Coal use hits record high in Japan

That's "coal" and "liquified natural gas" as in "fossil fuels", the stuff that emits CO2 that causes global warming that might have flooded your garage last month, or worse.  Coal is the bigger culprit of the two. It's also known for nasty pollutants that can wreck human lungs and that can take years off of lives. 

And get this: Coal plants have put far more radioactive emissions into the air than the world's 430-plus nuclear plants ever have.

If a nuke so much as burps, the authorities in many countries close it. But coal plants as well as coal and gas producers have for years been free to radiate in plumes (modern scrubbers may be minimizing the amount). Their emissions include things like uranium, thorium, potassium 40, radon, radium and others. Mutter those words in a nuclear context, and you've got a posse of angry mothers on your doorstep. From the fossil fuel industry, those same radioactive elements fall on deaf ears as they land silently in public lungs.

Oh, and another thing:  The coal and gas is costing Japan economically, because the country has to import them. That's pricey enough, and the weak yen isn't helping. Japan, long a trade surplus country, is now running a huge trade deficit. It's also not assured of a continuous supply amid unstable geopolitics. 

The country is in this situation because it closed down almost all of its 50 nuclear plants following the tragic March, 2011 tsunami that triggered a meltdown at the poorly conceived and managed Fukushima Daiichi power plant. The avoidable Fukushima disaster has displaced some 160,000 people who could still be home had the nuclear operators been smarter and heeded warnings about how to cool their plant.

Fukushima should never happen again. But that doesn't mean the country should keep its nukes switched off. It should turn them on. It should also pursue new, superior  and even safer nuclear options, such as molten salt reactors that can't melt down.

Then, maybe it could reconsider its recent shocking decision to all but abandon earlier CO2 reduction goals.