Event Detail

Dr. Paul Scalise will analyze the economic, environmental, and security trade-offs in a world with (and without) nuclear power by examining the feasibility of competing energy sources as he discusses various scenarios leading to 2030. Since the 1973 oil shock, Japan and other industrial states have attempted to move away from oil dependency and the unstable geopolitics of the Middle East by embracing energy diversification. Nuclear power was promoted as a key answer in many respects as it is a large-scale, stable, baseload energy source with limited carbon dioxide emissions at a relatively low marginal cost. Forty years later, Japan itself has not achieved this ambitious goal as nuclear accidents, increasingly negative media coverage, souring public opinion, rising construction costs, and the siting, licensing, and compensation obstacles associated with NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) politics contributed to the dilemma. The post-Fukushima world will exacerbate these long-term challenges by ushering a change in Japan's energy dynamic. The key question is how much change and what that change will likely be. Please join us for this pertinent and timely event focusing on the future of Japan's electricity industry.

SPEAKER: Paul J. Scalise (PhD., Oxford, 2009) is one of the world's leading analysts of the Japanese energy sector. He spent several years with such financial institutions as Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein Japan Ltd. and UBS Global Asset Management as a Tokyo-based analyst of Japanese energy companies. Dr. Scalise is currently JSPS Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo.

NOTE1: This meeting is OFF THE RECORD
NOTE2: If you cancel after the stated deadline, the full meeting fee will be charged to your account. All guests must be accompanied by an ACCJ member. Sorry, no substitutions or walk-ins.