Japanese town blazes trail in clean energy

KUZUMAKI, Japan (AFP) – In the mountains of northern Japan, wind, sun and even cow dung are being turned into electricity as part of efforts to turn a whole town into an experiment in renewable energy use.

The town is a sprawling laboratory for the whole of the archipelago, which has almost no fossil fuels of its own and is seeking to diversify its energy sources to reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

It was at the end of the 1990s that Kuzumaki, under its then-mayor Tetsuo Nakamura, made the push into clean energy.

“Global oil stocks were getting scarce. Energy was going to become the issue of the 21st century,” Nakamura recalled.

The urgent task was to safeguard Kuzumaki’s finances in the face of rural depopulation. The mayor set three priorities: the forest industry, dairy farming and clean energy.

AP