Jun Arima, University of Tokyo
In March 2021, Japan marked ten years since the 3/11 Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. All nuclear power plants in Japan were stopped and only a handful have been restarted after meeting new and more stringent nuclear safety standards. This has led to a significant loss of baseload power, which has largely been compensated by natural gas and coal. Since Japan has no domestic fossil fuel resources, its energy self-sufficiency ratio dropped to the lowest among OECD economies. As an island nation, Japan does not have pipeline or grid connections with neighbouring countries. All of this exposes Japan to higher geopolitical risk.
