Some Good News From Japan

March 18th, 2011 by Susan Kraemer

All of Japan’s wind farms are unscathed by the 9.0 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown.

Kelly Rigg of the Huffington Post contacted Yoshinori Ueda, leader of the International Committee of the Japan Wind Power Association & Japan Wind Energy Association to find out about how the tiny island nation’s wind farms are holding up through the earthquake and tsunami. (Slave owner Ms Huffington really should pay her excellent journalists!)

Ueda told her that there has been no wind damage reported by any association members, from either the earthquake or the tsunami. This would mean that all 9,997 MW of the nation’s land-based wind energy is fine. Japan already had planned to bring off-shore wind capacity up to 1 GW (1,000 MW) by 2020.

The first of these, the Kamisu (semi-offshore) wind farm, which was about 300km from the epicenter of the quake, survived. Its anti-earthquake “battle proof design” came through with flying colors.

Not much comfort for a wonderful country that just lost 30% of its generating capacity from nuclear plants, I know, but that is something. And perhaps, out of the misfortune, a boost for clean energy in Japan.

Mr. Ueda confirms that most Japanese wind turbines are fully operational and told her that electric companies have asked wind farm owners to step up operations as much as possible in order to make up for shortages in the eastern part of the country.

No turning off these turbines because there’s too much power on the grid.

Image: Wikipedia

Japan 18th in new wind farms in ’10 (search.japantimes.co.jp)
Wind power cheaper than nuclear, says EU climate chief (guardian.co.uk)
Wind Giant Iberdrola Births Underwater Tidal Turbine Market off Scotland
Wind Energy Giant Vestas Sees a Future in Romania

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About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.