I said a few months ago that the Fukushima disaster might be the best thing to happen to renewable energy in quite some time. Not only will it, hopefully, raise some serious questions about the economics of nuclear and thus redirect some of the money that has been subsidizing nuclear power into renewable investment, but if Japan gets serious about kicking nuclear power and using renewables instead they're going to have to address the major problem facing a 100% renewable future: intermittentcy.
Well, it looks like the first of those two things is happening. Various segments within the Japanese business and government spheres have announced in the last few days that Japan is quite serious about becoming renewable, with the PM going so far as to say they will be generating twenty percent of their power from renewables by the 2020s. Perhaps more importantly, they want to reduce the cost of solar power (what type is left unclear) to one sixth of what it is today by 2030. Doing so would make PV very cost competitive with fossil fuels.
Most importantly though, Japan getting serious about renewables means that one of the most technologically innovative countries in the world will now, almost assuredly, have to put a lot of thought towards solving the intermittentcy problem of renewable generation and, this likely means, putting a lot of thought towards new, large-scale battery storage. Advances in this area would do wonders for the wide-spread implementation of renewable power. That Japan is now getting into this game in a big way has dramatically accelerated the time-table for potential business feasibility of these technologies.
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