Activists looking out over Tokyo Bay at a new coal-fired power station under construction
Activists looking out over Tokyo Bay at a new coal-fired power station under construction

Climate change: Is ‘blue hydrogen’ Japan’s answer to coal?

It's a glorious autumn afternoon and I'm standing on a hillside looking out over Tokyo Bay. Beside me is Takao Saiki, a usually mild-mannered gentleman in his 70s. But today Saiki-San is angry. "It's a total joke," he says, in perfect English. "Just ridiculous!" The cause of his distress is a giant construction site blocking our view across the bay - a 1.3-gigawatt coal-fired power station in the making. "I don't understand why we still have to burn coal to generate electricity," says Saiki-San's friend, Rikuro Suzuki. "This plant alone will emit more than seven million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year!" Suzuki-San's point is a good one. Shouldn't Japan be cutting its coal consumption, not increasing it, at a time of great concern about coal's impact on the climate?


 

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