Japan’s renewed love affair with coal is the result of the government revising its energy policy after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami—a disaster that has led to the suspension of almost all Japan’s nuclear power plants. To create a stable energy supply and one less vulnerable to international turmoil, the government has reassessed its energy mix to include coal as a base source of energy. Consequently, power suppliers are currently building, planning or proposing to build 46 new coal-fired generation plants over the next several years.
