The Abe administration has readied two bills for finalizing the deregulation of the nation's electricity and city gas businesses, but each bill comes with a rider allowing the delay of implementation if conditions aren't right for the utilities.
The government has begun discussions on Japan's long-term energy mix, with the likely focus on how much nuclear power should account for the nation's electricity supply.
Until now, Japan's power industry and the government have emphasized the lower energy costs from having nuclear plants generate the nation's electricity. And until now, consumers and business circles have bought into that myth.
The financial support that the government is considering for power companies that decommission aging nuclear power plants and for the municipalities that host them should not be extended in ways that perpetuate an attitude of reliance on nuclear power.
With the better-known renewable sources of energy, another relatively clean form of energy transfer and storage is being explored in Japan and deserves continued support — hydrogen fuel cells.
As the government undertakes a review of the nation's feed-in-tariff energy supply system, it should not forget the importance of improving the very foundation of power grid technology to enable a substantial increase in the share of electricity generated by green sources.
