As a result of taking various environmental measures at thermal power plants, Japan has achieved the world’s top-level energy efficiency. Based on this achievement, the electric power industry in Japan has been making efforts to establish a mechanism for sharing such advanced technologies with electric power industries in other countries (see the column).
Through the cooperation between advanced and developing countries, and with the "sectoral approaches" for sector-by-sector improvement of energy efficiency, it will be possible to achieve compatibility between economic growth and global environmental preservation. _e electric power industry of Japan has been proposing the sectoral approaches to the world as a new focus for the post-Kyoto period.
FEPC estimates that the sectoral approaches to the coal-fired power plants all over the world such as the introduction of best available technologies and the improvement of operation and maintenance would create the potential of reducing CO2 emissions by about 1.87 billion tons-CO2 per year in 2030, which is much greater than the total annual CO2 emissions in Japan today (1.3 billion tons-CO2).
Comparison of Thermal Power Plant Efficiency in Japan with Other CountriesParticipation in Asia-Pacific Partnership (APP) on Clean Development and Climate
APP is a framework for inter-regional partnership for responding to the challenges of growing energy demand, energy security, climate change, and so on. Under this framework, the seven participating countries (United States, Australia, China, India, South Korea, Japan and Canada) are pursuing the development, transfer and spread of clean and energy-efficient technologies.
CO2 emissions from the seven participating countries account for more than half of global CO2 emissions, and so these seven countries' efforts for reducing CO2 emissions will have a global impact. Electric power companies in Japan are actively involved in these efforts.
