B1 · Intermediate
12 min
climateenergy policygeopoliticsjapan
The Tanker and the Storm: Japan, Oil, and the Energy Future
El Barco y la Tormenta: Japón, el Petróleo y el Futuro Energético
A Japanese oil tanker crossed the Strait of Hormuz for the first time since the war began, and that news reveals something deep about Japan's dependence on fossil fuels. Fletcher and Octavio explore why this country imports almost all its energy, what happened after Fukushima, and whether geopolitical crises can accelerate, or delay, the climate transition.
Un petrolero japonés cruzó el Estrecho de Ormuz por primera vez desde que comenzó la guerra, y esa noticia revela algo profundo sobre la dependencia de Japón de los combustibles fósiles. Fletcher y Octavio exploran por qué este país importa casi toda su energía, qué pasó después de Fukushima, y si las crisis geopolíticas pueden acelerar, o retrasar, la transición climática.
6 essential B1-level terms from this episode, with translations and example sentences in Spanish.
| Spanish | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| petrolero | oil tanker | El petrolero cruzó el estrecho cargando petróleo crudo. |
| renovable | renewable | Japón está invirtiendo mucho en energías renovables como la solar. |
| depender de | to depend on | Japón depende del petróleo del Medio Oriente para gran parte de su energía. |
| el gerundio / llevar + gerundio | the gerund / to have been doing (something) for a period of time | Japón lleva décadas importando petróleo del Estrecho de Ormuz. |
| la transición energética | the energy transition | La transición energética es difícil porque necesitas nueva infraestructura. |
| neutro en carbono | carbon neutral | Japón quiere ser neutro en carbono en el año 2050. |
I want to start with one ship.
One tanker, actually.
The Idemitsu Maru, Japanese-flagged, carrying crude oil, and it crossed the Strait of Hormuz this week.
First Japanese tanker to do that since the war started in February.
Sí, y el primer ministro de Japón lo confirmó personalmente.
Yes, and Japan's prime minister confirmed it personally.
Eso me parece importante.
That strikes me as significant.
No es un funcionario menor.
This wasn't a minor official.
Es la persona más importante del país.
It was the most important person in the country.
Right, Sanae Takaichi made a point of saying it publicly.
And when a head of government announces that a single oil tanker made it through a strait, that tells you everything about how desperate the situation has been.
Japón negoció con Irán para que este barco pudiera pasar.
Japan negotiated with Iran to let this ship pass.
No fue fácil.
It wasn't easy.
Japón tiene relaciones diplomáticas con Irán desde hace muchos años, y usó esa relación.
Japan has had diplomatic relations with Iran for many years, and it used that relationship.
And that's where the climate story begins, because why does Japan have to lobby Iran for permission to move oil?
The answer is that Japan imports roughly ninety percent of its energy.
Ninety percent.
It's one of the most energy-dependent wealthy nations on earth.
Japón no tiene muchos recursos naturales.
Japan doesn't have many natural resources.
No tiene mucho petróleo, no tiene mucho gas.
It doesn't have much oil, it doesn't have much gas.
Por eso necesita importar casi todo.
That's why it needs to import almost everything.
It's a geographic and geological reality.
The Japanese archipelago sits on one of the most seismically active zones on the planet, which means you get earthquakes and you get volcanoes, but you don't get oil fields or gas reserves worth speaking of.
Y casi todo el petróleo que importa Japón viene del Medio Oriente.
And almost all the oil Japan imports comes from the Middle East.
Más del noventa por ciento del petróleo pasa por el Estrecho de Ormuz.
More than ninety percent of its oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
Entonces cuando el estrecho está cerrado, Japón tiene un problema muy serio.
So when the strait is closed, Japan has a very serious problem.
Two months of this crisis and a Japanese prime minister is personally celebrating one tanker getting through.
Think about that as a unit of measurement for how badly the closure has hit them.
Pero Japón ya vivió algo parecido antes.
But Japan already lived through something similar before.
En 1973, durante la primera crisis del petróleo, Japón sufrió mucho.
In 1973, during the first oil crisis, Japan suffered greatly.
Las fábricas pararon, los precios subieron, la gente tenía miedo.
Factories stopped, prices rose, people were afraid.
The 1973 oil embargo hit Japan harder than almost anywhere else, precisely because of that dependence.
And the government's response then was actually quite forward-looking.
They poured money into energy efficiency, into industry restructuring.
Japan became one of the most energy-efficient manufacturers in the world partly because of that shock.
Sí, pero después de 1973 Japón también invirtió mucho en energía nuclear.
Yes, but after 1973 Japan also invested heavily in nuclear energy.
La energía nuclear era la solución: no necesitas importar combustible todo el tiempo.
Nuclear power was the solution: you don't need to import fuel all the time.
And by 2010, nuclear was providing about thirty percent of Japan's electricity.
Real strategic progress.
And then March 2011 happened.
Fukushima.
Fukushima.
El terremoto, el tsunami, y el accidente nuclear.
The earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear accident.
Fue una catástrofe.
It was a catastrophe.
Después de Fukushima, Japón cerró casi todas sus plantas nucleares.
After Fukushima, Japan shut down almost all its nuclear plants.
Fifty reactors essentially went offline.
And Japan had to replace all of that electricity almost overnight.
So what did they do?
They burned more oil, more gas, more coal.
The carbon emissions went up immediately.
It was a climate setback of historic proportions.
Y eso es algo que mucha gente no sabe.
And that's something many people don't know.
Japón tenía objetivos climáticos muy ambiciosos antes de Fukushima.
Japan had very ambitious climate targets before Fukushima.
Después del accidente, esos objetivos fueron imposibles porque necesitaban más combustibles fósiles para tener electricidad.
After the accident, those targets became impossible because they needed more fossil fuels to keep the lights on.
There's a genuine tragedy in that.
You make a decision based on public fear after a disaster, and the environmental cost of that decision turns out to be enormous.
The debate in Japan about whether shutting down nuclear was the right call is still live.
Octavio: Mira, yo entiendo el miedo.
Look, I understand the fear.
Fukushima fue terrible para las personas que vivían cerca.
Fukushima was terrible for the people who lived nearby.
Pero el carbón también mata personas, solo que más despacio, y con el cambio climático.
But coal also kills people, just more slowly, and through climate change.
That's actually one of the harder arguments in energy policy, because the risks from nuclear accidents feel immediate and concrete and local, and the risks from carbon emissions feel diffuse and distant and statistical.
Our brains are wired for the former.
Japón empezó a reabrir algunas plantas nucleares después de muchos años.
Japan started reopening some nuclear plants after many years.
Es un proceso muy lento.
It's a very slow process.
La gente todavía tiene miedo, y la burocracia es complicada.
People are still afraid, and the bureaucracy is complicated.
As of last year, something like twelve reactors had come back online out of that original fifty.
So about a quarter.
And the government under Kishida, and now Takaichi, has been pushing for more restarts.
The current crisis has probably accelerated that conversation.
Y al mismo tiempo, Japón está invirtiendo en energías renovables.
And at the same time, Japan is investing in renewable energy.
Tiene muchos paneles solares.
It has a lot of solar panels.
El sol en Japón no es perfecto, pero hay bastante.
The sun in Japan isn't perfect, but there's enough.
Solar has actually grown fast.
Japan went from almost nothing to being one of the top five solar markets globally in about a decade.
But here's the structural problem: Japan is a mountainous archipelago.
Flat land is scarce and expensive.
You can't just carpet the countryside with solar farms.
Y el viento también es complicado.
And wind is complicated too.
Japón tiene muchos tifones.
Japan has many typhoons.
Las turbinas de viento necesitan ser muy resistentes para sobrevivir esos tifones.
Wind turbines need to be very resistant to survive those typhoons.
Es más difícil y más caro que en Europa.
It's harder and more expensive than in Europe.
So you've got this country that's essentially in a permanent energy squeeze.
Not enough fossil fuels of its own, nuclear hobbled by Fukushima's legacy, and geography that makes renewables harder to scale.
And then you layer a war over the Strait of Hormuz on top of all that.
Y esto es importante para el clima global.
And this matters for the global climate.
Japón es la cuarta economía más grande del mundo.
Japan is the fourth largest economy in the world.
Cuando Japón quema más carbón y más gas, las emisiones globales suben.
When Japan burns more coal and more gas, global emissions rise.
Los problemas de Japón son problemas del planeta.
Japan's problems are the planet's problems.
That's the part of this story that keeps pulling me back in.
Because when you look at the Idemitsu Maru crossing the strait, it's easy to read it as just a geopolitical moment.
But it's also a climate moment.
Every barrel of oil on that tanker is a barrel that Japan burns instead of something cleaner.
Pero hay algo interesante aquí.
But there's something interesting here.
Cuando el petróleo es caro o difícil de conseguir, hay más razones económicas para invertir en renovables.
When oil is expensive or hard to get, there are more economic reasons to invest in renewables.
A veces las crisis aceleran el cambio.
Sometimes crises accelerate change.
The 1973 precedent again.
The shock produces the innovation.
You see it with the fuel efficiency standards Japan imposed on car manufacturers after the embargo.
Some of the most efficient engines in the world came out of that pressure.
Sí, y ahora Japón está trabajando mucho en hidrógeno.
Yes, and now Japan is working hard on hydrogen.
El hidrógeno puede reemplazar el petróleo en algunos sectores.
Hydrogen can replace oil in some sectors.
Es limpio cuando lo produces con energía renovable.
It's clean when you produce it with renewable energy.
The hydrogen bet is fascinating and genuinely contested.
Japan has invested billions in it.
But the critics argue that green hydrogen, hydrogen produced from renewable electricity, is still massively expensive and you lose a lot of energy in the conversion process.
The physics are brutal.
Cierto.
True.
Pero Japón tiene una industria de tecnología muy avanzada.
But Japan has a very advanced technology industry.
Toyota, por ejemplo, lleva muchos años desarrollando coches con hidrógeno.
Toyota, for example, has been developing hydrogen cars for many years.
No es solo una idea, ya existen.
It's not just an idea, they already exist.
The Mirai.
I drove one, briefly, a few years ago when I was out in California for a conference.
Very smooth, no emissions from the tailpipe, refueling takes three minutes.
The problem is there are almost no hydrogen stations.
The infrastructure just isn't there.
Y eso es el problema clásico del cambio de energía.
And that's the classic problem of energy transition.
Necesitas la infraestructura para usar la nueva tecnología, pero la gente no compra la nueva tecnología sin la infraestructura.
You need the infrastructure to use the new technology, but people don't buy the new technology without the infrastructure.
Es un círculo.
It's a circle.
The chicken-and-egg problem of every energy transition in history.
You had the same thing with gasoline cars in the early 1900s.
The first gas stations were pharmacies.
People bought fuel in cans.
Entonces la pregunta es: ¿esta crisis, con el estrecho cerrado y el petróleo difícil de conseguir, va a acelerar la transición en Japón?
So the question is: will this crisis, with the strait closed and oil hard to get, accelerate the transition in Japan?
¿O Japón va a buscar más petróleo en otros lugares y nada va a cambiar?
Or will Japan just look for oil elsewhere and nothing will change?
My read, for whatever it's worth, is that it's both at the same time.
In the short term, Japan scrambles for supply, burns whatever it can get.
In the medium term, the political appetite for alternatives grows.
A crisis of this scale leaves a scar in the national memory, and that scar becomes the argument for the next round of energy investment.
Sí, estoy de acuerdo.
Yes, I agree.
Y hay otra cosa importante: Japón tiene compromisos climáticos serios.
And there's another important thing: Japan has serious climate commitments.
Quiere ser neutral en carbono en 2050.
It wants to be carbon neutral by 2050.
Ese objetivo no desapareció porque el estrecho esté cerrado.
That goal didn't disappear because the strait is closed.
Carbon neutral by 2050.
Every major economy has that or something like it on the books.
The question that's always plagued me, covering these commitments over the years, is whether 2050 is a real deadline or a comfortable horizon that lets today's politicians feel virtuous without making hard choices.
Fletcher, eres muy pesimista a veces.
Fletcher, you're very pessimistic sometimes.
Pero tienes razón.
But you're right.
El año 2050 está muy lejos para un político.
The year 2050 is very far away for a politician.
Los políticos piensan en las próximas elecciones, no en el próximo clima.
Politicians think about the next election, not the next climate.
Not pessimistic.
Just a journalist.
We count the things people say and then we count the things they do and we write about the gap.
The gap is usually informative.
Oye, quiero volver a algo que dijiste antes.
Hey, I want to go back to something you said earlier.
Usaste la frase 'llevas años haciendo esto' cuando hablabas de Toyota.
You used a phrase similar to 'you've been doing this for years' when talking about Toyota.
En español, esa construcción es muy útil: llevar más años desarrollando algo.
In Spanish, that construction is very useful: llevar más años desarrollando algo.
¿La conoces?
Do you know it?
Llevar plus...
something with a verb ending in -ando?
I think I've heard you use it but I couldn't tell you the rule.
Walk me through it.
Sí.
'Llevar' plus time plus the gerund.
'Llevar' más tiempo más el gerundio.
For example: 'Japan has been importing oil from the Middle East for decades.' It means it started in the past and it's still continuing now.
Por ejemplo: 'Japón lleva décadas importando petróleo del Medio Oriente.' Significa que empezó en el pasado y todavía continúa ahora.
So it's doing the job that English handles with 'have been doing.' Japan has been importing oil for decades.
Japón lleva décadas importando petróleo.
That's elegant, actually.
More compact than the English version.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y puedes usar cualquier periodo de tiempo: llevo dos horas escuchando a Fletcher hablar de petroleros.
And you can use any period of time: I've been listening to Fletcher talk about oil tankers for two hours.
Two hours.
That's generous.
And probably accurate.
Llevo...
llevo un episodio hablando de barcos y Japón y creo que es suficiente.