[Hisane Masaki provides an excellent survey of the energy challenges confronting Japan while suggesting some of the problems with the new energy policy regime about to be officially adopted by the Koizumi Administration. The issues are pertinent not only to Japan but throughout the Asia Pacific and globally.

First the challenges: Japan, like all other nations, now faces the strong possibility that fossil fuel supplies and energy politics will be fraught in the coming years, resulting in upward pressure on prices. In Tokyo and other parts of Japan, for example, unseasonably cold weather has boosted the demand for fuel, and sharply driven up the cost of heating oil along with winter vegetables and other products. The country's heavy dependence on imported fossil fuels is thus keenly felt by consumers. But it is systemic problems at the regional and global levels that pose the largest problems. Robust economic growth elsewhere, notably in China and India, presents a seemingly insatiable global appetite for more oil and gas. At the same time, the major oil producers have at best minimal margins of spare production capacity. While producers are investing in new sources of supply, the cost of exploration is skyrocketing due to the demand for rigs and other equipment as well as the risks, remoteness and other challenges attendant on new finds.