Toward an Eco-Friendly Future: The Case for “Pink” Hydrogen

How Will Japan Achieve Challenging New Emissions Targets?

In May 2024, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry began deliberating the nation’s Seventh Strategic Energy Plan. In November 2025, the thirtieth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30) will be held in Brazil, and member countries will commit to emissions reduction targets for 2035. While the targets articulated in the Japanese government’s latest energy plan are for 2040, they will also serve as numerical targets for COP30.

Let us revisit the targets pledged by Japan in the past. In April 2023, the G7 Ministers’ Meeting on Climate, Energy, and Environment was held in Sapporo, ahead of the Hiroshima Summit. The Meeting issued a joint declaration to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 60% below 2019 levels by 2035. Host nation Japan effectively made an international commitment to the new target, which was also included in the COP28 agreement signed in December.

Before this new joint declaration, Japan had previously pledged to bring its emissions down to 46% below 2013 levels by 2030. Between 2013 and 2019, Japan reduced its annual emissions (expressed in CO₂ equivalent) by 14%, from 1.48 billion metric tons to 1.21 billion metric tons. Reducing emissions by an additional 60% from this level will clearly be no mean feat.

Indeed, Japan faces towering difficulties to meet this latest international pledge. The new target represents a reduction to 66% below 2013 levels. While the deadline for achieving the target has been pushed back five years from the original 2030 goal, the required emission cuts have also increased by 20 percentage points. The electricity mix targets set forth in the Seventh Strategic Energy Plan need to satisfy these demanding prerequisites.

2030 Targets Already Too Ambitious

Table 1 sets forth Japan’s targets for electricity generation for 2030, as set forth in the Sixth Strategic Energy Plan (agreed by Cabinet in October 2021) that is currently in effect. However, an orange light is hanging over even these targets.

Electricity Generation Targets in 2030 and 2040

(1) 2030 Electricity Mix (Target)

• Renewables: 36%–38%
• Nuclear: 20%–22%
• Hydrogen and ammonia: 1%
• Natural gas: 20%
• Coal: 19%
• Oil: 2%

(2) 2030 Electricity Mix (Anticipated)

• Renewables: 30%
• Nuclear: 15%
• Hydrogen and ammonia: 1%
• Natural gas: 32%
• Coal: 20%
• Oil: 2%

(3) 2040 Electricity Mix (Target)

• Renewables: 45%–50%
• Nuclear: 25%–30%
• Hydrogen and ammonia: 5%
• Natural gas: 20%
• Coal: 0%
• Oil: 0%

Note: The figures in (1) are taken from the Sixth Strategic Energy Plan; the figures in (2) and (3) are projections by the author.

While wind power is the form of renewable energy with the greatest potential for growth in Japan, as of the end of fiscal 2022, Japan had only installed 5.1 GW of onshore wind capacity and 0.1 GW of offshore capacity. Considering the long lead times associated with wind power, the fiscal 2030 capacity targets of 17.9 GW onshore and 5.7 GW offshore are unrealistic. In order for nuclear plants to supply from 20% to 22% of Japan’s electricity, 27 reactors would need to be operational, yet only 12 are currently online. At best, we can expect to have 20 reactors online by 2030. Item (2) above sets forth my independent prediction of the future energy mix. I estimate that in 2030, renewables will still only supply around 30% of electricity and nuclear plants around 15%. Even when we add in the 1% from hydrogen and ammonia, non-fossil-fuel sources will still only account for around 46% of total electricity generated.

In fact, the government is aware of this state of affairs, as it has plainly demonstrated with its implementation of the Act on the Promotion of Use of Non-Fossil Energy Sources and Effective Use of Fossil Energy Materials by Energy Suppliers (the Sophisticated Methods Act), which legally obliges generators to cut emissions. Here, the government’s cynicism is evident.

As shown in item (1) above, the Japanese government aims to generate up to 59% of electricity from nonfossil sources by 2030 (36% to 38% from renewables, 20% to 22% from nuclear, and 1% from hydrogen and ammonia), so in theory, the contribution from nonfossil sources mandated in the Sophisticated Methods Act should be increased to 59%. And yet, the minimum contribution from nonfossil sources mandated in the act has been kept at 44%, to maintain consistency with the fifth energy plan. This disparity is without a doubt due to the fact that the government itself realizes that it will be impossible to generate 59% of electricity from nonfossil sources by fiscal 2030, and rather that Japan will be able to achieve something in the mid-40% range at best. The setting of a 2040 target in the seventh plan that is even more stringent than the already impossible 2030 target could be described as illogical.

To satisfy the COP prerequisites, the government will need to set its targets at the levels described in my projections in item (3). However, it is extremely unlikely that these targets can be achieved.

Of the targets listed in item (3), that for nuclear power (25% to 30% of total supply) is the most unrealistic. The authors of the sixth energy plan, aware of the disparity between the 2030 nuclear power target and reality, described the target as “ambitious.” With the 2040 target set forth in the seventh plan, that disparity grows even more, rendering the target nothing more than pie in the sky.

Achieving Realistic Targets

So is there a clever way to make the 2040 targets something other than just fantasy? The sole solution is to repurpose Japan’s nuclear power stations. That is, rather than treating these plants as sources of electricity in the narrow sense, we use them to generate carbon-neutral (“pink”) hydrogen—defined as that generated through electrolysis powered by nuclear energy—and achieve carbon neutrality, effectively eliminating greenhouse gas emissions.

Carbon-neutral hydrogen will be an indispensable and essential primary fuel in the mission to achieve carbon neutrality. Unless we switch gas-fired power stations to hydrogen, produce synthetic fuels from hydrogen and carbon dioxide (such as synthetic methane and green LPG), and use hydrogen-reduced steel (which is produced by reducing iron ore with hydrogen rather than coke), we will never become carbon neutral. Around the world, people have come to recognize that carbon neutrality is impossible without carbon-neutral hydrogen.

When people talk about carbon-neutral hydrogen, they generally mean “green hydrogen”: hydrogen obtained by electrolysis of water with electricity generated by solar or wind energy (“green electricity”). However, because the output of solar and wind power stations fluctuates with the weather, utilization of electrolytic systems is poor, adding to costs.

Nuclear plants, on the other hand, being suppliers of baseload power, deliver a relatively affordable and consistent supply of electricity day and night, therefore improving the utilization of electrolytic systems. By using nuclear-generated electricity, one of the costly aspects of generating carbon-neutral hydrogen can be done away with.

In addition to green hydrogen, other countries also enjoy cost advantages over Japan when it comes to the production of blue hydrogen (referring to hydrogen yielded by a process in which methane is split into hydrogen and carbon dioxide, after which the CO₂ is sequestered deep underground). This is because other countries enjoy a cost advantage when it comes to both green electricity and carbon capture and storage, often utilizing depleted gas fields to store the CO₂.

That is not to say that importing carbon-neutral hydrogen would make Japan more self-sufficient in energy either. Furthermore, transportation costs would drive up costs, leaving few benefits. To solve this problem, Japan’s nuclear power plants should be used to generate carbon-neutral pink hydrogen, enabling the commodity to be produced domestically.

The current practice of feeding all output from nuclear power stations directly to the grid causes a glut of electricity at times of low demand, creating a need to throttle the output of solar and wind plants. By using the output from nuclear power plants to produce hydrogen, we can reduce such oversupply, and eliminate the need to throttle renewable output. This way, renewables and nuclear power, both of which produce no emissions, can coexist.

Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster that followed the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, the public has tended to see nuclear energy in a negative light. The support of the community is essential if we are to increase the contribution of nuclear plants in accordance with the targets in the Seventh Strategic Energy Plan. By clearly articulating a new philosophy in which nuclear energy is seen not as traditional power source, but as a source of carbon-neutral, pink hydrogen, the government would be able to effect a positive change in public attitudes to nuclear power.

(Originally published in Japanese. Banner photo: Units six and seven of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station in Niigata, which TEPCO is hoping to restart. Taken on December 7, 2015. © Jiji.)