As one of the “most energy security-obsessed countries in the world,” Japan needs to expand its concept of energy security to include green technologies and critical minerals, said Tatsuya Terazawa, chairman and CEO of the IEEJ.
Terazawa said last week at the 26th World Energy Congress in Rotterdam: “Energy security has been the most important pillar of Japanese policy since 1973. This currently means access to a sufficient amount of energy at a stable price.
“We need to expand the concept of these two terms. In addition to conventional energy technologies, we need to talk about access to clean energy technologies such as solar panels, batteries, electrolyzers and wind turbines, as well as access to critical minerals.”
In 2010, a Chinese fishing trawler collided with two Japanese Coast Guard ships in the East China Sea, and Japanese officials arrested the wayward boat’s captain. In retaliation, China stopped exporting rare earths to Japan, even though Tokyo was dependent on Beijing for 90% of these materials.
Referring to the event, Terazawa said: “Japan already faced the rare earth embargo in 2010, so we know how countries can use their control over supplies to weaponize critical raw materials.”
China still maintains a stubborn grip on the supply chains of critical minerals. Michal Meidan, director of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said at the Resourcing Tomorrow 2023 mining conference in December: “China’s industrial policy to develop these technologies is decades old and the country has established an expansive global presence across the value chain of extracting the [critical mineral] ores abroad.
“If you look at the supply chains, whether it’s electric vehicles [electric vehicles] or batteries, there is a strong Chinese component everywhere. This affects extraction and of course processing, where China has 80-100% control over some processing supply chains.”
“Japan must shift energy security focus to critical minerals” was originally created and published by Power Technology, a brand owned by GlobalData.
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