Wind farms unscathed by the massive Japanese earthquake disaster

While the situation at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan continues to be severe, following the devastating and massive earthquake earlier last month, it seems that none of the wind farms in the country have been reported damaged.

Kelly Rigg, from the global climate change alliance (GCCA), writes on the Huffington Post:

“Colleagues and I have been directly corresponding with Yoshinori Ueda leader of the International Committee of the Japan Wind Power Association & Japan Wind Energy Association, and according to Ueda there has been no wind facility damage reported by any association members, from either the earthquake or the tsunami.”

She reports that the Kamisu wind farm, which is located 300km from the epicenter of the earthquake, managed to survive without any damages. Mostly thanks to its “anti-earthquake battle proof design”. According to Yoshinori Ueda most of the wind farms in Japan are now operational. The remaining ones are offline due to grid failures caused by the earthquake and tsunami.

So while the awful nuclear crisis continues, with experts warning that the Fukushima disaster could become worse than Chernobyl and that the deconstruction of the plant could take decades, this story really should give a boost of confidence to the renewable energy sector. And it seems that the stock markets agree on this. The stock price of Japan Wind Development Co. Ltd. has risen from 31,500 yen on 11 March to 74,700 yen today. And the Guardian reports that the Japanese nuclear crisis has made shares in renewable energy sources rocket as public and investors recoil from the nuclear energy industry.

Fukushima really does makes the case for renewable energy, as Antony Froggatt writes on BBC.

Another article worth reading is this one by Leuren Moret on “Japan’s deadly game of nuclear roulette“. It was published seven years ago and warned about the potential consequences of investing heavily in nuclear energy near such a dangerous earthquake zone as Japan:

“Of all the places in all the world where no one in their right mind would build scores of nuclear power plants, Japan would be pretty near the top of the list.”

It’s like Naomi Klein says. Our societies have become addicted to extreme and reckless risk-taking.

Simon Leufstedt is the editor of Green Blog. Simon has previously studied Global Environmental Justice and is currently studying Human Ecology and Political Science at Lund University in Sweden. Simon is also blogging over at the Swedish 350 website and working with the Swedish TckTckTck organisation. You can follow Simon on Twitter and on Google+.
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