On April 10, the “Informal Meeting on Energy Situation” of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)’s Expert Committee summarized a proposal for a long-term strategy on the energy of Japan until 2050.

From the viewpoint of making a renewable energy the main source of electricity for future, the proposal has taken up hydrogen as one of the energies which may hold the key to decarbonization of renewable and fossil resources, and suggests now to take an immediate measure to reinforce the available human resources, technologies and industries. Based on the proposal, the government will revise its energy plan in the coming summer.

Based on the Paris Agreement in 2017, Japan has posted a target to reduce 80% of greenhouse gas in 2050 in the Global Warming Countermeasure Plan. In order to accomplish the target, the informal meeting on energy situation sponsored by Minister Hiroshige Seko of METI has been discussing the future direction of a long-term energy policy since last August keeping in mind the target for 2050.

Considering the difficulty to foresee the future transition of energy situation, the proposal has adopted a plan aiming at the decarbonization of energy in every direction including nuclear power or fossil fuels with renewable energies as the main source of electricity.

Hydrogen out of these energy sources is drawing attention as a carrier for storing and transporting of energy such as the storage of surplus power from the generation renewable energy or oversea transportation.

In comparison with the existing power generation technology like thermal power generation, however, it is necessary to reduce the costs of crude hydrogen, production and transportation by 1/2 to 1/59. They say that a breakthrough by technological innovation is necessary inevitably, but any detailed target for each power source to introduce has not been shown.