Ｔｈｅ ｒｅａｓｏｎ ｆｏｒ ’Ａｓｉａ Ｓｕｐｅｒ Ｇｒｉｄ’

When the accident in Fukushima happened, Mr.Son and I rushed to Fukushima.
We worried about the citizens there, and we were strongly impressed by the radiation leaked.
I could not approve of nuclear energy.

We decided to get in the business of spreading renewable energy in Japan as an alternative.

For starters, Mr.Son has set up a new “Japan Renewable Energy Foundation”
I became a board member.

That foundation started its activities last fall with an international symposium, and Son gave a keynote speech where he proposed a “super grid” spanning all Asia.

His proposal of a “super grid” has three stages.

The first phase would deploy a high voltage direct current cable to connect all of Japan. For historic reasons, right now there are almost no interconnections between Western and Eastern Japan. He proposes to change that.

The next step would be adding connections to Russia, Korea, and China. And in a third step that would be extended all over Asia, to build a “super grid”.

From my point of view it was especially interesting that the Asia super grid would extend
right to the Gobi desert.

We set up joint venture with Monglian, Clean Energy Asia on this November.
We will be constructing wind farms for the Mongolian ,China,Japan, and All of
Asian people.
We also believe that this joint venture will contribute to the growth of Asian
Economies.

I would like to elaborate three reasons for Asia super Grid.

One is that this would help to gain stability for energy from renewable sources, since there is always wind or sunshine available somewhere in Asia.

The second reason is that a transnational energy market will lead to lower prices. The European experience with an Internal Market for electricity is clear proof of that.

And the third reason was that this might help to keep peace.

The European Union actually started out with a proposal to put coal resources under a common framework to make another war between France and Germany impossible.
Looking back at over 60 years of history since then, it is fair to say that whatever problems the EU might have, there have not been any wars between France and Germany, so that original goal was achieved.

In the same way, starting out with sharing energy in this way can only help keeping peace in Asia, which is of course extremely important.