The world’s advanced economies have committed to phasing out coal over the next seven years. But not Japan, which stands alone in insisting it can make coal less damaging to the planet.
Nowhere is that more evident than at the nation’s largest coal-fired power plant in Hekinan, a small city in central Japan where 400,000 tons of jet-black piles are spread across a plot the size of 40 soccer fields.
Starting next spring, Jera, the company that owns the site, wants to demonstrate that it can blend ammonia — which does not emit carbon dioxide when burned — with coal in its boilers. The use of this new technology is prompting a debate over whether it is better to find cleaner ways of using coal, or to scrap it as soon as possible in favor of renewable energy.
The company says the ammonia method can reduce dangerous emissions in the fight against global warming. In an effort initially conceived — and heavily subsidized — by Japan’s government, it is one of several power companies planning to use ammonia in a process marketed as “clean coal.”
Starting in the spring, Jera, the company that owns the site, wants to demonstrate that it can blend ammonia with coal in a process marketed as “clean coal.”Credit…Noriko Hayashi for The New York Times
With ammonia, the companies can “use the plants we have rather than building entirely new ones,” said Katsuya Tanigawa, the general manager at Jera’s Hekinan site.
Japan draws nearly a third of its electric power supply from coal, one of the world’s dirtiest sources of energy. But critics say the use of ammonia merely extends Japan’s reliance on fossil fuels and could potentially increase carbon emissions as the ammonia is produced. Burning ammonia can also produce nitrogen oxide, which is toxic to humans and is another emission to be managed.
“We need to be reducing emissions from coal power plants now, not exploring a technology that may or may not be feasible,” said Katrine Petersen, a senior policy adviser at E3G, a think tank.
Anxiety in Japan about energy has grown exponentially since an earthquake and tsunami triggered a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant in 2011. Right after the disaster, Japan shut down all of its nuclear plants, extinguishing 30 percent of the nation’s electricity supply overnight. To compensate, the country’s power companies scurried to build new coal plants even as the world was moving away from fossil fuels.
With ammonia, the companies can “use the plants we have rather than building entirely new ones,” said Katsuya Tanigawa, the general manager at the Hekinan site.Credit…Noriko Hayashi for The New York Times
Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has recently intensified efforts to reboot the country’s nuclear power network, but communities that host the plants have resisted.
Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, has few of its own natural resources, and can produce only 11 percent of its energy needs without fuel imports — one of the lowest self-sufficiency rates among the world’s wealthiest nations.
At a meeting of environment ministers from the Group of 7 leaders in Sapporo this spring, Japan was the only nation that refused to commit to bringing its coal usage down to zero by 2030.
The government and the country’s power industry point to numerous hurdles to building renewable energy sources quickly, including Japan’s geographic isolation, mountainous terrain, deep sea waters and annual typhoon season.
Energy News Beat