COINCIDENCE

What a coincidence! Yesterday I was writing about how Japan's nuclear program differs from the US's and the very same evening, I came across an article in Chemical & Engineering News which talked about the future of solar energy. It seems that Japan also beats the US when it comes to the number of households employing solar energy as a partial or complete source of electricity. The reason; the Japanese Government has been providing subsidies to encourage photovoltaic panel production and use throughout the country. The US was doing this, and for some reason that I don't know, stopped subsidies in 1984. The result; Today, Japan is the most sophisticated alternative fuel economy with costs of solar energy almost comparable with natural gas, and definitely with nuclear power.