures of the heat source and heat sink (e.g. ambient temperature). With a cooling source at 300K (27C), you need at least 600K heat
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No, I'm not wrong. From [wikipedia.org] BP, in its 2007 report, estimated at 2006 end that there were 909,064 million tons of proven coal reserves worldwide, or 147 years reserves-to-production ratio. This figure only includes reserves classified as "proven"; exploration drilling programs by mining companies, particularly in under-explored areas, are continually providing new reserves. In many cases, companies are aware of coal deposits that have not been sufficiently drilled to qualify as "proven".
Going from 143yrs prov
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Horse manure was an oversupply and waste disposal problem. Running out of oil is a resource availability problem.At the current rate of consumption, we've got around 30 years of proven reserves. Allowing for finding new sources and reduced consumption, we've got about 50 years to get off oil, not much longer for natural gas. The lesson here is that your examples have nothing to do with the reality of the situation, they're completely irrelevant to the problem.
Power plants are 40-80 year life cycle, and dema
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Seems I messed up including the wikipedia link for Coal [wikipedia.org] in my post above.
If his network is any example (Score:5, Interesting)
Softbank sucks.
I had a different experience (Score:2)
Say what you want, but Softbank really brought the iphone revolution (now the iphone and android revolution) to Japan. Also, I am sure the smartgrid will not be wireless . . .
Re:I had a different experience (Score:4, Informative)
"Say what you want, but Softbank really brought the iphone revolution"
No, not really. They were a newly started/aqcuired network (softbank bought a failing network wholesale) with few customers and a reputation for lousy infrastructure. They were the only network willing to accede to Apple's conditions for selling the iPhone (rumour has it Apple was holding out for NTT Docomo to the end but the negotiations fell through). Apple got a compliant network and Softbank got a cash cow to drive subscribers.
But Softbank only "brought the iPhone revolution" because they were the only network willing to bend to Apples conditions.
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If you lived in Tokyo, then virtually any company will have reasonably good coverage. But Japan is a lot bigger than Tokyo. When I first came to Japan I was with Softbank mainly because they supposedly have an English help line (although every time I called it, it was out of service). Living in a small town in Shizuoka prefecture, I could not conduct telephone calls in my apartment because the signal was poor. I had to go out doors. Wherever I went, I had about a 50% chance of receiving telephone calls
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In Tokyo Softbank has the same connection problem. I with my super old Docomo dumb-phone am often the only one that gets a signal. The Softbank network is really very crap.
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Actually the Softbank data network on the iphone worked wheres the docomo phone service was 100% down for the whole day.
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So, if there is any competition in Japan, like DoCoMo and whoelse, why not change to those? And why doesn't everyone else? So, what is the catch?
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Where are you? (Score:2)
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GE says PV solar cheaper than coal by 2015 (Score:2)
Is GE greenwashing too? http://cleantechnica.com/2011/05/29/ge-solar-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-in-5-years/ [cleantechnica.com]
http://www.solarbuzz.com/facts-and-figures/retail-price-environment/module-prices [solarbuzz.com]
http://www.cleantechblog.com/2011/06/will-crystalline-solar-kill-thin-film-a-conversation-with-applied-materials-solar-head-charlie-gay.html [cleantechblog.com]
Anyway, that's why this article is silly. Solar will displace fossil fuels and nuclear through market forces alone at this point over the next decade. We are passing the tipping p
Son-san being Son-san (Score:3)
The punchline (Score:4, Insightful)
At bottom, this is a demand for public subsidy. The fact that he does not plan to make money with his initiative is a huge tell, and why this won't succeed. Energy production has been responsible for some of the world's biggest fortunes, yet here Son is saying he's not interested in making money? I smell a rat.
Re:The punchline (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of T. Boone Pickens. He was all for wind power when he was asking [wikipedia.org] the government for a right-of-way which would also have the convenient side-effect of allowing him to build a huge pipleline infrastructure for his large water holdings (making him a fortune). When he didn't get this right-of-way, suddenly he stopped being a big fan of wind power for some reason. Today you'll hear not a peep from him about it.
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Implementing Pickens Plan would give him rights to build electric transmission lines, and by getting a wider right of way it would allow Pickens to build water pipelines.[53]
Holy shit, transmission lines? Water pipelines?! Thank god this madman was stopped! Sure, some cities in the area might need both of those things, but the important point is this guy wanted to make money off of it. The nerve!
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Maybe he just wants subsidies transferred . . . (Score:3)
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This is textbook Clinton. Take position for something that seems to solve a lot of problems but that does not seem likely to happen - so you get the good PR without risking a backlash if the thing is actually done and it fails miserably.
Obama is not my hero but at least he did more than talk about health care.
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Oh? Clinton balanced the god damn budget.
Obama created a mandate that people carry insurance, this subsidies the insurance companies and allows them to raise prices. If he had implemented a single payer public option that covered all Americans, then Obama could be said to have done something good for health care. But even that isn't as powerful as Clinton's balanced budget. The bad news is that neither achievement will have survived the next person to take office.
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Show me a energy industry that does not receive public subsidy.
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Relatively Speaking... (Score:2)
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At the risk of burning karma in pointless, off-topic pedantry I will simply point out that our beloved Carl was known for saying "billions and billions", which is four billion at the least.
Still, when we're talking about nearly a trillion dollars what's a factor of two or four between friends, eh?
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At risk of doubling down on the burning of karma, Carl only said "billions and billions" as a reference to people who erroneously claimed he did [wikipedia.org].
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I doff my cap.
...damn memory.
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Well, technically speaking, he was famous for saying "billions and billions" even though that was only a caricature of what he said.
Re:Relatively Speaking... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, now while I'm no fan of either stimulus plan I object to the "wealth redistribution" class warfare rhetoric. We can't discuss class unless it is to defend the wealthy!
To be more serious, the wealthy have been waging a PR driven class war against everybody else for decades; both of Obama's plans give in heavily to the ruling class and still had/have a big uphill battle for the tiny portion that is ok. This current one will not pass for multiple reasons; one of the big ones being that tax loopholes the wealthy use to CHEAT are being closed to help fund tax cuts for the rest who've been picking up the bill for the wealthy --- the wealth HAS been redistributed upwards at increasing amounts for decades; their pay goes up while the rest are lucky to keep up with inflation (and most do not; including myself... I've never had a job that kept up with inflation.)
Tax derivatives less than 1% and you pretty much fix our budget issues. "Business" which does not benefit the real economy should be taxed like the gambling it is. Instead, we continue to let them expand their addiction to our retirement funds and soon our social security funds.
Rob a bank and its a despicable crime; rob nations and its just a statistic.
With enough money anybody can buy all the praise they desire.
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>>Compared to the first Stimulus Plan that cost us $866 (Carl Sagan's favorite word) Billions of Dollars, and now the (now that Stimulus is a bad word) proposed $447 Billion Jobs Plan that is really a Wealth Redistribution Plan by any other name, a mere $26 Billion infrastructure upgrade that actually does something useful sounds like a real bargain.
But, uh, just think about all the stuff the trillion dollars has got us!
Hell, the ARRA repainted road markings on a street not 200 feet from me. That's wo
Re:Relatively Speaking... (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly what is wrong with a little wealth redistribution?
I realize it is not popular on slashdot, but if that is what our economy needs so be it. When the rich have all the money they don't spend it. If we give that to the poor, they will spend it right away.
Get the grid going (Score:2)
stay with software (Score:2, Interesting)
....hardware isn't your area of expertise, Mr. Son. Japan needs nuclear power, it is even less suited to wind & solar than other places, and has practically no fossil fuels. However, nuclear energy can be cleaner, safer, and more efficient than it is, by the use of molten salts for cooling and fuel delivery. The best example of this are Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors...see http://www.EnergyFromThorium.com
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But again, no reason not to use them, provided that the public isn't being mislead about costs and usefulness of
A few obvious questions (Score:2)
Which ones? Are they used in a sustainable way? Where will it be placed? Who will finance it how? What are the limits to environmental damage and destruction caused by them? How will energy from wind and solar be stored? Who will pay for use and installation of storage? What will be the energy source for the other 40% of electricity? What will they do about the other 60% or so of energy that are not electricity and are currently
So does this plan also fix the 2 grids Japan has? (Score:2)
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Yes, he's proposing DC transmission lines.
Dymaxion Grid (Score:2)
It's only a matter of time until we have Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion power grid. [youtube.com]
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They have this stuff called insulation now, you really should check it out.
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Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Informative)
AC under seawater is difficult. DC under seawater is simple. Both AC and DC suffer from resistive losses in the cable, but AC also suffers from reactive losses, which are far higher underwater. You can even do earth return, either a monopolar transmission or an uninsulated (and thus cheaper) return wire. And no, it's not dangerous; it's already used in quite a few places.
What is being proposed here is a nationwide HVDC grid, which is an especially important thing in Japan where they have basically two separate AC grids operating on different frequencies. This prevented the southwest from sharing power with the northeast after the tsunami, causing the northeast (including Tokyo) to suffer rolling blackouts for a long period of time. DC can allow power sharing between the two grids.
Basically, it's a proposal to allow power generated in any part of the country to be consumed in any other part, with minimal losses. And seeing as the country is the size of California, the weather in one part of the country can be very different than the weather in another part of the country, so it's a boon to not just stability and efficiency, but renewables capacity as well. Peaking plants and energy storage systems anywhere in the country can likewise support the entire nation.
I certainly hope Japan leads the way on this. Europe has been moving in this direction at a moderate pace, but the US only at a snail's pace. It needs a big push.
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There was a time when converting from DC to AC meant motor-generator sets (meaning exactly what it sounds like - a DC powered motor turning an AC generator) but today we have the technology to convert high voltage DC to AC. High Voltage DC is more efficient over long distances and, as noted, is better for undersea cables. Typically, you use DC for the long haul and then do a conversion, once, to AC and feed it into the high power AC distribution grid for relatively local distribution.
http://en.wikipedia.o [wikipedia.org]
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Informative)
Reactive losses *are* losses. They heat the wires [wikipedia.org]. Reactive reserves for phase stabilization can help get that back under control, but they don't undo the losses already in the wires. Reactive losses are a well known issue with submarine AC cables and limit their length.
DC not only is viable, as the person below you notes, it's already *in use*. The majority of new long-distance high power links being strung up in Europe [wikimedia.org] (red=existing, green=under construction, blue=proposed), and a number in North America [abb.com] as well, are HVDC. Learn about it. Conversion is now efficient and no longer nearly as expensive using modern thyristor-based digital converters. Long-distance HVDC links are much more efficient than long-distance AC links.
Enough of this "I'm pontificating about a subject I've never read about" nonsense.
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Good for you. Not for everyone else [latimes.com]. 2 [cnn.com]. Unless the reporting was lying. Wherein "do more research" should be directed at the news media, not me.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Informative)
We run thousands of cables that support electricity across the ocean including to the coast of japan now. They are lower energy, but the principle is the same. Sure, an earthquake could wreck a cable, but it's a lot cheaper (and faster) to replace a cable than a power generator. Build the generators in safe (by japanese standards) places, and put the risky stuff on wires that can be replaced and turned off.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Interesting)
What could possibly go wrong and why am I reminded of the old proposal for liquid sodium cooled nuclear reactors in submarines?
It's working out pretty well in Europe [wikipedia.org], and the Japanese have the advantage of learning from others' mistakes.
As for the submarines I'm not sure; why does underwater cable that's chemically and radiologically benign and miles away from anyone sound as dangerous as a can of irradiated liquid metal that's bad enough before it touches water?
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All I know is that they could prick some holes in those big electric pipes, let the 'lectricity out and create a ton of steam bubbles. This will turn the entire coast of Japan into a giant steam bath, achieving all goals simultaneously: Eliminate winter, increase tourism from Scandinavian countries, pirate ships coming out of cool misty effects, and the Japanese can relax for a change.
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>What could possibly go wrong and why am I reminded of the old proposal for liquid sodium cooled nuclear reactors in submarines?
Probably because you don't know that the reason such submarines were never built had fuck all to do with the sodium-water interaction, and was rather due to the navy's desire to standardise on one type of reactor, the PWR. Seriously, you're talking about a military that mixes RDX and HMX into the Nuclear Missile rocket fuel. They are unlikely to be deterred by sodium's flammabil
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Mod parent up. Shark safety is perhaps the most neglected aspect of power grid design.
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Power sharing goes both ways. It's like trade ties. The more integrated you are with another nation, the more difficult it becomes to go to war with them -- e.g., China bombs a power plant in Japan and Beijing goes dark, too.