Japan’s Tepco to tap more coal suppliers to cut costs

Europe is not the only region burning a lot more coal, with Japan more starkly illustrating a big reason for the increase that somehow today's Guardian article omitted.

Big plans for coal in Japan - including coal to run as baseload supply.  Some quotes from Japan’s Tepco to tap more coal suppliers to cut costs | GulfNews.com:

“We’ll do anything we can to cut fuel costs,” Susumu Kose, a senior manager of Tepco’s coal group, told Reuters in an interview, adding that the company would step up purchases of the sub-bituminous coal...

... will boost the ratio of its coal-power generation to around 17 per cent by 2021, compared to 8 per cent in 2011.

More coal, less oil
For Tepco, increasing low-cost coal power generation will help offset a fall in nuclear power generation and cut ballooning fuel costs of 2.29 trillion yen ($28.57 billion) that eat up nearly half its revenue.
Japan’s new energy policy, announced in September, aims to boost use of coal-fired plants for baseload power generation to reduce reliance on nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster.

The full article can be read at GulfNews.com:

Interestingly, Japan is the topic of a Globe and Mail article where the Prime Minister claims failure to pass a new debt financing bill will cause the government to 'seize up.'
Particularly interesting is that the story follows 11 days after an article in The Telegraph reported:

Jin Baisong from the Chinese Academy of International Trade – a branch of the commerce ministry – said China should use its power as Japan’s biggest creditor with $230bn (£141bn) of bonds to “impose sanctions on Japan in the most effective manner” and bring Tokyo’s festering fiscal crisis to a head.

Suddenly affordability and debt avoidance look more important.