CNN news 2012-05-09 加文本

cnn news 2012-05-09

AZUZ: One of the challenges Japan`s government is facing is how to get enough electric power to all those people. Up until March of last year, part of the answer was nuclear power. That`s where nearly one-third of Japan`s energy came from.

But that changed after a meltdown at one of the country`s nuclear power plants. Kyung Lah examines the current state of Japan`s energy situation.

KYUNG LAH, cnn CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is a wakeup call, literally, a nighttime visit at the front doorstep of Japan`s prime minister`s residence. Protesters demanding from the top that the world`s third largest economy stay free of nuclear energy.

"Restarting the nuclear reactors is the same as starting a war," says this protestor. "It`s the same as murder." That populist rage boiling more than a year after the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, with reactors still spewing lethal radiation, tens of thousands of evacuees near the plant unable to return home, Fukushima is a worst-case scenario, unifying public fear of nuclear energy.

Post-Fukushima, reactors have come offline in Japan one by one. And when they`ve tried to turn them back on, politicians and utilities have faced a true fight from the community. Japan becomes the first major developed economy to see the modern era without any nuclear energy.

That may be easier said than done. Thirty percent of Japan`s energy came from nuclear. So what`s currently keeping the power on? What`s keeping Japanese factories running? Increased imports of foreign fossil fuels at a huge cost to this economy. And the government and corporate Japan is already saying that it won`t be able to keep up the pace this summer when energy demands peak.

A leading ruling party politician bluntly laid out the repercussions. "We must think ahead to the impact on Japan`s economy and people`s lives if all nuclear reactors are stopped," says Yoshito Sengoku.

Japan`s prime minister has promised a clear energy policy some time this year, perhaps this summer, right in the middle of the biggest test of energy any developed economy has ever seen -- Kyung Lah, cnn, Tokyo.

AZUZ: Japan is an industrialized nation. It has several options available for ways to get energy. But what about smaller countries, where everyone doesn`t have easy access to an outlet? Two inventors came up with a unique way to generate energy. We think you might get a kick out of it, because that`s what you`d have to put into it -- a kick. Brooke Baldwin explains what this means.