Britain was putting more public money into nuclear power and other new sources of electricity than almost any other economy.
But Japan's islands were chronically short of coal and oil — the war had been partly a hunt for energy — and, as the country embarked on its economic growth spurt, it was desperate for new sources of electricity.
The Pataki administration has been struggling to find new sources of electricity by summer to avoid a crisis, but some of those efforts have run into opposition from environmental and community groups.
But critics say the measures are an artificial and dangerous tinkering with normal market forces and could exacerbate problems in the long run by discouraging development of new sources of electricity.
Government officials say the energy transformation required no increase in taxes or public debt, precisely because the new sources of electricity, which require no fuel and produce no emissions, replaced electricity previously produced by buying and burning imported natural gas, coal and oil.
This is now off the table but a special, low rate for Tohoku could encourage firms to rebuild in, or move to, the stricken area.Since the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is to be decommissioned, Japan will need new sources of electricity.
They want to know what, exactly, the government proposes to do to make it profitable to start building new sources of electricity, such as nuclear power stations and wind turbines.
This is based on cost projections from the US Energy Information Administration EIAA) for new sources of electricity in 2019.
With the risks of the Pilgrim station unresolved, with no new MA coal plants scheduled for development, and with public support for clean energy increasing across southeastern MA, reason dictates that sustainable new sources of electricity will not only remain in high demand, but will also accelerate the economic renaissance already emerging in New Bedford.
(New natural gas, for the moment, is cheaper still -- but everyone concedes that current gas prices can't continue, and that eventually the price of gas must almost double, to $6/mcf, which would make wind and solar the cheapest new sources of electricity).
