Though the power companies and their allies in the business community still insist that nuclear is the more viable form of energy generation for Japan, everyone else is already thinking beyond nuclear, including the government.

On March 11 when the earthquake/tsunami happened, it just so happened that the Diet was discussing a bill to promote renewable energy sources like wind and solar. It is the exact same bill that Prime Minister Naoto Kan insists on passing before he steps down, and was written by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the government organ whose predecessor was mainly responsible for putting nuclear power at the center of Japan's energy policy. It's not as ironic as it sounds. METI has been charged by the international community with reducing Japan's carbon output, and since renewables only account for one percent of the country's energy production there's room for improvement in that area. Besides, as bureaucratic maverick Shigeaki Koga wryly suggests in the Asahi Shimbun, for METI officials there are as many opportunities for career advancement in the renewable field as there are in the nuclear field.

The question now is, how much is the consumer going to have to pay for this shift to renewable energy? NHK ran a discussion of the matter on Saturday morning with two experts. Tetsuya Iida, a former nuclear power insider who now runs an energy research center, is, as the announcer labeled him, an "idealist"; while Yuzo Yamamoto, a professor at Kotoha University, is a "realist" on the matter.