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Japan, the Persian Gulf and Energy
Over the past week, everything seemed to converge on energy. The unrest
in the Persian Gulf raised the specter of the disruption of oil supplies
to the rest of the world,
and an earthquake in Japan knocked out a string of nuclear reactors
with potentially devastating effect. Japan depends on nuclear energy and
it depends on the Persian Gulf,
which is where it gets most of its oil. It was, therefore, a profoundly
bad week for Japan, not only because of the extensive damage and human
suffering but also because Japan was being shown that it can’t readily
escape the realities of geography.
Japan is the world’s third-largest economy, a bit behind China now. It is also the third-largest industrial economy, behind only the United States and China. Japan’s problem is that its enormous industrial plant is built in a country almost totally devoid of mineral resources. It must import virtually all of the metals and energy that it uses to manufacture industrial products. It maintains stockpiles, but should those stockpiles be depleted and no new imports arrive, Japan stops being an industrial power. Read more »
Japan is the world’s third-largest economy, a bit behind China now. It is also the third-largest industrial economy, behind only the United States and China. Japan’s problem is that its enormous industrial plant is built in a country almost totally devoid of mineral resources. It must import virtually all of the metals and energy that it uses to manufacture industrial products. It maintains stockpiles, but should those stockpiles be depleted and no new imports arrive, Japan stops being an industrial power. Read more »
