Japan is building 22 new plants in addition to what they have already , state of the art and low emission, how many does Australia have again?, good old Australia saving the world by shooting its nuts off.
A recent
article by Hiroko Tabuchi for the New York Times highlights Japan's plan to build 22 new coal-fired power stations across 17 sites over the next 5 years, adding up to 20GW of capacity to its grid.
This is in addition to Japan's existing coal-powered fleet of around 46GW and almost as much as Australia's entire fleet of around
23.1GW of coal-fired electricity generation capacity.
The new power stations will, of course, be state-of-the-art
high efficiency, low emission (HELE) technology.
Tabuchi laments the impending increase in coal-fired power due to concerns over global warming, but fails to ask the burning question, 'why turn to coal?'
The failure to scratch below the surface and ask this obvious question is a common problem across the media. Why? Because asking this question means we need to talk about the problem with intermittent wind and solar.
In a
2019 report by JEPIC, the issue is clearly stated:
Why Japan is building 22 new coal-fired power stations - ECT (ectltd.com.au)