Dear SSJ Forum Members,

I am happy to announce the publication by Palgrave Macmillan of a book I co-edited, and entitled New Challenges and Solutions for Renewable Energy: Japan, East Asia and Northern Europe.
As this is part of the NTNU Japan Program Policy Study series, approximately half of this book focuses on Japan, with chapters focusing on civil society initiatives for promoting renewable energy, how Japan´s domestic energy policies influence its role in global climate talks, nuclear regulation and the politics of nuclear restarts/phaseout versus renewable energy, Japan´s hydrogen economy strategy, and how one company is using retail electricity market liberalization to promote renewable energy. The rest of the book has comparative chapters on renewable energy challenges and opportunities in Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Denmark, Finland and Norway.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Moe+Midford+renewable+energy&ref=nb_sb_noss

Here is a more detailed description: This book identifies second stage challenges and opportunities for expanding renewable energy into a mainstay of electricity generation that can replace fossil fuels and nuclear power, comparing Japan with several countries in East Asia and Northern Europe. Environmentally sustainable renewable energy technologies have now overtaken fossil fuel and nuclear technologies in terms of total global investment, and the costs of these technologies and related ones (e.g. storage batteries) are rapidly falling. Yet renewable energy use varies greatly from country to country. Major second stage obstacles to replacing fossil and nuclear-fueled electricity generation include the lack of electricity grid capacity and storage assets. Opportunities and solutions include expanding grids regionally and internationally, building flexible smart grids that offer better demand management, and policies that promote the expansion of storage assets, especially grid batteries and hydrogen. In addition, two key factors - electricity market restructuring through unbundling transmission from electricity generating companies; and electricity market liberalization, especially for retail customers - allow consumers to choose power companies based not only on price, but also on method of generation, especially fossil or nuclear generation versus renewable energy.

Best Regards,

Paul Midford
Paul Midford, PhD
Director, NTNU Japan Program
Professor of Political Science
Department of Sociology and Political Science
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
7491 Trondheim Norway
Official Web Site: http://www.ntnu.edu/iss/research/japanprogram
Office Phone: (+47) 73 59 16 03
Email: paul.midford@ntnu.no

Author of:

1. Overcoming Isolationism Japan's Leadership in East Asian Security Multilateralism (Stanford University Press, 2020): https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=31294

2. Rethinking Japanese Public Opinion and Security From Pacifism to Realism? (Stanford University Press, 2011): https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=17539