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Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 10, 2012

Surge in fuel imports may come with dire side effect

To make up for its dwindling supply of nuclear power, Japan is on a frenzied but costly hunt for fossil fuels.
COMMENTARY
Apr 10, 2012

Energy conservation is key

If all the reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture remain offline, and if approval is not given for restarting the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture following their just-completed...
Reader Mail
Apr 8, 2012

Sunny pipe dream in the storm

Regarding the April 5 front-page Kyodo article "Softbank plans huge Hokkaido solar plant": This project sounds wonderful in theory. In reality, the promised minimum output won't be under Softbank's control; it will depend 100 percent on weather conditions. And Hokkaido really isn't suitable for the project....
BUSINESS
Mar 17, 2012

Fukushima crisis spells change in power rate system

The government plans to change the electricity pricing system as early as this month to restrict the type of business costs regional utilities can pass on to household power bills.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 14, 2012

A wakeup call Japan ignored

At 2:46 p.m. Sunday, March 11, my family and I joined millions of Japanese standing silently at a Buddhist temple or a Shinto shrine. With heads bowed, we remembered the events of one year earlier, when our house swayed for nearly three minutes and the power died. In the Tohoku region, several hundred...
COMMENTARY
Mar 12, 2012

Foreign aid: sop to conscience and bad policy

When India selected 126 French Rafale fighter aircraft (£13 billion) over the U.K.-manufactured Typhoon involving a consortium of European countries, some British politicians and commentators demanded that aid to "ungrateful" India, a fast-rising economic power, be stopped.
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Mar 10, 2012

Chubu reactor safety improvements mixed bag

The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant crisis prompted the government to ask untilities nationwide to draw up mid- and long-term countermeasures against future earthquakes and tsunami.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 5, 2012

Restructuring Japan's power industry market

Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter argued that the "process of creative destruction," whereby new industries are created by destroying the old combinations and creating new ones, is essential to drive growth. Japan's electric power industry finds itself at such an evolutionary crossroads.
BUSINESS
Mar 3, 2012

Aussie coal firm prices aid utilities

Xstrata PLC, the mining firm that sets prices for Australia's thermal coal exports, is poised to keep contracts within $4 of last year's all-time high as it negotiates with Japanese utilities recovering from the March 11 disasters.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 26, 2012

Welcome to the world we've made but don't want to share with children

"Love ... casts itself on persons who, apart from the sexual relation, would be hateful, contemptible, and even abhorrent to the lover. ... It seems as if, in making a marriage, either the individual or the interest of the species must come off badly."
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 14, 2012

Readiness of U.S. military will not come cheap

Here's something for critics of the country's defense budget to ponder: After I was confirmed as secretary of the navy in May 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked me and the other service secretaries to work with Congress to gain approval for a pending supplemental appropriation to the defense...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2012

Red tape impeding reform of nuclear-reliant energy policy

The hulking system that once guided Japan's pronuclear power stance worked just fine when everybody moved in lock step, but its size and complexity have proved ill-suited for resolving conflict at a time of nuclear crisis.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jan 22, 2012

Changing self and systems for a leaner and greener Japan

Year in, year out, it never ceases to amaze me what a difference a day makes.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat