Energy Insecurity in Europe and Japan

Akihabara News (Tokyo) — The Renewable Energy Institute (REI), a non-profit organization based in Tokyo, recently released a report outlining the challenges Europe and Japan face regarding their energy security. According to the report, the greatest challenge comes from unsustainable reliance on fossil fuel imports.

This dependence leaves economies in both regions vulnerable to international price fluctuations and disruptions in the supply chain–a weakness well illustrated by current events.

In the case of Europe, countries in the region relied heavily on Russia for imports of gas, coal, and oil. As a consequence of the invasion of Ukraine, these countries now face difficult decisions about abandoning their long-standing trade partner, and the disruption to the supply chain caused by the conflict has driven the prices up.

For Japan, too, fossil fuel import costs have reached record highs in recent months, doubling for liquified natural gas and tripling for coal.

To address such vulnerabilities and to improve energy security, the REI report recommends Europe and Japan to restructure their energy strategies around renewables, as the technology is abundant and cost-competitive in comparison to fossil fuels.

Many countries, particularly in Europe, have already begun shifting their focus to renewable energy. Germany has made the most impressive commitment, announcing in March that it intends to pursue a goal of 100% decarbonization by 2035.

Japan has made a similar promise to decarbonize, but, unlike Germany, has set its target year at 2050 instead of 2035, a goal REI criticizes as “terribly unambitious.”

According to the report, Japan’s current energy strategy is insufficient to reach even its unimpressive 2050 decarbonization target. REI is therefore urging the country to follow the lead of Europe and to adopt a more aggressive policy towards renewable energy.

In terms of energy security, it is important to note that transitioning to a renewable energy-based power sector involves its own challenges. Many renewable energy technologies, such as solar and wind, depend on environmental conditions such as weather. Consequently, the power these technologies generate is often inconsistent, producing either insufficient or excess energy at various times.

The report offers several solutions to this problem, ranging from stored energy in lithium-ion batteries to creating interconnected networks between regions in order to share excess energy when needed. This solution is already well established in Europe.

Another concern regarding renewable energy is that many of the materials and manufacturers required to build components for the associated technologies, such as solar panels and wind turbines, are concentrated in specific countries, including China, and this could become another dimension of supply chain vulnerability.
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