Timely question: "Japan and energy: What's the alternative?"
As Japan's earthquake and tsunami ripped through the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the wind turbines at nearby Takine Ojiroi Wind Farm did what they were designed to do: They swayed, they stopped, they electronically checked themselves and automatically restarted.
"Except for one turbine that was very close to the nuclear power plant, all the turbines were up and running after the quake," said Sean Sutton of Vestas, the world's largest manufacturer of electricity generating wind turbines.
"And the damaged turbine we were able to monitor remotely," he said. Even now, the turbines are generating power for the grid despite being isolated within the nuclear exclusion zone.
As a source of power, wind energy is about as clean, safe and earthquake-proof as it gets -- the problem is it generates a fraction of Japan's energy needs.
Compared with the massive 4,696MW output of the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the 23 turbines at Takine Ojiroi can produce just 46MW -- enough for 30,000 households.
With just 1% of the capacity of the nuclear-powered leviathan just a few kilometers away, the wind farm is a microcosm of the contribution of wind power to Japan's energy mix.
Currently, Japan gets 27% of its power from coal, 26% from gas, 24% from nuclear, 13% from oil, and 8% from hydro. The remaining 2% is occupied by renewables such as geothermal power stations, solar and wind.
While renewable energy companies are loathe to admit it, as Japan still counts the human cost of the quake, the nuclear crisis at Fukushima may be the best thing that ever happened to the sector.
I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot of articles like this in the coming months.
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