Jun Okumura wrote:

"Sorry, I only bet when the odds are in my favor. And I'll look at Paul Midford's renewable numbers when he produces them."

Responding to Jun Okumura's point about not betting when the odds are against him, is that because I want to bet on 5 reactors restarting, instead of 4, or because he has changed his estimate of the likelyhood of even 4 restarting?

Recent evidence certainly seems to suggest that a restart anytime soon will be difficult. I saw some polling data on NHK international this weekend that helps to explain why restarting the Oi plant is proving to be so difficult. In Oi 54% favor restarting, versus 37% who oppose. So local subsidies and employment probably explains this degree of support, although the level of opposition is far from small. However, in surrounding communities 62% oppose restarting plants, versus 32% who support. Given that a large majority of Japanese believe surrounding communities should also have a voice, as revealed in last week's Asahi poll, and it becomes clear why it is hard for Noda administration to convince even the governor of Fukui, not to mention the governors of Shiga, Kyoto and Osaka to go around. The Noda administration also has to worry about the possibility of retrospective voting if they push this issue, with one report I saw recently suggesting that even Maehara might lose his Kyoto electoral district to a challenger from Hashimoto's party.

Regarding "numbers" on renewable energy, I am also not quite sure what he means. If he means my point that Japan has no shortage of renewable energy resources, I already mentioned the Statoil estimate about deep water wind off Boso peninsula. METI puts Japan's wind power resources at between 1500 and 1900 GW (although I am not sure if that includes the new area of deep off-shore). By comparison total current installed electricity capacity is 280 GW. I would also mention a
2008 study that put total global energy consumption at
425 exajoules per year, with 2008 technology capable of delivery 1600 exajoules of solar power, 600 exajoules of wind power, and 500 exajoules of geothermal power.
(See DeWit and Tani 2008: 287).

Best,

Paul