Japan is a nation that experiences the waste and inconvenience of going to remote islands.
When I was reading the Nikkei newspaper this morning, I read about the contradiction in the shipping industry, which is trying to switch from oil to natural gas as fuel worldwide, and the fact that ships are still trying to carry oil and coal. At the same time, there was an article about how geothermal power generation, which is the most abundant and has the highest operating rate in Japan, has not been gaining any traction.
After reading these two articles, I was reminded of the waste and inconvenience I feel when I go to remote islands. I like diving, so I go to remote islands often. The round trip is inconvenient, but when I look at the lives of the local people, I see that they buy food and other supplies that arrive on a ship that comes once a week. The locals are used to it, but it seems quite inconvenient to us. Even if they were used to it, the freshness of the food would decrease, and it would be expensive because of the transportation costs and expenses.
Regarding electricity, if the islands are really large and close to each other, they are probably connected by undersea cables. However, for islands that are not like that, it seems that there are quite a few islands that go to the trouble of transporting oil, coal, and gas to the island to generate electricity. In these cases, combined cycle power generation, which is currently considered the most efficient form of thermal power generation, is far too small in scale to be used. It is thought that electricity is mainly generated by oil, which is the most expensive.
As expected, this is too wasteful, so recently some remote islands have been increasing the ratio of solar and wind power generation to become energy independent. Even with regards to food, it is best to be self-sufficient on the island as much as possible for things that can be bought without shipping, such as fish and some vegetables, which even a child can understand.
If you stay in Japan for a long time, you lose the sense that you live on an island because it is so big. If this island nation had enough fossil fuels and food to be self-sufficient, there would be no big problem. However, it has almost no fossil fuels, and its food self-sufficiency rate on a calorie basis is 38%. (On a calorie and production value basis, it is 66%). This situation perfectly follows the "expensive" aspect that those who live on remote islands face. I feel that in such countries, it is often difficult to feel wealthy, even though the people work hard. If you think about it normally, it is obvious that no matter how poor you are, you cannot cut the cost of food and energy beyond a certain point.
On the other hand, I think that countries that export goods are often in a position where they can live comfortably even without significant industry. Australia, a major exporter of fuel, mineral resources, and agricultural products, may be a good example of this.
As for the inconvenience, thanks to the excellent trading companies and logistics networks, we don't feel it at all. However, it is an indisputable fact that we pay a lot of hidden expenses to those trading companies and logistics networks, and that fossil fuels continue to pay huge profits to food exporting countries. The most obvious example is the price of gas, which is abnormally high compared to other countries.
https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/about/whitepaper/2018html/2-2-4.html
In this situation, can't the government somehow move forward with geothermal energy as quickly as possible? Why can't they even make it a top priority in a country like the one-party state we are in now? I felt a sense of frustration that I can't describe.
