2014 NDI 6WS – Fitzmier, Lundberg,
Abelkop
Japan Counterplan
**Generic Oceans**
1NC Shell
Text: Japan should <plan text>.
Japan solves ocean exploration and development
JAAT, 2001 (Japan Atlas Advanced Technology, offers presentations on a variety of topics to anyone interested in the nature, traditions,
and current social trends of Japan, “Japan Marine Science and Technology Center”, JAAT, 02/01/2001, http://webjapan.org/atlas/technology/tec03.html)
Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC) is the center of excellence for oceanographic
research
in Japan. The
Center carries out a wide range of research, not only at the deep sea bottom, but
also into technology for oceanographic observation and commercial development of the oceans .
JAMSTEC operates two submersible survey vessels that have made the Center world famous for its
deep-sea technology: the manned Shinkai 6500, which can carry out oceanographic data collection work at any depth down to 6,500
meters (21,325 feet); and the unmanned Kaiko. Launched in 1989, the Shinkai 6500 succeeded in diving down to 6,527 meters (21,414 feet) in
August of the same year. In March 1995 Kaiko
carried out test dives in the Mariana Trench, at 10,911.4 meters (35,798
feet), the deepest in the world. The various data that Kaiko collected during this probing was valuable.
Thanks to Shinkai 6500 and Kaiko, it became clear that the sea from a depth of a few hundred meters, down to several thousand meters
represents a variety of ecological formations. For example, we now know that the deep-sea mud at a depth of over 10,000 meters (32,808
feet), a zone of ultrahigh water pressure (about 1000 times greater than air pressure at sea level) and low temperatures (2 degrees Centigrade
(35.6 degrees Fahrenheit)) provides a home for about 180 kinds of micro-organisms.
2NC Solvency
Japan solves ocean exploration
Cizdziel & Kawai, 05/28/2014 (Paul E. Cizdziel, Chair Hiromichi Yaju, Kyoko Murakami, Vice-Chairs Michel Weenick, Board
Liaison ACCJ Biosciences Subcommittee; Makoto Kawai, Austin Auger, Co-chairs Christopher Beetham, Vice Chair Rebecca K. Green, Board
Liaison ACCJ Environment Committee, “Deep Sea Exploration by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)”, The
American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, 05/28/2014, http://www.accj.or.jp/en/events/details/21949-deep-sea-exploration-by-the-japanagency-for-marine-earth-science-and-technology-jamstec)
JAMSTEC is one of the largest, most active and accomplished research agencies in the world . It
operates 7 research vessels, one manned deep-sea submersible, four autonomous underwater
vehicles, and three remotely operated underwater vehicles. In addition, the agency is operating a
scientific drilling ship "Chikyu". The fleet is so strong that sediments, rocks and organisms from water
depths exceeding 7000 m or from depths more than 2000 m below the surface of the ocean bottom have been collected so far.
Based on such high technologies, JAMSTEC have carried out a variety of unique sciences, s uch as
observation of fault rock that caused the Tohoku great earthquake, and biological research of microbes living in the ultra-deep
biosphere.
Japan technology and research solves
Ryall, 01/17/2014 (Julian Ryall, Tokyo DW Correspondent, “Japan hopes seabed will yield data and resources”, DW, 01/17/2014,
http://www.dw.de/japan-hopes-seabed-will-yield-data-and-resources/a-17369799)
With scant energy and mineral reserves of its own, and nuclear plants mothballed since the Fukushima nuclear disaster,
Japan is
investing heavily in exploring beneath the oceans for resources that will power its future . On the first
day of 2014, the Japanese research ship Chikyu set a new record by drilling down to a point 3,000
meters beneath the seabed off southern Japan. It was an appropriate way to ring in the new year and signals an increased
commitment to learning more about the secrets that lay beneath the floor of the ocean close to Japan. The
research has two distinct but connected driving forces. As Japan prepares to mark the third anniversary of the March 11 Great East Japan
Earthquake, the Chikyu is undertaking the most extensive survey ever attempted of the Nankai Trough, a geological fault that extends for
several hundred kilometers parallel to the southern coast of Japan and widely seen as the source of the next major earthquake that will affect
this tremor-prone nation. And with all of Japan's nuclear reactors presently mothballed in the aftermath of the disaster, which destroyed the
Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, there is a new sense of urgency in the search for sources of energy and other natural resources close to Japan.
2NC Generic US Models
The US models Japanese ocean research and development
Bruch, 1994 (VL Bruch, “An assessment of research and development leadership in ocean energy technologies”, Science Tech Connect,
04/01/1994, http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/10154003)
Japan is clearly the leader in ocean energy technologies . The United Kingdom also has had many ocean energy research
unlike Japan, most of the British projects have not progressed from the feasibility study stage to
the demonstration stage. Federally funded ocean energy research in the US was stopped because it
was perceived the technologies could not compete with conventional sources of fuel. Despite the probable
small market for ocean energy technologies, the short sighted viewpoint of the US government regarding funding of
these technologies may be harmful to US economic competitiveness. The technologies may have
important uses in other applications, such as offshore construction and oil and gas drilling. Discontinuing the research
and development of these technologies may cause the US to lose knowledge and miss market opportunities. If the
US wishes to maintain its knowledge base and a market presence for ocean energy technologies, it
may wish to consider entering into a cooperative agreement with Japan and/or the United Kingdom. Cooperative
projects, but
agreements are beneficial not only for technology transfer but also for cost-sharing.
AT: No Tech
Japan technology has the tech for widespread ocean exploration
Kantei, 2008 (Kantei, “Basic Plan on Ocean Policy”, Kantei, 03/15/2008,
http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/kaiyou/kihonkeikaku/080318kihonkeikaku_E.pdf)
Basic research that brings about a variety of knowledge and innovation should be carried out
continuously, considering the importance of steady and earnest pursuit of truth and accumulation of trial and error results. As the
“Marine-Earth Observation System”, which employs Japan’s original seafloor exploration technology that
enables exploration of underwater seismogenic zones and seabed resources, was positioned as one of the “Key
Technology of National Importance” (Science and Technology selected by Council for Science and Technology Policy based on the 3rd Science
and Technology Basic Plan), technological issues that should be studied strategically and intensively have been selected carefully. Steady
efforts need to be made to promote studies on these issues and to achieve good results. Since marinerelated phenomena are closely associated with each other, these various issues should be dealt with by combining wide-ranging research fields
including humanities and social sciences, and it is also necessary to enhance research activities based on free thinking from the viewpoint of
researchers. Marine
surveys have been conducted by methods most suitable for respective survey purposes, depending on
as fishery resource management, seabed resource development, global warming
countermeasures, marine biodiversity conservation, maritime transport safety, and marine earthquake
countermeasures. Based on survey purposes set by respective government-affiliated agencies, marine surveys should be enhanced
administrative fields, such
mainly for marine zones for which sufficient data have yet to be accumulated, and at the same time, information-sharing should be further
promoted under the coordination and cooperation of related agencies so that marine surveys can be conducted in a more efficient and
effective manner.
In order to lead the world in promoting marine surveys, ships and facilities with the
most-advanced functions are necessary. At present, some of the ships and facilities are rather old and survey activities have
been partly restricted due to recent soaring fuel prices. Therefore, information-sharing of survey plans and streamlining
of surveys should be promoted, and development and operation of facilities and equipment need to be carried out in a planned
manner, while flexibly responding to circumstances including changes in fuel costs, etc. Furthermore, for promoting comprehensive
ocean policy, respective agencies have to collaborate and cooperate with each other to conduct marine surveys intensively on basic
information necessary for management of the sea.
AT: Perm Both
Strong U.S. Japan Ties cause East Asian instability and kills Chinese Democracy
Nye and Armitage 7 [Joseph Nye University Distinguished Service Professor and Richard
Armitage Deputy Secretary of State, “The U.S. Japan Alliance”, Feburary 2007,
http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/070216_asia2020.pdf ]
At the same time, however, a
bipolar structure with only the United States and Japan facing China would be
ineffective, because it would force other regional powers to choose between two competing poles.
Some might side with the United States and Japan, but most regional powers would choose strict
neutrality or align with China. Ultimately, this would weaken the powerful example of American and
Japanese democracy and return the region to a Cold War or nineteenth century balance-of-power logic
that does not favor stability in the region or contribute to China’s potential for positive change. Stability
in East Asia will rest on the quality of U.S.-Japan-China relations, and even though the United States is
closely allied with Japan, Washington should encourage good relations among all three.
Asian Instability causes nuclear war
Dibb 1 (Paul, Professor at the Australian National University “Strategic Trends: Asia at a Crossroads”, Naval War College Review, Winter 2001,
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/2001/Winter/art2-w01.htm)
The areas of maximum danger
and instability in the world today are in Asia, followed by the Middle East and parts
of the former Soviet Union. The strategic situation in Asia is more uncertain and potentially threatening than
anywhere in Europe. Unlike in Europe, it is possible to envisage war in Asia involving the major powers: remnants
of Cold War ideological confrontation still exist across the Taiwan Straits and on the Korean Peninsula; India and
Pakistan have nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and these two countries are more confrontational than at any time since the
early 1970s; in Southeast Asia, Indonesia—which is the world’s fourth-largest country—faces a highly uncertain future that
could lead to its breakup. The Asia-Pacific region spends more on defense (about $150 billion a year) than any other
part of the world except the United States and Nato Europe. China and Japan are amongst the top four or five
global military spenders. Asia also has more nuclear powers than any other region of the world. Asia’s
security is at a crossroads: the region could go in the direction of peace and cooperation, or it could slide into
confrontation and military conflict. There are positive tendencies, including the resurgence of economic growth and the spread of
democracy, which would encourage an optimistic view. But there are a number of negative tendencies that must be of
serious concern. There are deep-seated historical, territorial, ideological, and religious differences in
Asia. Also, the region has no history of successful multilateral security cooperation or arms control. Such multilateral institutions as the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the ASEAN Regional Forum have shown themselves to be ineffective when confronted with major
crises.
**Japanese Soft Power NB**
1NC Shell
Ocean development is k2 Japanese maritime soft power- the cp is key
OPRF 2014 (Ocean Policy Research Foundation, NGO in consultative status with the economic and social council of the United Nations,
April 21, 2014. “Promoting Co-Existence between Man and the Ocean.”, OPRF, https://www.sof.or.jp/en/about/foreword.php)//NR
In looking at Japan as a maritime state, its capabilities in aspects of "hard-power," such as shipbuilding, maritime transport,
ports and harbors, naval security and economics are world-class . Even in the various maritime industries, though sometimes
described as "fading," it maintains a reputation for excellence.
What is lacking are the "soft power" attributes expected of a
leading maritime state; in other words, the capabilities heretofore not sufficiently exercised in the fields of marine
environment conservation, sustainable use and development, safety and security, comprehensive and integrated
ocean management, promotion of ocean science and education , and international coordination. In order for
Japan to continue its evolution as a leading maritime state , it is essential that it acquire these attributes of soft
power, in addition to its hard power capabilities, for the continued development of healthy maritime industries.
And maritime soft power is the key lynchpin to overall Japanese soft power and
international perception- it’s reverse causal
Terashima 2002 (Hiroshi Terashima, Executive director or the Nippon Foundation, April 20 2002. “The Urgent Need for Japan to Establish
an Ocean Policy.” Ocean Policy Research Foundation, http://www.sof.or.jp/en/news/1_50/41_3.php)//NR
there can be no debate that the oceans are key to Japan's future development . Against the
background of unprecedented levels of global trade, the biological and mineral resources of the ocean and the ability
to transport them safely and economically by ship are prerequisites for our future development. Moreover,
international consultation on ocean issues, cooperation, and technology transfers are fields in which
Japan should rightly be playing leading roles , given its prominence in technology and commerce. Japan should exercise
leadership in these ocean initiatives to meet growing expectations in the international community.
However, as stated above, Japan has failed to realize the national importance of adopting an ocean policy, and
has therefore not developed a clear stance, amidst competition and coordination, on how to participate with other
countries in the creation of a new international legal regime on the seas. As a result, it has been most difficult to
As an island nation,
communicate effectively and develop appropriate responses at the many United Nations fora and other international conferences on the oceans held in recent
This year is an important turning point , as the twentieth year since the adoption of UNCLOS and the tenth since the World Summit at
Rio. Now is the time for Japan to remedy its long neglect, set out an ocean policy based on the new philosophy of
ocean governance, and, along with creating an infrastructure to implement sustainable development and use of the oceans, to
years.
exercise an international leadership role as an ocean nation . It is my hope that our policy recommendations might be useful in
bringing about these changes.
Otherwise, it is inevitable that Japan will be left behind in the global initiatives
now being undertaken, and risk losing the very base of its future development.
Japanese soft power solves financial stability, climate change, energy, and East Asia
stability- extinction
TJF 2009 (The Japan Foundation (first organization that specializes in international cultural exchange in Japan. “Japan & US Soft Power:
Addressing Global Challenges”, FULBRIGHT/CULCON JOINT SYMPOSIUM, 12 June 2009 https://www.jpf.go.jp/culcon/fulbrightculcon/dl/softpower_summary.pdf)
2. The keynote
speeches were given by Professor Joseph S. Nye, Jr. of Harvard University (video-recorded) and Professor
Hiroshi Komiyama, President Emeritus, University of Tokyo. Joseph Nye set the framework for discussions by saying that
power means the ability to affect others to get the outcomes that one wants, which can be done in three
different ways: threaten people with coercion (“sticks”); pay people or induce them (“carrots”); or get people
to want the outcomes that you want (“soft power”). The sources of soft power come from a country’s
culture, its values and its policies. Japan, with its traditional and popular culture, many of its values – a stable society –, and its
policies framed on the need for broader legitimacy, is well placed in terms of exercising soft power . As for the US, President
Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have made clear that America must use what has been called ‘smart power,’ the full range of tools at its
disposal. Stability
in East Asia rests on a triangle of good relations between the major powers – the US,
Japan and China. However, this is not an equilateral triangle; the US and Japan are closest because of their security alliance. The
traditional security alliance also contributes to a public good in that it helps create stability in East Asia on which the region’s prosperity rests.
There is a new, non-traditional realm for cooperation between the US and Japan as well as with other
countries, that is, global public goods, such as the UN Peacekeeping Operations, global financial stability, global
climate change, or energy and environment. Japan has been playing a leading role, through its
creativity and technology, on energy efficiency, and, through its ODA, on development and eradication of
poverty. There could be a cooperative strategy in which Japan and the US can work together using
their technologies and skills to work with the Chinese to lead to cleaner coal burning inside China.
2NC Internal Link
Japanese development of the oceans is key to global cooperation and soft power- the
cp is key
UNESCO 2007 (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, IOC Technical Series 75, National Ocean Policy of
Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Russian Federation, and the United States of America, Chapter 6: National
Ocean Policy of Japan, April 27, 2007. “National Ocean Policy of Japan.” http://www.jodc.go.jp/info/ioc_doc/Technical/158387e.pdf)//NR
Article 1 Purpose Given that the
oceans, which cover a large portion of the globe, are indispensable to all life , including the
human species, and that, amidst international efforts to achieve the sustainable development and
exploitation of the oceans, it is important for Japan , surrounded as it is by sea, to become a new oceanoriented nation striving for harmony between the peaceful and positive development and
exploitation of the oceans and the conservation of the marine environment, in cooperation with the
inter-national community
and in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and other international
agreements, the purpose of this Act is to set out basic principles, to clarify the responsibilities of central and local government, business
operators and members of the public in regard to the oceans, to formulate a basic plan in regard to the oceans and prescribe other basic
matters concerning measures relating to the oceans and, lastly, by establishing a Headquarters for Ocean Policy, to promote measures relating
to the oceans in a comprehensive and systematic manner and thus con- tribute to the sound development of the economy and society of
Japan, improve the stability of life for its people and promote the peaceful coexistence of humanity and the oceans. Article 2 Harmonization of
the development and exploitation of the oceans with conservation of the marine environment Given
that the development and
exploitation of the oceans is the basis for the existence of the economy and society of Japan, and that
securing marine bio- diversity and otherwise conserving good marine environmental conditions are essential to the survival of humanity and
indispensable if the Japanese people are to enjoy full and prosperous lives, the
development and exploitation of the oceans
must be pursued in a positive manner, with a view to making possible the sustainable development and exploitation of the
oceans while promoting the conservation of the marine environment, so that the people may enjoy the benefits of the oceans into the future.
Article 3 Ensuring the safety and security of the oceans Given
that it is important for Japan, which is surrounded by sea, that
the safety and security of the oceans should be ensured, positive efforts shall be made to this end. Article 4 Advancing
scientific knowledge of the oceans Given that scientific knowledge of the oceans is indispensable for the appropriate development and
exploitation of the oceans and for the conser- vation of the marine environment, and that many matters relating to the oceans have yet to be
ex- plained in scientific terms, measures shall be taken to advance scientific knowledge of the oceans. Article 5 Sound development of ocean
industries Given that industries concerned with the devel- opment, exploitation and conservation of the oceans (hereinafter referred to as
'ocean indus- tries") are essential to the sound development of Japan's economy and society and to the stabiliza- tion and improvement of the
life of the Japanese people, measures shall be taken to promote their sound development. Article 6 Comprehensive governance of the oceans
Given that issues relating to ocean resources, the marine environment, maritime transport, and the safety and security of the oceans are
closely inter- related and need to be considered as a whole, governance of the development, exploitation and conservation of the oceans shall
be pursued in a comprehensive and integrated manner. Article 7 International partnership with regard to the oceans Article 7 International
partnership with regard to the oceans Given
that the ocean is the common heritage of all humanity, and that the economy and
society of Japan are closely dependent on those of other countries, measures relating to the oceans
shall be pursued through international partnership, so that Japan may play a leading role in the
estab- lishment and development of international order in regard to the oceans .
Japanese ocean development is k2 soft power and improved international perception
Sekine 2011 (B.A. University of Wollongong, Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security “Seapower and Japan's maritime
coalition building” http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4567&context=theses)
The oceans are indispensable for the national strategy of all states , even those which are landlocked. The concept
of seapower has been studied extensively and it has been pointed out that seapower
serves as an important national
strategic tool for a maritime state. Today, the ever-increasing significance of seapower is in little doubt. The ocean and its
strategic consequences have shaped
Japan
In modern history,
political cultures and the details of historical
development of states, including
Japan's geo-strategic orientation has been a key factor in Japan's international
political status , its national power and its strategic environment. It has been most successful when it has pursued a
maritime orientation involving cooperative engagement with other maritime partner states. For maritime
states, appropriate geopolitical and alliance polices are essential when considering grand strategy. This is particularly the case for a
sea-girt state like Japan, because ocean space cannot be controlled by a single power, and maritime states must calculate the
strategic relationship between landpower and seapower for their security and defense, as discussed in Chapter 2. Japan is currently undergoing
some change in outlook, as it expands its maritime orientation beyond just its close alliance relationship with the Unites States to develop
relationships with other security partnerships and to play a greater role in protecting the international maritime system upon which it so greatly
depends. This thesis is the first study that takes an integrated approach to the theory of seapower and maritime-oriented coalitions with
respect to Japan, and does so at a propitious time, as Japan's
maritime diplomacy widens and its international
engagement grows.
Ocean Exploration is key to Japanese world perception
MEXT 2012 (The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology for Japan, July 8, 2012.
http://www.mext.go.jp/component/english/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2012/08/07/1324370_11.pdf)
For Japan to achieve sustainable growth and lead the world amidst rapidly-changing conditions,
such as tightening supplies of resources and energy, global warming and frequent occurrence of
natural disasters, a long-term national strategy is vital , along with carefully-selected and promoted
key technologies. To this end, the government selected five Key Technologies of National Importance, namely “space transportation
system,” “earth observation and
ocean exploration system ,” “FBR cycle technologies,” “next-generation supercomputer,” and “x-
ray free electron laser” upon the formulation of the 3rd Basic Plan and sectoral promotion strategy
2NC Zero-Sum
US-Japanese ocean leadership is zero-sum – gains made by Japan undercut the US
Kinane 2007 (Sean Kinane, writer for WMNF, June 11, 2007. “Ed Begley, Jr. and Phillipe Costeau mark World Ocean Day.”
http://www.wmnf.org/news_stories/4386)//NR
Dr. Frank Muller-Karger is a professor of Biological Oceanography in USFs College of Marine Science and serves on the U.S. Commission on
Ocean Policy. He listed several changes that need to be made to the nations emphasis on science in
order to remain a world
leader. We need to strengthen education, especially ocean education, science education. We are falling behind
Europe; we are falling behind people in China and
Japan . They are generating more PhDs than we are. We need to incorporate
science in decision-making. Scientists do their own thing at academic institutions and managers of resources do their own thing in their
structures in government. All of this really needs money. And that’s really where
our government is falling flat . Because we
are funding oceanography and ocean science at the same levels that we did thirty years ago
past three or four years, that actually has gone down. And
we cannot allow that to happen any further.
and in the
2NC Senkaku Module
Japanese soft power is key to China-Japan relations – that’s key to solve Senkaku
conflict and overall relations
Panda 2013 (Ankit Panda, writer for The Diplomat, News agency on the Asia-Pacific region, December 18, 2013. “Soft Power and ChinaJapan Relations.” http://thediplomat.com/2013/12/soft-power-and-china-japan-relations/)//NR
Soft power won’t solve all problems for these East Asian neighbors, but it can ease the path away from brinksmanship .
Hard power is the predominant realist mode of measuring power, relative and absolute. We measure military and economic capabilities and
draw conclusions about a given state’s ability to seek the outcomes it desires from other political actors – friend or foe. Generally, this is a
useful model for thinking about states’ options and underlies a good deal of contemporary analysis in international security. In
East Asia,
alliance networks (particularly with South Korea and Japan), have kept conflict at
bay, despite widespread mistrust and resentment (between U.S. allies and China). In the East Asian security equation,
there seems to be little interest in challenging the tense current status quo. Using the East China Sea dispute
over the Diaoyu/ Senkaku islands as a case in point, it is evident that the stand off between China and Japan
shows no signs of drawing down due to third-party mediation, international arbitration, bilateral diplomacy, or unilateral
capitulation. While current trends are subject to change with a unilateral policy revision by either China
hard power distributions, buttressed by U.S.
or Japan , the probability of a skirmish – or indeed war
–
is not remote . Much has been said of China’s approach to
the dispute – especially recently following its decision to unilaterally declare an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over a large swathe of
the East China Sea, claiming airspace over the disputed islets in the process. What is remarkable about the escalation over the islets, which
really came to the fore of the mainstream media after a Chinese fishing boat collided with a Japanese Coast Guard patrol in 2010, is that so far
we’ve seen hard power brinksmanship almost exclusively. Neither China nor Japan – both relatively mature international actors – have taken
steps outside this rubric to address the dispute. Most visibly, soft
power is almost entirely absent from the BeijingTokyo relationship today. If there were some soft power coefficient to describe the rate at which perceptions
between the two countries are changing, it would be a negative number . Opinion surveys show that perceptions
that close to nine in ten Chinese feel negatively about Japan, and eight in ten Japanese harbor negative sentiments towards China. Back in
2007, when China’s “peaceful rise” rhetoric was in vogue in the Hu-Wen era, certain analysts of Chinese affairs grew optimistic at Hu Jintao’s
declaration that China would pursue “soft power” globally – that Hu proclaimed this in his keynote speech to the 17th National Congress of the
Communist Party of China suggested that as China rose, it might escape the Thucydidean trap in East Asia. One of Hu’s dictums on soft power
was that the CPC ought to “step up the development of the press, publishing, radio, film, television, literature and art, give correct guidance to
the public and foster healthy social trends.” Today, the CPC conditions Chinese journalists to broach the issue of China-Japan relations and the
Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute within an ideologically prescribed rubric, intended to fan nationalist sentiment against Japan. In general,
there
seem to be no serious attempts by either China or Japan to improve mutual perceptions. If Japan was
trying to elect a Prime Minister who would be most likely to provoke China on contentious historical issues, it certainly succeeded with the
election of Shinzo Abe. Continued visits to Yasukuni shrine, among other slights, will remain deleterious to Japanese soft power towards China.
Soft power’s progenitor, Joseph S. Nye, conceived it as the ability to influence the behavior of another state through non-hard power means –
encompassing culture, values, and ideology. Despite its heterodox allure compared to brutish realist concerns about hard power distributions, it
does have its limitations. China in the Xi-Li era seems to have recognized that while a Chinese pursuit of soft power globally might be
worthwhile, only calculated realist maneuvering will protect Chinese interests in East Asia – not only vis-a-vis Japan, but also in the South China
Sea. As Minxin Pei wrote recently on the ADIZ, the “peaceful rise” meme seems to have been tossed out the window. Japan, in contrast to
China, is a top performer when it comes to soft power. Monocle rated Japan as sixth globally in its 2012 soft power survey. It just doesn’t seem
to be able to exercise the benefits of being a soft power virtuoso regionally. China also has strong incentives to not channel its soft power
energies towards Japan. The CPC perceives that fanning mainland Chinese nationalism against Japan has the potential to stave off any
legitimacy crises for the government in the short-term. As Thomas Christensen has written, “Chinese policymakers are hypersensitive to
nationalist criticism at home and more rigid – at times even arrogant – in response to perceived challenges abroad.” This has led to a situation
where the only acceptable mode of criticism within China of the party and of Chinese foreign policy emerges from a nationalist angle. If
perceptions improved between China and Japan, one would imagine the the process of broaching a negotiated solution would be far simpler.
Imagine a territorial dispute between the United States and Canada – this sort of brinksmanship seems almost unimaginable. Unfortunately, we
have a status quo where Chinese
and Japanese diplomats haven’t spoken at a high level in over 14 months
and mistrust endures, leading to brinksmanship.
Senkaku conflict escalates-extinction
Khan 2010 (Maswood Financial Express, September 22, “An islet straining China and Japan” http://www.thefinancialexpressbd.com/more.php?news_id=112447&date=2010-09-22)
ONE thing leads to another. Tensions between neighbours flare up at the slightest provocation mostly on a
trivial issue sparking first a regional conflict leading ultimately to a World War . Such is the history of the First
World War and the Second World War. The explosives that had blasted during the First World War had been long in the stockpiling.
But the spark that detonated the first explosive of the First World War was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the AustroHungarian throne, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. A six-year long Second World War was brewing up when Adolf Hitler was planning to grab more
land, especially in the east, to expand Germany according to the Nazi policy of lebensraum. But the spark of the Second World War was ignited
on the night of August 31, 1939, when Nazis took an unknown prisoner from one of their concentration camps, dressed him in a Polish uniform,
took him to the town of Gleiwitz (on the border of Poland and Germany), and then shot him. The staged scene with the dead prisoner dressed
in a Polish uniform was made to appear as a Polish attack against a German radio station. Hitler used the staged attack as the excuse to invade
Poland that started the full-scale World War II. With bitter and horrific experiences of the two World Wars all nations and superpowers are
extraordinarily circumspect in dealing with tussles among rivals to make sure that a small conflict does not flare into a global conflagration
leading to a World War because a Third World War this time must result in "Mutual Assured Destruction", a doctrine known by its most suitable
acronym MAD. "Mutual Assured Destruction" is a policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively
result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender. The necessity of a conventional World War however seems to have been
obviated by a new strategy that contains a regional war from being flared into a World War but serves the purpose of a World War---the
purpose of selling arms and ammunitions, flexing muscles of power and establishing economic and military supremacy. Such wars, sometimes
in the name of peacekeeping, sometimes for ensuring energy security and at times on the pretext of ousting a terrorist, are continually being
waged here and there at different strategic locations in the world---the latest one being in Iraq for fear of Saddam Hussein possessing 'weapons
of mass destructions' (WMD) and the ongoing one in Afghanistan for vanishing Osama bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader, though both the fear of
Saddam possessing WMD or the trace of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan have been proven dismally false. America is still "Number One"
superpower in the world---both militarily and economically. China is also one of the superpowers in terms of military and economic strength
though the country still claims itself as a developing country considering a low per capita income on the law of average for its 1.3 billion people.
After their defeat in the Second World War Japan is no more a military power but till the other day it was the second economic superpower
before the country was humbled by China which is now the second strongest economy in the world and is poised to become "Number One" in a
matter of years. Anti-Japanese sentiment in China is historically very old and still raw. A defeat of Japan at the hands of
China in the economic front must have bolstered the Chinese who had suffered many military defeats at the
hands of Japan and the defeat must have humiliated Japan which used to boast about many of their miracles that
reshaped the behavior and strategy of modern global business. Now a new dispute has cropped up which may re-ignite
anti-Japanese sentiment in China and which may turn out to be an ominous spark to ignite explosives that have
been stockpiled in the minds of the Chinese since their military defeat at the hands of the Japanese about eighty
years back. A row between China and Japan erupted since September 7th , when the Japanese authorities arrested the crew
of a Chinese fishing boat which Japan claimed had rammed into one or two Japanese patrol boats that were attempting to shoo the fishing
vessel away. The row has become emotive in China as Japanese authorities detained the fishing boat's captain
though the rest of the crew was released. The row would not have been so serious had the ramming not taken
place near an islet Japan named Senkaku and China Diaoyu---an uninhabitable islet that both countries claim as their own
and regard as important not only as a marker for their wider territorial claims but also for its mining potentials as
the small mass of land is perched on the oil-rich East China Sea. It is not yet clear why and how the ramming took place and why Japan has still
been detaining the captain of the fishing vessel in spite of China's repeated calls for his release. Was the ramming a deliberate attempt by a
Chinese citizen to flaunt his country's newly achieved status of second economic superpower? Was the detention of the captain of the fishing
vessel a semblance of revenge Japan took to assuage pains of their recent defeat at the hands of China in the economic race? Was the captain
of the fishing vessel drunk? Or, was the whole incident something called "staged"? China has suspended all bilateral talks with Japan. Japan
however has called for calm in the wake of China's apparent decision to suspend top-level ties. The incident has also sparked resentment
among the Chinese public, which still has strong feelings about atrocities committed by Japanese forces when they occupied swathes of China
before and during the Second World War. Demonstrations in Beijing, diatribes on the internet and fulminations in some Chinese newspapers
over the incident with anti-Japan chants, talks and banners mysteriously coincided with a politically sensitive anniversary of an incident
occurred about eighty years back on September 18. It was on 18 September in 1931 when an incident called "Mukden Incident" took place that
led to the Japanese occupation of China's northeast and eventually the invasion and conquest of much of China. The "Mukden Incident" was an
early event in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Somewhat similar to 9/11 attack in 2001 in New York, on 9/18 in 1931, near Mukden (now
Shenyang) in southern Manchuria, a section of railroad owned by Japan's South Manchuria Railway was dynamited as an act of sabotage. While
the responsibility for this act of sabotage remains a subject of controversy, the prevailing view is that Japanese militarists staged
the explosion in order to provide a pretext for war. One thing leads to another. If the new row between China
and Japan is allowed to simmer for long a war in the pacific, if not a war engulfing the whole world, may be in
the offing---this time China showing its muscle to Japan the way America showed its muscle to Iraq.
2NC ASEAN Module
Japanese soft power is k2 prevent marginalization of ASEAN- squo ensures it becomes
polarized and ineffective
Kitazume 2012 (Takashi Kitazume, writer for Japan Times, December 12, 2012. “ASEAN jittery over major power rivalry in Asia.”
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2012/12/12/business/asean-jittery-over-major-power-rivalry-in-asia/#.U8RBxPldUlI)//NR
“As
long as ASEAN is able to play the central role, then we do have a multilateral setting in the region
where all the major powers can come together. Now I don’t take that for granted anymore because of all these differences
in interests, differences of strategic orientation among ASEAN member states,” he said. “When ASEAN cannot maintain its
unity, it will be polarized in the coming game of major power politics, and once ASEAN gets polarized, it will get
marginalized .” And in all these developments, many of the experts pointed to the decline of Japan’s presence in
Southeast Asia. “ Japan has to play a greater role in terms of soft power ,” said Surat Horachaikul, director of the
Indian Studies Center of Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. Despite its still strong presence in the region as a trade partner and source of
investment, “Japan is disappearing as a soft power,” he said. “I don’t think that’s healthy. You have to come to non-economic
friendship as well.” The issue, said Tang, is not just about business visibility, but about political engagement and participation in regional
community building. “If
Japan is not seen as (taking part in such efforts), discussion is going to be dominated by
the Chinese ,” he said. Sukma also urged Japan to go beyond the traditional areas of economic cooperation. “We want to see
(Japan)
play a more strategic, political and security role
— especially
in soft security issues such as disaster
management, peacekeeping and peace-building,” he said.
ASEAN credibility is k2 prevent Asian instability and war- rise of radicalism means now
is key
Lumpur 2014 (Kuala Lumpur, Writer for the Human Rights Research and Education Centre reporting on ASEAN-UN workshop, June 24,
2014. “ASEAN-UN Workshop: Regional Dialogue on Conflict prevention and maintenance of peace and stability in Multi-cultural and Pluralistic
Societies.” http://www.cdp-hrc.uottawa.ca/?p=8940)//NR
The Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Malaysia Dato’ Hamzah Zainudin and UN Assistant-Secretary-General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco
opened the ASEAN-UN Regional Dialogue on “Lessons Learned and Best Practices in Conflict Prevention and Maintenance of Peace and Stability
in Multicultural and Pluralistic Societies” on 24 June in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “A
prosperous, consolidated and stable
ASEAN is a security deposit for Southeast Asia and Asia at large”, said the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of
Malaysia Dato’ Hamzah Zainudin in his opening remarks. He added “We believe that moderation, which ASEAN has already
adopted as a key value, has an important role in promoting peace and stability in the region. It is a
plea for the silent majority to stand up to extremism and radicalism, and to support non-violence in
conflict resolution.” Government officials from ASEAN countries, regional conflict experts and senior officials from the United
Nations will discuss regional and international cases of preventing conflict or the escalation of conflict through
inclusive dialogue and promoting tolerance and social cohesion to enhance peace and stability . “There
is a worrying trend in the region, as in other regions of the world, in the rise of extremism and radicalism in various
forms that include religious intolerance and ultra-nationalism”, stated UN Assistant-Secretary-General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco. He asked
participants in his opening remarks how such a trend which can easily spread beyond national borders can be addressed, how ASEAN can
respond as a region and to what extent the UN could provide support. The UN Assistant-Secretary-General said that ASEAN and the United
Nations can learn many lessons from each other and that the United Nations stands ready to support ASEAN’s efforts to promote peace and
stability for the benefit of the people of ASEAN. The ASEAN-UN Regional Dialogue is co-organised by the Malaysian Government, the United
Nations and ISIS Malaysia as a follow-up to the ASEAN-UN Workshop on Conflict Prevention and Preventive Diplomacy in April last year in
Jakarta. The events took place within the framework of the ASEAN-UN Comprehensive Partnership which was agreed in 2011 to strengthen
ASEAN-UN relations through collaborative activities in the areas of political-security, economic and socio-cultural cooperation as well as
cooperation between the ASEAN Secretariat and the United Nations. The ASEAN-UN Regional Dialogue will be held over two days in Kuala
Lumpur.
Asian war leads to extinction- East Asia is a hotspot that draws in the US
Doble 2011 (John Doble, M.A. in International Affairs from American University and a B.A. in Political Science and History from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Maritime Disputes a Likely Source of Future Conflict” http://www.policymic.com/articles/2279/maritimedisputes-a-likely-source-of-future-conflict December)
Yesterday, the
U.S. and China were involved in a nuclear exchange . The cause of this conflict was a war
brought about between China and the Philippines after the Philippines seized several of the Spratly Islands to
secure natural resources and the sea lanes traversing the South China seas, both of which it would use to advance itself in the global
economy. China refused to accept this action and attacked, and the U.S. was dragged in after the president was pressured by
Congress and American allies to honor America’s mutual-defense agreement with the Philippines. The result was disastrous . While
this is a hypothetical example, similar scenarios are becoming increasingly probable. Due to increasing economic competition and
climate change, a source of future conflict will be the contest for control over the seas. The U.S. must adequately
plan for future contingencies to avoid any surprises and to discern what it needs to do to prevent the worst-case scenario from
occurring. Economic competition on the seas can be seen most clearly in terms of port construction. As it stands, over 90% of all goods
measured by weight or volume are transported by cargo ship, and port construction greatly increase a nation’s access to foreign markets and
appeal as a manufacturing center. Conversely, a nation’s investment in ports reduces the amount of goods traveling to other nations, thus
damaging their economies. Unlike other forms of infrastructure investment, maritime infrastructure implicitly affects international security.
This competition has already created conflict in the Middle East. Bilateral efforts to improve relations between Iraq and Kuwait were scuttled
earlier this year after Kuwait announced it was investing heavily in building a new port (the Mubarak Kabeer) only 20 kilometers away from a
port Iraq was building (the Grand al-Faw). Rapprochement swiftly ended over Iraqi fears of economic strangulation and calls for eternal
brotherhood were replaced by curses. Nowadays, rumors abound that Iraqi and Kuwaiti forces are infiltrating the border areas and Iraqi
militants have already launched rockets from Iraq into Kuwait and threatened to kidnap the contractors building the Mubarak Kabeer port.
While threatening, this conflict is unlikely to explode as Iraq is in no shape to wage war and labors under a history of belligerence it is trying to
expunge. But what if a similar sequence of events occurred in Southeast/East Asia, where GDP is growing an average of 6%-7% a year(with
China at 9.1%) and states can operate more freely? The U.S. is investing more resources in the region at the exact moment when growing
economic competition make conflict more likely. Secondly, climate change will soon have a massive impact on the world’s coastal areas. Global
sea levels are likely to rise between 80 to 200cm at the end of the century and would submerge large tracts of land, displacing millions of
people and wiping out urban and agricultural areas. Since they are built on the coast, this would also damage or destroy many ports worldwide
and jeopardize international commerce as we know it. These losses would be difficult to replace given the increased environmental pressures
Southeast/East Asian states would face as well as the spillover problems that would arise as low-lying countries sink into the sea and collapse.
Competition over the ports that survive will be fierce as whoever possesses them would likely dominate the
sea lanes and international commerce for some time, leading to regional dominance. Similarly, economic competition and
climate change are going to going to cause havoc on the military industrial base supporting naval power in the region. It is expensive to build a
competitive navy, and many states will be unable to afford it if they need to constantly adapt to economic and environmental pressure. China
and India are already building up their naval forces and will likely be naval powers into the foreseeable future, but the U.S. will gain a lot of
allies in the future struggling to get the U.S. involved in every security dispute they have. Like WWI, someone may gamble incorrectly, and a
conflict that starts as a minor incident may explode into something much greater. The
U.S. consequently needs to utilize all facets of
American power, from military to diplomatic to foreign aid, to confront these complex challenges and prevent them from
escalating out of control . We need to promote broader acceptance of free trade on the open seas as well as democratic governance
to limit the appeal of coercive power and the ability to use that power arbitrarily. We need a way to maintain the strength of our alliances
without getting sucked into conflicts we don’t want, besides selling more weapons that only make war increasingly likely. Regardless of the
exact policies, policymakers need to start thinking ahead on how it will deal with the implications economic competition and climate change are
going to have on maritime power. Intelligent observers of the Middle East knew for years that the authoritarian status quo was unsustainable,
yet no plans were made to respond to the collapse of those regimes and our response could have been better. Current
trends indicate
that the current status quo in Southeast/East Asia is equally untenable. Do we have a plan in place?
2NC Proliferation Module
Japan soft power is key to stop proliferation
Ikenberry 2007 (Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affrairs (John
“Japan Update [Rush Transcript; Federal News Service]”, Council on Foreign Relations, june 7, 2007, http://www.cfr.org/japan/japan-updaterush-transcript-federal-news-service/p13565)
IKENBERRY: Well, I think that this has been a great discussion. And I, too, would want to end on
an optimistic note that I don't think the
kind of nationalism that we see rising in Japan is of the old style. I think it's more about identity and more of
a civic nationalism. And I think that we shouldn't underestimate the continuing feeling inside of Japan for the uniqueness of Japan and the kind of gains
and prestige it's had by taking this very distinct path from 1945 to the present; that there isn't a lot of appetite to become a military
great power and to confront China. It's partly about demographics, it's partly culture, it's partly about meaning of
the past. So I think that we should expect Japan looking for a kind of middle way that connects a
continuation of a strong alliance with some kind of umbrella that will allow it to be more activist in a
kind of multilateral, U.N.-based human security kind of way, and that is -- in a world where the next agenda
item will be trying to pursue non-proliferation, arms control, demilitarization of foreign policy, that's
where Japan can come into sync with the rest of the world and can play a leadership role. It's soft
power, but it's more than soft power; it's also leadership in terms of critical issues of security of the current day.
So I think there's room for Japan to really have a seat at the table in this way.
It spills over through all of Asia – Japan is k2 enforce nuclear free zones and arms
reductions
Samuels 2006 (Richard J. Samuels, writer for the Washington Quarterly, Autumn 2006. “Japan’s Goldilocks Strategy.”
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Awc2q1cAgfAJ:web.mit.edu/clawson/www/polisci/research/samuels/Japan%27s%2
520Goldilocks%2520Strategy.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)//NR
A third choice, the one preferred by the middle-power internationalists, would be to achieve prestige by increasing prosperity.18 Japan’s
exposure to some of the more difficult vicissitudes of world politics would be reduced but only if some of the more ambitious assaults on the
Yoshida Doctrine were reversed. Japan
would once again eschew the military shield in favor of the mercantile
sword. It would bulk up the country’s considerable soft power in a concerted effort to knit East Asia
together without generating new threats or becoming excessively vulnerable . The Asianists in this group would
aggressively embrace exclusive regional economic institutions to reduce Japan’s reliance on the U.S. market. They would not abrogate the
military alliance but would resist U.S. exhortations for Japan to expand its roles and missions. The mercantile realists in this group would
support the establishment of more open, regional economic institutions as a means to reduce the likelihood of abandonment by the United
States and would seek to maintain the United States’ protective embrace as cheaply and for as long as possible. The final, least likely choice
would be to achieve autonomy through pros- perity. This is the choice of pacifists, many of whom today are active in civil society through
nongovernmental organizations that are not affiliated with traditional political parties. Like the mercantile realists, they would reduce Japan’s
military posture, possibly even eliminate it. Unlike the mercantile realists, they would reject the alliance as dangerously entangling. They
would eschew hard power for soft power, campaign to establish Northeast Asia as a nuclear-free
zone , expand the defensive-defense concept to the region as a whole, negotiate a regional missilecontrol regime , and rely on the Asian Regional Forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for security.19
Their manifest problem is that the Japanese public is unmoved by their prescriptions. In March 2003, when millions took to the streets in Rome,
London, and New York City to protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq, only several thousand rallied in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park.20 Pacifist ideas about
prosperity and autonomy seem relics of an earlier, more idealistic time when Japan could not imagine, much less openly plan for, military
contingencies.
Proliferation leads to extinction- miscalc, terrorism, and irrationality
Kissinger et al 2011 (Shultz was secretary of state from 1982 to 1989. Mr. Perry was secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997. Mr.
Kissinger was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977. Mr. Nunn is former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (“Deterrence in
the Age of Nuclear Proliferation: The doctrine of mutual assured destruction is obsolete in the post‐Cold War era”, Wall Street Journal,
March 7, 2011, http://www.nti.org/c_press/Deterrence_in_the_Age_of_Nuclear_Proliferation.pdf)
As long as there has been war, there have been efforts to deter actions a nation considers
threatening. Until fairly recently, this meant building a military establishment capable of intimidating the adversary, defeating him or
making his victory more costly than the projected gains. This, with conventional weapons, took time. Deterrence and war strategy were
identical. The
advent of the nuclear weapon introduced entirely new factors. It was possible, for the first time,
to inflict at the beginning of a war the maximum casualties. The doctrine of mutual assured destruction represented this reality.
Deterrence based on nuclear weapons
calculations for which there is no historical experience. It is therefore precarious It is devastating . An unrestrained
nuclear exchange between superpowers could destroy civilized life as we know it in days Mutual
assured destruction raises enormous inhibitions against employing the weapons. Since the first use of nuclear weapons against Japan,
neither of the superpowers, nor any other country, has used nuclear weapons in a war. A gap opened between the psychological element of
deterrence and the risks most leaders were willing to incur. U.S. defense leaders made serious efforts to give the president more flexible
options for nuclear use short of global annihilation. They never solved the problem, and it was always recognized that Washington
and Moscow both held the keys to unpredictable and potentially catastrophic escalations. As a result, nuclear deterrence was useful in
preventing only the most catastrophic scenarios that would have threatened our survival. But even with the deployment of thousands of
nuclear weapons on both sides of the Iron Curtain, the Soviet moves into Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 were not deterred. Nor
were the numerous crises involving Berlin, including the building of the Wall in 1961, or major wars in Korea and Vietnam, or the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the case of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons did not prevent collapse or regime change. Today, the Cold
War is almost 20 years behind us, but many leaders and publics cannot conceive of deterrence without a strategy of mutual assured
destruction. We have written previously that reliance on this strategy is becoming increasingly hazardous.
With the spread of
nuclear weapons, technology, materials and know‐how, there is an increasing risk that nuclear
weapons will be used . It is not possible to replicate the high‐risk stability that prevailed between the two nuclear superpowers during
the Cold War in such an environment. The growing number of nations with nuclear arms and differing motives,
aims and ambitions poses very high and unpredictable risks and increased instability. From 1945 to 1991,
America and the Soviet Union were diligent, professional, but also lucky that nuclear weapons were never used. Does the world want to
continue to bet its survival on continued good fortune with a growing number of nuclear nations and adversaries globally? Can we devise and
successfully implement with other nations, including other nuclear powers, careful, cooperative concepts to safely dismount the nuclear tiger
while strengthening the capacity to assure our security and that of allies and other countries considered essential to our national security?
Recently, the four of us met at the Hoover Institution with a group of policy experts to discuss the possibilities for establishing a safer and more
comprehensive form of deterrence and prevention in a world where the roles and risks of nuclear weapons are reduced and ultimately
eliminated. Our broad conclusion is that nations should move forward together with a series of conceptual and practical steps toward
deterrence that do not rely primarily on nuclear weapons or nuclear threats to maintain international peace and security. The first step is to
recognize that there is a daunting new spectrum of global security threats. These threats include chemical, biological and radiological weapons,
catastrophic terrorism and cyber warfare, as well as natural disasters resulting from climate change or other environmental problems, and
health-related crises. For the United States and many other nations, existential threats relating to the very survival of the state have
diminished, largely because of the end of the Cold War and the increasing realization that our common interests greatly exceed our differences.
However, an
accident or mistake involving nuclear weapons, or nuclear terrorism fueled by the spread of
nuclear weapons, nuclear materials, and nuclear know-how, is still a very real risk . An effective strategy to
deal with these dangers must be developed. The second step is the realization that continued reliance on nuclear weapons as the principal
element for deterrence is encouraging, or at least excusing, the spread of these weapons, and will inevitably erode the essential cooperation
necessary to avoid proliferation, protect nuclear materials and deal effectively with new threats. Third, the U.S. and Russia have no basis for
maintaining a structure of deterrence involving nuclear weapons deployed in ways that increase the danger of an accidental or unauthorized
use of a nuclear weapon, or even a deliberate nuclear exchange based on a false warning. Reducing the number of
operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles with verification to the levels set by the New Start Treaty is an
important step in reducing nuclear risks. Deeper nuclear reductions and changes in nuclear force posture involving the two nations should
remain a priority. Further steps must include short‐range tactical nuclear weapons. Fourth, as long as nuclear weapons exist, America must
retain a safe, secure and reliable nuclear stockpile primarily to deter a nuclear attack and to reassure our allies through extended deterrence.
There is an inherent limit to U.S. and Russian nuclear reductions if other nuclear weapon states build up their inventories or if new nuclear
powers emerge. It is clear, however, that the U.S. and Russia—having led the nuclear buildup for decades— must continue to lead the build‐
down. The U.S. and its NATO allies, together with Russia, must begin moving away from threatening force postures and deployments including
the retention of thousands of short‐range battlefield nuclear weapons. All conventional deployments should be reviewed from the aspect of
provocation. This will make America, Russia and Europe more secure. It will also set an example for the world. Fifth, we recognize that for some
nations, nuclear weapons may continue to appear relevant to their immediate security. There are certain undeniable dynamics in play—for
example, the emergence of a nuclear‐armed neighbor, or the perception of inferiority in conventional forces—that if not addressed could lead
to the further
proliferation of nuclear weapons and an increased risk they will be used . Thus, while the four of us
believe that reliance on nuclear weapons for deterrence is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective, some nations will
hesitate to draw or act on the same conclusion unless regional confrontations and conflicts are addressed. We must therefore redouble our
efforts to resolve these issues.
2NC Disease/Warming Module
Japan soft power solves disease and climate
Heng 14, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, (Yee-Kuang “Beyond ‘kawaii’ pop culture: Japan’s
normative soft power as global trouble-shooter” The Pacific Review, Volume 27, Issue 2, 2014, Taylor and Francis)
In particular, ‘Japanese scholars and policymakers have enthusiastically taken it up, eagerly exploring how Japan’s
soft power
resources could be exploited to burnish Japan’s image in the world and help reshape its environment’ (Berger et al.
2010: 570). For Japan, soft power allows some compensation for lack of other power resources and is a
relatively low-cost option. Having overcome its domestic pollution through world-leading technology and regulations, and facing a
stuttering economy with limits to military projections, Japanese leaders saw environmental cooperation as a
‘diplomatic niche’ to raise the country’s global profile in the post-Cold War world (Pajon 2010). This explains Nye’s (2008)
suggestion that Tokyo counter its fears of marginalisation through better use of its soft power to tackle shared transnational threats such as infectious diseases and climate change . In a surprisingly overlooked set of statements,
Japan’s New Growth Strategy (Cabinet Office 2009: 6) expressed a similar desire to become ‘a country hat solves
global-scale problems’ . But in what ways can this ‘trouble-shooting’ role be conceptualised as soft power and has it worked? Here,
we are concerned with what Lee (2011: 15) calls the ‘normative’ dimension of soft power: whether or not countries regard a state’s policies as
legitimate and justifiable depends on how far its policies reflected or enhanced international norms and shared values. This is different from the
‘affective’ soft power generated by a superficial liking for Japan’s subculture genres such as maid cafes. Hayden (2011: 115) suggests that
because culture appears to predominate in Japan’s soft power, there is a ‘marked tendency toward the objectification of culture, through
products which in turn have a kind of affective power- the ability to convey something about Japan that cultivates interest’. By contrast,
‘normative’ soft power derives from legitimacy and degree of alignment with global norms (Melissen 2011: 24). The normative potential of
Chinese soft power was recently explored by Callahan (2012: 6) who sought to redress an imbalance where ‘much less attention has been paid
to the normative aspect of China’s soft power’. In order to do the same for Japan, this paper proceeds as follows. First, it places the New
Growth Strategy’s vision of becoming a problem-solving nation in the context of attempts to redefine Japan’s global role. The document hints at
potential sources of Japan’s ‘normative’ soft power in combating climate change. This issue is our focus here because
of its strong resonance as a global norm. The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and
‘shock events’ (Hurricane Katrina or floods in Thailand) have crystallised a sense of crisis. Since 2007, global norms on climate change have
consolidated (Garcia 2010), building on the 1992 Rio summit; the Kyoto Protocol, the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCC), and IPCC reports. These norms include the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; ‘sustainable development’ (UNFCC Art. 1–4);
provision of ‘new and additional resources’ by industrialised
countries to aid mitigation and adaptation efforts of
developing states (UNFCC Art. 4.3) and ‘facilitation of environmentally sound technology’ (UNFCC Art. 4.5). These are deployed
here as benchmarks for evaluating Japan’s alignment with climate change norms.
Disease pandemics guarantee extinction
Yu 2009 (Victoria Yu, Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science, Human Extinction: The Uncertainty of Our Fate, 22 May 2009,
http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/spring-2009/human-extinction-the-uncertainty-of-our-fate)
A pandemic will kill off all humans. In the past, humans have indeed fallen victim to viruses. Perhaps the bestknown case was the bubonic plague that killed up to one third of the European population in the mid-14th
century (7). While vaccines have been developed for the plague and some other infectious diseases,
new viral strains are constantly emerging — a process that maintains the possibility of a pandemicfacilitated human extinction. Some surveyed students mentioned AIDS as a potential pandemic-causing virus. It is true that scientists have been
unable thus far to find a sustainable cure for AIDS, mainly due to HIV’s rapid and constant evolution. Specifically, two factors account for the virus’s abnormally high
mutation rate: 1. HIV’s use of reverse transcriptase, which does not have a proof-reading mechanism, and 2. the lack of an error-correction mechanism in HIV DNA
polymerase (8). Luckily, though, there are certain characteristics of HIV that make it a poor candidate for a large-scale global infection: HIV can lie dormant in the
human body for years without manifesting itself, and AIDS itself does not kill directly, but rather through the weakening of the immune system. However, for more
easily transmitted viruses such as influenza, the
evolution of new strains could prove far more consequential. The
simultaneous occurrence of antigenic drift (point mutations that lead to new strains) and antigenic shift (the
inter-species transfer of disease) in the influenza virus could produce a new version of influenza for which scientists may not
immediately find a cure. Since influenza can spread quickly, this lag time could potentially lead to a “global influenza
pandemic,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (9). The most recent scare of this variety came in 1918 when bird flu managed to kill
over 50 million people around the world in what is sometimes referred to as the Spanish flu pandemic. Perhaps even more frightening is the fact that only 25
mutations were required to convert the original viral strain — which could only infect birds — into a human-viable strain (10).
Warming is real and anthropogenic – action now is key
Harvey 2013 (Fiona, Guardian Environment Reporter, IPCC climate report: human impact is 'unequivocal', September 27 2013,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/27/ipcc-climate-report-un-secretary-general)
World leaders must now respond to an "unequivocal" message from climate scientists and act with policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions,
the United Nations secretary-general urged on Friday. Introducing a major report from a high level UN panel of climate scientists, Ban Ki-moon
said, "The heat is on. We must act." The world's leading climate scientists, who have been meeting in all-night sessions this week
in the Swedish capital, said there was no longer room for doubt that climate change was occurring, and the dominant cause has been human
actions in pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In their starkest warning yet, following nearly seven
years of new
research on the climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said it was "unequivocal" and that even if the
world begins to moderate greenhouse gas emissions, warming is likely to cross the critical threshold of 2C by the end of this
century. That would have serious consequences, including sea level rises, heatwaves and changes to rainfall meaning dry regions get less and
already wet areas receive more. In response to the report, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, said in a statement: "This is yet another
wakeup call: those who deny the science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire." "Once again, the
science grows clearer,
the case grows more compelling, and the costs of inaction grow beyond anything that anyone with conscience or commonsense
should be willing to even contemplate," he said. He said that livelihoods around the world would be impacted. "With those stakes, the response
must be all hands on deck. It's not about one country making a demand of another. It's the science itself, demanding action from all of us. The
United States is deeply committed to leading on climate change." In a crucial reinforcement of their message – included starkly in this report for
the first time – the IPCC warned that the world cannot afford to keep emitting carbon dioxide as it has been doing in recent
years. To avoid dangerous levels of climate change, beyond 2C, the world can only emit a total of between 800 and 880 gigatonnes of carbon.
Of this, about 530 gigatonnes had already been emitted by 2011. That has a clear implication for our fossil fuel consumption, meaning that
humans cannot burn all of the coal, oil and gas reserves that countries and companies possess. As the former UN commissioner Mary Robinson
told the Guardian last week, that will have "huge implications for social and economic development." It will also be difficult for business
interests to accept. The central estimate is that warming is likely to exceed 2C, the threshold beyond which scientists think global warming will
start to wreak serious changes to the planet. That threshold is likely to be reached even if we begin to cut global greenhouse gas emissions,
which so far has not happened, according to the report. Other key points from the report are: • Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide,
methane and nitrous oxide are now at levels "unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years." • Since the 1950's it's "extremely likely" that
human activities have been the dominant cause of the temperature rise. • Concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere have increased to levels that are unprecedented in at least 800,000 years. The burning of fossil fuels is the main reason behind a
40% increase in C02 concentrations since the industrial revolution. • Global temperatures are likely to rise by 0.3C to 4.8C, by the end of the
century depending on how much governments control carbon emissions. • Sea levels are expected to rise a further 26-82cm by the end of the
century. • The oceans have acidified as they have absorbed about a third of the carbon dioxide emitted. Thomas Stocker, co-chair of the
working group on physical science, said the message that greenhouse gases must be reduced was clear. "We give very relevant
guidance on the total amount of carbon that can't be emitted to stay to 1.5 or 2C. We are not on the path that would lead us to respect that
warming target [which has been agreed by world governments]." He said: "Continued
emissions of greenhouse gases will
cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require
substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions." Though governments around the world have agreed to curb
emissions, and at numerous international meetings have reaffirmed their commitment to holding warming to below 2C by the end of the
century, greenhouse gas concentrations are still rising at record rates. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, said it was for governments to take
action based on the science produced by the panel, consisting of thousands of pages of detail, drawing on the work of more than 800 scientists
and hundreds of scientific papers. The scientists also put paid to claims that global warming has "stopped" because global temperatures in the
past 15 years have not continued the strong upward march of the preceding years, which is a key argument put forward by sceptics to cast
doubt on climate science. But the IPCC said the longer term trends were clear: "Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at
the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850 in the northern hemisphere [the earliest date for reliable temperature records for the
whole hemisphere]." The past 15 years were not such an unusual case, said Stocker. "People always pick 1998 but [that was] a very special
year, because a strong El Niño made it unusually hot, and since then there have been some medium-sized volcanic eruptions that have cooled
the climate." But he said that further research was needed on the role of the oceans, which are thought to have absorbed more than 90% of
the warming so far. The
scientists have faced sustained attacks from so-called sceptics, often funded by "vested
interests" according to the UN, who try to pick holes in each item of evidence for climate change. The experts have always known they
must make their work watertight against such an onslaught, and every conclusion made by the IPCC must pass scrutiny by all
of the world's governments before it can be published. Their warning on Friday was sent out to governments around the globe, who
convene and fund the IPCC. It was 1988 when scientists were first convened for this task, and in the five landmark reports since then the
research has become ever clearer. Now, scientists say they are certain that "warming in the climate system is
unequivocal and since 1950 many changes have been observed throughout the climate system that are unprecedented over decades to
millennia." That warning, from such a sober body, hemmed in by the need to submit every statement to extraordinary levels of scrutiny, is the
starkest yet. "Heatwaves are very likely to occur more frequently and last longer. As the earth warms, we expect to see currently wet regions
receiving more rainfall, and dry regions receiving less, although there will be exceptions," Stocker said. Qin Dahe, also co-chair of the working
group, said: "As the ocean warm, and glaciers and ice sheets reduce, global mean sea level will continue to rise, but at a faster rate than we
have experienced over the past 40 years." Prof David Mackay, chief scientific adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, said:
"The far-reaching consequences of this warming are becoming understood, although some uncertainties remain. The most significant
uncertainty, however, is how much carbon humanity will choose to put into the atmosphere in the future. It
is the total sum of all
our carbon emissions that will determine the impacts. We need to take action now, to maximise our chances
of being faced with impacts that we, and our children, can deal with. Waiting a decade or two before taking climate change action will certainly
lead to greater harm than acting now."
Warming lead to extinction
Deibel 2007 (Terry L. Professor of IR @ National War College, 2007. “Foreign Affairs Strategy: Logic for American Statecraft”, Conclusion:
American Foreign Affairs Strategy Today)//NR
Finally, there is
the future,
one major existential threat to American security (as well as prosperity) of a nonviolent nature, which, though far in
demands urgent action . It is the threat of global warming to the stability of the climate upon which all earthly life
this threat for three decades now, and what was once a mere
possibility has passed through probability to near certainty . Indeed not one of more than 900 articles on climate change published
depends. Scientists worldwide have been observing the gathering of
in refereed scientific journals from 1993 to 2003 doubted that anthropogenic warming is occurring. “In legitimate scientific circles,” writes
Elizabeth Kolbert, “it is virtually impossible to find evidence of disagreement over the fundamentals of global warming.” Evidence from a vast
international scientific monitoring effort accumulates almost weekly, as this sample of newspaper reports shows: an international panel
predicts “brutal droughts,
floods and violent storms across the planet over the next century”; climate change could
“literally alter ocean currents, wipe away huge portions of Alpine Snowcaps and aid the spread of cholera and malaria”;
“glaciers in the Antarctic and in Greenland are melting much faster than expected, and…worldwide, plants are blooming several days earlier
than a decade ago”; “rising
sea temperatures have been accompanied by a significant global increase in the most
destructive hurricanes”; “NASA scientists have concluded from direct temperature measurements that 2005 was the hottest year on
record, with 1998 a close second”; “Earth’s warming climate is estimated to contribute to more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses
each year” as disease
spreads; “widespread bleaching from Texas to Trinidad…killed broad swaths of corals” due to a 2-degree rise in sea
temperatures. “The world is slowly disintegrating,” concluded Inuit hunter Noah Metuq, who lives 30 miles from the Arctic Circle.
“They call it climate change…but we just call it breaking up.” From the founding of the first cities some 6,000 years ago until the beginning of
the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere remained relatively constant at about 280 parts per million (ppm). At present
they are accelerating toward 400 ppm, and by 2050 they will reach 500 ppm, about double pre-industrial levels. Unfortunately, atmospheric
CO2 lasts about a century, so there is no way immediately to reduce levels, only to slow their increase, we are thus in for significant global
warming; the only debate is how much and how serous the effects will be. As the newspaper stories quoted above show, we are already
experiencing the effects of 1-2 degree warming in more violent storms, spread
of disease, mass die offs of plants and
animals, species extinction, and threatened inundation of low-lying countries like the Pacific nation of Kiribati and the Netherlands at
a warming of 5 degrees or less the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets could disintegrate, leading to a sea level of rise of 20 feet that
would cover North Carolina’s outer banks, swamp the southern third of Florida, and inundate Manhattan up to the middle of Greenwich
Village. Another catastrophic effect would be the collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation that keeps the winter weather in Europe far
warmer than its latitude would otherwise allow. Economist William Cline once estimated the damage to the United States alone from moderate
levels of warming at 1-6 percent of GDP annually; severe warming could cost 13-26 percent of GDP. But the most frightening scenario is
runaway greenhouse warming, based on positive feedback from the buildup of water vapor in the atmosphere that is both caused by and
causes hotter surface temperatures. Past ice age transitions, associated with only 5-10 degree changes in average global temperatures, took
place in just decades, even though no one was then pouring ever-increasing amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Faced with this specter,
the best one can conclude is that “humankind’s continuing enhancement of the natural greenhouse effect is akin to playing Russian roulette
with the earth’s climate and humanity’s life support system. At worst, says physics professor Marty Hoffert of New York University, “we’re just
going to burn everything up; we’re going to heat the atmosphere to the temperature it was in the Cretaceous when there were crocodiles at
the poles, and then
everything will collapse .” During the Cold War, astronomer Carl Sagan popularized a theory of nuclear winter to
describe how a thermonuclear war between the Untied States and the Soviet Union would not only destroy both countries but possibly end life
on this planet.
Global warming is the post-Cold War era’s equivalent of nuclear winter at least as serious and considerably
better supported scientifically. Over the long run it puts dangers form terrorism and traditional military challenges to shame.
not only to the security and prosperity to the United States, but potentially
It is a threat
to the continued existence of life on this planet.
**Specific Solvency**
Deep Sea Exploration
1NC Deep Sea Exploration
Japan solves deep sea exploration
JAAT, 2001 (Japan Atlas Advanced Technology, offers presentations on a variety of topics to anyone interested in the nature, traditions,
and current social trends of Japan, “Japan Marine Science and Technology Center”, JAAT, 02/01/2001, http://webjapan.org/atlas/technology/tec03.html)
Japan is surrounded by oceans, so the importance of oceanographical research is not limited to
industries such as fisheries. The coastal waters of Japan lie over complex topography of subducting crustal plates, part of this formation is a
trench that is over 6,000 meters (19,685 feet) deep. Such subduction is believed to be the cause of a number of major earthquakes, including
the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995. Also, since this abyssal ocean bed also has an accumulation of sediments resulting from the
changes that the earth has undergone over the course of several hundred million years, field investigation of the deep sea will reveal valuable
evidence to answer questions about global alterations in the earth's crust and the geological history of the earth. Japan Marine Science and
Technology Center Japan
Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC) is the center of excellence for
oceanographic research
in Japan. The
Center carries out a wide range of research, not only at the deep
sea bottom, but also into technology for oceanographic observation
and commercial development
of the
oceans . JAMSTEC operates two submersible survey vessels that have made the Center world famous
for its deep-sea technology : the manned Shinkai 6500, which can carry out oceanographic data collection work at any depth down
to 6,500 meters (21,325 feet); and the unmanned Kaiko. Launched in 1989, the Shinkai 6500 succeeded in diving down to 6,527 meters (21,414
feet) in August of the same year. In March 1995 Kaiko
(35,798 feet), the
carried out test dives in the Mariana Trench, at 10,911.4 meters
deepest in the world. The various data that Kaiko collected during this probing was
valuable. Thanks to Shinkai 6500 and Kaiko, it became clear that the sea from a depth of a few hundred meters, down to several thousand
meters represents a variety of ecological formations. For example, we now know that the deep-sea mud at a depth of over 10,000 meters
(32,808 feet), a zone of ultrahigh water pressure (about 1000 times greater than air pressure at sea level) and low temperatures (2 degrees
Centigrade (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit)) provides a home for about 180 kinds of micro-organisms.
2NC Deep Sea Exploration
Japan solves deep ocean exploration—they have the tech—JAMSTEC proves
Nissui, 1999 (Nissui, marine products company based in Japan, “Exploration Operations Making a Mark in a Variety of Fields”, Nissui,
11/15/1999, http://www.nissui.co.jp/english/corporate/frontier/14/07.html)
Currently a number of remotely oprated vehicles are also being used in deepwater explorations.
Consequently, Nippon Marine Enterprises, Ltd. also conducts operations of these remotely oprated vehicles owned by JAMSTEC. In the
documentary series, Planet Earth, jointly produced by NHK, BBC (U.K.) and the Discovery Channel (U.S.A.), the remotely oprated vehicle, HyperDolphin, equipped with a hi-vision camera was submerged simultaneously with the 6K into the Hatoma knoll of the Okinawa Trough, and
succeeded in filming the blue and white hydrothermal eruptions from the chimneys and transmitted footage of the mysteries of the deep sea
to the whole world. Deep water explorations are also contributing to the nation's space exploration. In November 1999, the Japan-made H-II
Rocket, which was launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima prefecture failed to orbit and fell into the Pacific Ocean,
approximately 600km due South of Shizuoka prefecture. It was an accident that cast a dark cloud over Japan's space exploration efforts. At that
time, the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center was hired by the National Space Development Agency of Japan/NASDA (present Japan
Aerospace Exploration Agency/JAXA) to discover and retrieve the fallen engine in order to investigate the cause of the failure. The
task of
trying to find an object of a mere 3m from the depths of 3,000m was equivalent to "dropping a line
from atop Mr. Fuji and trying to hook a fish from the world below." However, the skill and the
cooperative efforts by the staff of NASDA, JAMSTEC, Nippon Marine Enterprises, Ltd. and others managed to cause a
miracle. JAMSTEC continues to tirelessly devote itself to oceanographic research by developing and
utilizing the latest technical advances, including marine research vessels, deep sea manned research
submersibles, remotely oprated vehicles and various sonar equipment . At Nippon Marine Enterprises, Ltd., the
expert staff, who have inherited Nissui’s genes, safely and soundly run and manage the special vessels and submersible vehicles as well as
operate and support the various oceanographic research equipment with their specialized expertise. The continued collaboration of the two
organizations is expected to unlock the mysteries of tectonic activity, which heavily impacts the earth environment, with their
"oceanographic approach," contribute to the research/development of resources and the
study/forecasting of earthquakes, and set the foundations for a bright future for Japan and the earth.
Japan deep sea exploration solves comparatively better than the US—better
technology
Mineta, 2000 (Norman Y. Mineta, Secretary of Commerce, “Discovering Earth’s Final Frontier”, NOAA, 10/10/2000,
http://explore.noaa.gov/sites/OER/Documents/about-oer/program-review/presidents-panel-on-ocean-exploration-report.pdf)
Developing New Technologies Many
of the tools currently used in ocean studies have been borrowed from
substantial investments in technology by the Navy and the offshore oil industry. Whereas two decades
ago, those tools available to academic researchers were second to none, a number of systems and facilities are
aging. Cuts in the budget for Department of Defense development efforts have been felt by the marine technology community that relied on
investments in new instruments and platforms by the Office of Naval Research. The deep-sea drilling and multi-channel
seismic capabilities in the academic fleet have been eclipsed by new drilling ships and seismic systems routinely
deployed in the offshore oil industry and by other
countries and foreign investors. Our deep submergence assets
are overall older and have shallower depth ratings than those deployed by the Japanese,
for example.
Japan technology solves deep sea exploration
Mabuchi, 2011 (Koichi Mabuchi, Curator at the Nagoya City Science Museum, “Deep Sea Research Vehicle 'Dolphin 3K'”, Nagoya City
Science Museum, 03/24/2011, http://www.ncsm.city.nagoya.jp/cgi-bin/en/exhibition_guide/exhibit.cgi?id=X107)
This exhibit has been planned by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science Technology, the independent administrative institution.
It is
the Japan's first unmanned probe designed to perform research on seabed minerals and marine life at
3000 m. Although it is equipped with high- definition cameras and manipulators, the system is
remotely controlled from a ship on the sea. From 1987 (Showa 62) to 2002 (Heisei 14), it dived 576 times in
Japanese water for marine research. Since 2003(Heisei15), its role has been takentaken over by its
successor, the Hyper Dolphin. [Survey Objectives: Resources, Living Creatures and Earthquakes] The ocean around Japan
is said to be a treasure housetrove of marine resources, methane hydrate, which is frozen methane and natural
gas in the East China Sea. Deep sea probes play an important role for the investigation of thosein the
investigation of these resources. Also for the investigation of earthquakes occurring around Japan, the exploration of the seabed is
neededExploration of the seabed is also needed in order to investigate earthquakes occurring around
Japan. Besides these practical surveys, looking at actual activities of the deep sea creatures can lead to valuable
information on for academic research. [The Deepest Sea] In addition to Dolphin 3K and its successor, Hyper
Dolphin 3K, there areis a deep-sea probe "Urashima", a manned deep-sea research vessel "Shinkai2000", and an
unmanned probe "Kaikou 7000 II". And the depth each probe can dive is specified. (Figure)ThoseThese probes can
dive down to a considerable depth. By the way, where is the deepest part of the ocean?Currently, the deepest ocean trench, the thin and long
grooved part, is called the Mariana Trench. In 1960 (Showa 35), in the cooperation with the US Navy, Jacques Piccard and the captain Walsh
boarded a submarine developed by Jacques's father, August Piccard, and aimed for the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The submarine was
equipped with steel weights and gasoline-fueled buoyancy devices, and was able to adjust depth. According to the depth recorder that reached
the seabed in five hours, it was 11521m deep (Later revised as 10916m). In 1995 (Heisei 7), the remotely controlled unmanned submarine
"Kaikou", owned by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science Technology, reached the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, called the
Challenger Deep, and recorded the a depth of 10911m. Even
Mt. Everest, the highest mountain in the world, turned upside
down cannot reach the deepest point of the ocean.
Desalination
1NC Desalination
Japan has the high-level technology for floating desalination plants
Hand, 04/09/2014 (Marcus Hand, “Japan sees shipping opportunities in floating desalination plants”, Sea
Trade Communications, 04/09/2014, http://www.seatrade-global.com/news/americas/japan-sees-shipping-opportunities-in-floatingdesalination-plants.html)
Japanese officials say that floating desalination plants constructed on either ships or mega-float structures are a
potential future growth area for the shipping industry. Officials from Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport
and Tourism (MLIT) highlighted the opportunity at the International Maritime Seminar at Sea Japan 2014.
MLIT director general, maritime bureau Toshiya Morishige said the tackling the world water shortage could benefit from
the use of floating desalination plants. He noted that environmental concerns limited land based desalination plants. The
concept of floating desalination was expanded upon by Toshifumi Kokubun, a director of Deloitte Tomatsu Consulting, Japan. While he noted
desalination was not a sector normally connected to shipping, that it
“seems there is a lot of potential for alliance with
the shipping industry”. On the demand side the largest markets are Saudi Arabia, the US and Australia, countries which also have
stringent environmental regulations. An MLIT study said that the desalination market is worth JPY600bn ($5.8bn) at present and this would
increase to JPY1.5trn in five years. In many cases though shoreside
desalination projects have faced years of delays
over environmental concerns as to how seawater intakes affect bio-diversity, the coastal seabed and currents. “The solution is
to build plants offshore on the ocean,” he said. Floating desalination plants are not a completely new idea and offshore facilities
have been used in Saudi Arabia, Cyprus and Thailand as temporary solutions before shore plants were up and running. Kokubun
suggested that governments and international organisations formulate universal environmental rules
for land-based plants and promote the development of floating desalination plants. “Japan should
rush to develop the world’s first floating desalination plant which meets safety and environmental
design by using the high level technology that
the
Japan ese shipping industry holds ,” he urged.
2NC Deslination
Japan solves offshore desalination plants
Kloosterman, 05/08/2014 (Karin Kloosterman, is a journalist, writer and blogger who focuses on the environment and clean
technology, “Floating Deslination Plants for Japan”, Israel 21st Century, 05/08/2014, http://www.israel21c.org/israel-in-the-spotlight/floatingdesalination-plants-for-japan)
Environmentalists usually agree that making fresh water from brackish (salty) water should be a last resort. Building
desalination
plants requires millions of dollars in desalination technology, and it’s costly to produce potable water
– both in terms of energy to run the plants and the environmental pollution they emit. The Israeli company IDE Technologies – already planning
the biggest desalination plant in the United States – is pushing the borders in this domain a little closer to
sustainability in Japan, where it is working to make floating desalination plants . The new approach
it’s “floating” will breathe new life into Japan’s stagnant shipbuilding business, and help the Japanese
fulfill short-term freshwater needs, according to Bloomberg News. Udi Tirosh, a business development director at IDE, told the
business newspaper: “Floating plants will not replace the land-built ones, but floating plants can become an alternative that
does not saddle a country with the burden of maintenance once local water tables improve.” This could be
welcome news in parched regions of America like California, which is experiencing an historic drought. The global desalination market is
expected to reach $15 billion by 2018 as the world’s growing population becomes more demanding. The idea of floating technology on large
ships or barges is not entirely new. Turkey is floating seven thermal power plants around its shores on Powerships, and a Russian company is
looking to develop a floating nuclear power plant. IDE’s dreams are to stick with water, business that it does best. The draft sketches for the
first Japan-launched vessel show an operation that could produce up to 120,000 cubic meters of freshwater every day. The business plan is to
develop a fleet of desalination ships with partners around the globe. In Japan, IDE plans
to deliver its first water-producing
ship with water on tap, from the sea, within the next three years. This would supply enough water for a city of about
850,000 people.
Japan first-class technology solves desalination
Li, 2012 (Lily Li, joined IP Checkups in 2011 to co-manage the development, marketing and sales of the CleanTech PatentEdge solution. She
also contributes her business and legal expertise to IP Checkups’ boutique patent analytic and research services team, helping companies align
their IP strategies with their business objectives, “Got Water? Patent Trends and Top Players in Desalination Technology”, Clean Tech Patent
Edge, 01/10/2012, http://www.cleantechpatentedge.com/2012/01/trends-and-top-players-in-desalination-technology)
Desalination technologies, though still controversial, have made many advances over the past years in efficiency
and environmental safety. (A discussion of the environmental costs of desalination). For instance, Water Standard Company’s US patent 7510658
focuses on reducing the energy use of a desalination plant and lowering the salinity of desalination plant effluent. Kurita Water Industries’ US patent 7,540,292
targets the environmental effects of cleaning and maintaining permeable membranes in reverse osmosis desalination systems, by developing safe and effective
detergent formulas. Over
the past decade, companies have increased their interest in new desalination
technologies. From 2002 to 2011, the number of published desalination patent documents across European, United States, and WIPO patent publications
increased from 379 to 824 – over a 200% increase.
The top technology companies in the desalination patent space are
Japan Organo and Kurita Water, powerful players in Japan’s water infrastructure. Japan Organo has multiple
1000-6000 m3/d desalination plants in Hyoga, Japan, while Kurita Water has smaller installations in Gunma and Shizuoka, Japan.
Flight MH 370
1NC MH 370
Japan can help efforts to find the plan, specific aircrafts and s satellite technology
Tiezzi 14 [Shannon Tiezzi is an Associate Editor at The Diplomat.Her main focus is on China, and she
writes on China’s foreign relations, domestic politics, and economy. “Japan Joins Search for Malaysia
Airlines Flight 370”http://thediplomat.com/2014/03/japan-joins-search-for-malaysia-airlines-flight370/]
On Tuesday, Japan officially joined in the search efforts for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. A
statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the government was sending a “Japan
Disaster Relief Team” to Kuala Lumpur to assist in rescue operations. The eight-person team will include
officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, Japan Coast Guard, and Japan
International Cooperation Agency. Japan also announced that it is sending aircraft to assist in the search,
beginning with a C-130H Transport Aircraft (photos of which were posted to the Japanese Ministry of
Defense’s Website). Reuters reported that Japan also plans to send three other aircraft, including two
P3C surveillance planes. As my colleague Ankit wrote earlier this week, the search for Flight 370 has
provided a rare opportunity for cooperation among Southeast and East Asian nations, many of whom
are involved in territorial disputes. In addition to Japan, India and Brunei are also new additions to the
search efforts. They join Australia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, the
U.S., and Vietnam in the search, bringing the total number of countries involved to 12. The search
efforts, being spearheaded by Malaysia, have been a rare example of cooperation in the South China
Sea, an area that recently seems to have become synonymous with territorial disputes. However
acrimonious the disputes in the South China Sea have been, though, they pale in comparison to the level
of tensions between China and Japan. Even the rough relationship between China and the Philippines,
who have competing claims to several islands and shoals in the South China Sea, looks almost friendly
compared to the constant diplomatic barbs flying between Beijing and Tokyo
IOOS/Ocean Observation
1NC IOOS/Ocean Observation
Japan solves IOOS
Wei, 2011 (Chong Jinn Wei, “NEC Corporation announced the completion of its first submarine-cable based integrated”, Malasia
Hardware Zone, 11/15/2011, http://www.hardwarezone.com.my/tech-news-nec-created-first-integrated-ocean-observation-system)
NEC Corporation announced the completion of its first submarine-cable based integrated ocean observation
system for the Central Weather Bureau of Taiwan. The system was deployed in the eastern coast of Taiwan to
strengthen seismic and environmental observations in the area. As an integrated ocean observation
system, the node is able to collect information on tsunami and earthquakes in addition to its integrated ocean
observation system. This system uses technologies developed through research that had been contracted the
Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. This is a part
of the Ministry's research of 'construction of an earthquake and tsunami observation system'. "We are honored that the Taiwan Central
Weather Bureau have entrusted us to build their first Integrated Ocean Observation System for Taiwan. I firmly believe that this significant
infrastructure will benefit the people of Taiwan by providing early warning signals which could save thousands,” said Yasuhiro Aoki, General
Manager, Submarine Network Division. NEC
plans to capitalize its accomplishments and knowledge from this system
to expand in additional regions and contribute to a global scale earthquake and environmental observation.
2NC IOOS/Ocean Observation
Japan solves ocean observation
Suga, 03/20/2014 (Toshio Suga, Professor Physical Oceanography Laboratory Department of Geophysics, Graduate School of
Science, Tohoku University, “Japan National Report”, The 15 th Argo Steering Team Meeting, 03/20/2014,
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Japan_Nat_Rep_AST15.pdf)
Besides floats deployed in 2013 as described above, JAMSTEC deployed 4APEX floats equipped with dissolvedoxygen sensors (Aanderaa Optode4330) and 4 EM-APEXs. The floats were launched as part of Western North
Pacific INtegrated Physical-Biogeochemical Ocean Observation Experiment (INBOX); the purpose is to investigate physical-biogeochemical
processes associated with meso- and submeso-scale variability by integrating physical and biogeochemical
ocean observations in
collaboration with ship, satellites and /or mooring observations . The floats measured temperature, salinity and dissolved
oxygen from surface to 2000 dbar every 2 days, telecommunicating with iridium transmitter. As reported in the Japan National Report of AST-14, two target areas
are set: one is around the biogeochemical observation mooring site S1 (30N, 145E; named S1-INBOX) ; another is within an anti-cyclonic eddy in the KuroshioOyashio mixed water region (42N, 146E; named ACE-INBOX). JAMSTEC conducted pre-deployment calibration for the Optode4330 sensors in the laboratory, using
the calibration formula proposed by Uchida et al. (2008). With the pre-deployment calibration along with the post-deployment adjustment based on the
comparison with shipboard CTDO measurement, the
accuracy of dissolved oxygen data has been greatly improved. Such quality-
controlled data of the S1-INBOX floats launched in 2011-2012 will be added to Argo data by the end of 2014, if the Argo data format accommodates information of
pre-deployment calibration and the post-deployment adjustment.
Japan solves ocean observation—boosts their soft power and global leadership in
ocean policy
SSEO, 2005 (Special Subcommittee on Earth Observation, “Japan's Earth Observation Satellite Development Plan and Data Utilization
Strategy”, Space Activities Commission, 07/15/2005, http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/uchuu/reports/05120701/002.pdf)
In the report of “The Earth Observation Promotion Strategy”, the Council for Science and Technology Policy presented three basic strategies of
Japan, which is in a leading position in Earth observations. These strategies included development of an
integrated Earth observation system driven by user needs, securing Japan’s uniqueness and displaying its
leadership in international integration of
Earth
observation systems , and establishment of an Earth
observation system by reinforcing cooperation with the Asia and Oceania regions. The Council also indicated
that improving the Earth observation capability of Japan through development of an integrated Earth
observation system will strongly promote implementation of the GEOSS 10-year plan, and in this way
Japan, a country with advanced Earth observation abilities, can fulfill its duties to international society. The Council also
proposed that it would be appropriate to create comprehensive promotion organization under the Council for Science and Technology to
create practical implementation policies based on the “Earth Observation Promotion Strategy”.
Methane Hydrates
1NC Methane Hydrates
Japanese solves better than the aff- incentivized by lack of other energy routes
Johnson 14 (Keith, senior reporter covering energy for Foreign Policy, “Burning Ice and the Future of Energy”, Foreign Policy, 4/25/14,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/25/a_song_of_ice_and_fire_and_methane_hydrates) EK
During their three-day meeting this week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe again asked U.S. President Barack Obama
to speed
up exports of American natural gas to help his beleaguered and energy-poor economy. But the big
energy revolution that could ride to Tokyo's rescue may not come on tankers from U.S. ports, but
rather from deep underneath the sandy seabed off Japan's own shores. Methane hydrates, which are
chunky packets of ice that trap huge amounts of natural gas in the form of methane, are looming ever larger in Japan's plans
to meet its needs for energy in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and skyrocketing bills for imported fuel. Other Asian
countries facing an energy crunch, including South Korea, China, and India, are also hoping to tap into the apparently abundant reserves of
methane hydrates, also known as "fire ice." That could help fuel growing economies -- but it could also fuel further tensions in regional seas
that are already the stage for geopolitical saber rattling and brinkmanship over natural resources. Totally unknown until the 1960s, methane
hydrates could theoretically store more gas than all the world's conventional gas fields today. The amount
that scientists figure should be gettable comes to about 43,000 trillion cubic feet, or nearly double the 22,800 trillion cubic feet of technically
recoverable traditional natural gas resources around the world. (The United States consumed 26 trillion cubic feet of gas last year.) That
raises the possibility of an energy revolution that could dwarf even the shale gale that has
transformed America's fortunes in a few short years. It could also potentially have big implications for
countries, including the United States, Australia, Qatar, and even Russia, which are banking on unbridled growth in the
global trade of liquefied natural gas. The trick will be to figure out exactly how to profitably tap vast deposits of the stuff buried
inside the seafloor. "There's no doubt that the resource potential is enormous," said Michael Stoppard, managing
director, global gas, at energy consultancy IHS. "I think it's the ultimate rebuttal to the peak oil and peak gas concept,
but of course that's not much good unless you can develop it." To that end, last week a 499-ton survey vessel nosed out of the port of Sakai,
once home to fabled gunsmiths and the finest makers of samurai swords in medieval Japan and today the prospective launching pad for a new
technological revolution. For the next two months, the Kaiyo Maru No. 7 will survey the seafloor right off Japan's west coast, the first step in a
years-long process that could end with significant production of natural gas in Japanese waters. A promising methane hydrate site off the
southeast coast was the subject of earlier surveys. Japan is the epicenter of methane hydrates today not because it has so much of the resource
-- quite the opposite, most methane hydrates appear to be in gas-rich North America -- but because it needs the resource so badly and is
working faster than any other country to make fire ice a commercial proposition. The
United States and Canada are awash in
methane hydrate resources, found both under the seabed such as in the Gulf of Mexico and in sub-Arctic permafrost. But both
countries also have loads of conventional and shale gas, dampening industry enthusiasm for a
complicated, lengthy research process . Although some companies, such as Chevron, work alongside the U.S. government on
methane hydrate research, "there's
a little less space in the industry for enabling field experiments and data
collection than there was 10 years ago," said Ray Boswell, technology manager for methane hydrates at the U.S. Energy
Department's National Energy Technology Laboratory.
Not so in Japan . This spring, researchers in Japan reached a technical
breakthrough, figuring out exactly how the gassy bundles of ice release 160 times their volume in methane as they are taken out of lowtemperature, high-pressure environments. That could make
commercial extraction, which experts estimate is at least 10 to 15
years off, an easier proposition. Japan has sought to come up with a new energy blueprint in the wake of
the 2011 nuclear disaster that shuttered the country's nuclear reactors, which led to a spike in imports of pricey
fuel, especially natural gas. Japan's new energy plan, approved in April, puts nuclear energy back on the table. But Japanese officials concede
that nuclear output will likely never reach the 30 percent or so of Japan's electricity output that it was
before the disaster. As a result, the government included methane hydrate development in its top five
priorities for new energy supplies. Japanese officials say they are working on methane hydrates because they need an alternative
to liquefied natural gas (LNG), which costs about three times as much as natural gas in the United States. "It's very easy to
understand the Japanese motivation, and with China, India, and South Korea you have very similar situations," said Tim Collett, a
gas hydrate expert at the U.S. Geological Survey. Because Japan and South Korea are the first- and second-largest importers of LNG globally,
methane hydrate development "is potentially a significant long-term threat to the LNG industry," said IHS's Stoppard. "Even small-scale
development of methane hydrate would slow down any growth in LNG sales there." To be sure, the kinds of shale gas reserves that have made
the United States an energy superpower exist overseas too. China is loaded with shale resources, as are parts of Europe and Latin America. But
the shale gas revolution depends on a lot of things other countries don't have: small, nimble energy companies, thousands of drilling rigs,
private ownership of land, and up-to-date financial and regulatory systems. Getting
methane hydrates out of the seafloor
should be a more straightforward proposition, and because for now it requires close cooperation
between industry and governments, it seems well suited to economies in the Pacific Rim.
2NC Methane Hydrates
Japan solve methane hydrates—they have the tech and research
Tabuchi, 2013 (Hiroko Tabuchi, NYT writer, “An Energy Coup for Japan: ‘Flammable Ice’”, The New York Times, 03/12/2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/business/global/japan-says-it-is-first-to-tap-methane-hydrate-deposit.html?pagewanted=all)
TOKYO — Japan said Tuesday that it had
extracted gas from offshore deposits of methane hydrate — sometimes
called “flammable ice” — a breakthrough that officials and experts said could be a step toward tapping a
promising but still little-understood energy source. The gas, whose extraction from the undersea hydrate reservoir was thought to
be a world first, could provide an alternative source of energy to known oil and gas reserves. That could be
crucial especially for Japan, which is the world’s biggest importer of liquefied natural gas and is engaged in a public debate about
whether to resume the country’s heavy reliance on nuclear power. Experts estimate that the carbon found in gas
hydrates worldwide totals at least twice the amount of carbon in all of the earth’s other fossil fuels,
making it a potential game-changer for energy-poor countries like Japan. Researchers had already successfully extracted
gas from onshore methane hydrate reservoirs, but not from beneath the seabed, where much of the world’s deposits are thought to lie. The
exact properties of undersea hydrates and how they might affect the environment are still poorly understood, given that methane is a
greenhouse gas. Japan
has invested hundreds of millions of dollars since the early 2000s to explore
offshore methane hydrate reserves in both the Pacific and the Sea of Japan. That task has become all the more pressing after the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, which has all but halted Japan’s nuclear energy program and caused a sharp increase in the country’s fossil fuel
imports. Japan’s rising energy bill has weighed heavily on its economy, helping to push it to a trade deficit and reducing the benefits of the
recently weaker yen to Japanese exporters. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said a team aboard the scientific drilling ship
Chikyu had started a trial extraction of gas from a layer of methane hydrates about 300 meters, or 1,000 feet, below the seabed Tuesday
morning. The ship has been drilling since January in an area of the Pacific about 1,000 meters deep and 80 kilometers, or 50 miles, south of the
Atsumi Peninsula in central Japan. With
specialized equipment, the team drilled into and then lowered the
pressure in the undersea methane hydrate reserve, causing the methane and ice to separate. It then piped the
natural gas to the surface, the ministry said in a statement. Hours later, a flare on the ship’s stern showed that gas was being
produced, the ministry said. “Japan could finally have an energy source to call its own,” said Takami Kawamoto, a spokesman
for the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation, or Jogmec, the state-run company leading the trial extraction. The team will continue
the trial extraction for about two weeks before analyzing how much gas has been produced, Jogmec said. Japan hopes to make the extraction
technology commercially viable in about five years. “This
is the world’s first trial production of gas from oceanic
methane hydrates, and I hope we will be able to confirm stable gas production,” Toshimitsu Motegi, the Japanese trade minister, said at
a news conference in Tokyo. He acknowledged that the extraction process would still face technical hurdles and other problems. Still, “shale gas
was considered technologically difficult to extract but is now produced on a large scale,” he said. “By tackling these challenges one by one, we
could soon start tapping the resources that surround Japan.” It is unclear how much the tapping of methane hydrate would affect Japan’s
emissions or global warming. On one hand, natural
gas would provide a cleaner alternative to coal, which still
provides Japan with a fifth of its primary energy needs. But new energy sources could also prompt Japan to slow its
development of renewable energies or green technologies, hurting its emissions in the long run. Any accidental release of large amounts of
methane during the extraction process would also be harmful. Jogmec estimates that the surrounding area in the Nankai submarine trough
holds at least 1.1 trillion cubic meters, or 39 trillion cubic feet, of methane hydrate, enough to meet 11 years’ worth of gas imports to Japan. A
separate rough estimate by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has put the total amount of methane hydrate
in the waters surrounding Japan at more than 7 trillion cubic meters, or what researchers have long said is closer to 100 years’ worth of Japan’s
natural gas needs. “Now we
know that extraction is possible,” said Mikio Satoh, a senior researcher in marine geology at the
institute who was not involved in the Nankai trough expedition. “The next step is to see how far Japan can get costs
down to make the technology economically viable.” Methane hydrate is a sherbetlike substance that can form when
methane gas is trapped in ice below the seabed or underground. Though it looks like ice, it burns when it is heated.
Japan can drilling for methane hydrates
Petersen, 01/05/2014 (Bo Petersen, Post and Courier Reporter, “Methane hydrate offshore is tempting, perilous natural gas”,
The Post and Courier, 01/05/2014, http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20140105/PC16/1401097250)
Japan, which has never had an oil or gas resource of its own, isn't waiting. In early 2013 the country
announced that it had successfully produced the gas from an offshore well drilled in 2012 in a joint project with
the United States. Japan now hopes to be producing commercially within the decade. About the same time, an
experimental drilling in Prudhoe Bay on the Alaskan north shore produced 1 million cubic feet of the stuff. That was a $29 million collaborative
project among the U.S. Department of Energy, ConocoPhillips and Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. Most oil companies now have at
least a working group researching the gas. "The oil corporations can smell something," Charter said about the resource potential. Leases Along
South Carolina, methane hydrate beds sit more than 100 miles offshore on the Blake Plateau, a plunge of the Continental Shelf more than 1,500
feet deep - too far out and too deep, analysts say. Japan's
beds sit fewer than 50 miles offshore. The Blake beds
might well be the only gas or oil out there in any volume worth extracting, previous studies have indicated. But at
least a half-dozen exploration companies already have applied for permits to explore off the East Coast. All of
them want to look off South Carolina. To explore the area off this state alone could cost a company some $4 million or more, not an
insignificant amount for a firm that sells its findings. Why the competition if there's no real cost benefit to going after the methane? Leases. The
companies expect to sell their results to oil companies, which would apply to the federal government for leases. The federal Bureau of Energy
Management in August 2013 put off deciding whether to grant those leases, but at least some form of approval is widely expected. Much
like the Gold Rush or the Oklahoma land rush, the effort offshore is a quest to get the first stake in a claim.
Once a company holds title to a lease, there are ways to extend it and not have to pay the royalties, Charter said. One way or another,
"you corner the market on that particular piece of ocean." Prime time? Mitchell Colgan isn't so sure. Colgan is a College
of Charleston geology professor who formerly worked in exploration research for Shell Oil Co. "The problem you face is how much money you
pay for that lease," he said. Shell Oil paid more than a half billion dollars for a lease off Alaska more than two decades ago, but that was in an
area rich with beds that also could be claimed by Russia. Those hydrates are much closer to shore than those off South Carolina. Also, oil
companies would be more attracted to abundant methane hydrate beds in locations like Alaska or the Gulf of Mexico, where some of the
recovery infrastructure and equipment already is in place, Colgan said. Off South Carolina, you would be starting from scratch, to go after a
supply not expected to be nearly as plentiful as other locations. "There would be good reasons for Japan to try to get it,"
Colgan said, but even with the recent success there, the companies still haven't solved the problem of how to get at enough of the gas safely
enough to make it cost-beneficial.
Japan solves methane hydrates—recent extraction proves
GRI, 01/22/2014 (Global Risk Insight, “China’s territorial sovereignty dispute is all about energy”, GRI, 01/22/2014,
http://globalriskinsights.com/2014/01/22/chinas-territorial-sovereignty-dispute-is-all-about-energy)
Both Chinese reports and US reports might be reconcilable. The USGS 2012 does not include natural gas hydrate resources, which even the EIA
global stocks of gas hydrates are at
least 10 times the supply of conventional natural gas deposits. These reserves had originally been excluded from the
note might be significant around the Paracel Islands. Yet, another USGS survey suggests that
USGS’s 2010 report due to considerations of technological limitations to extraction, the price of natural gas at the time, and IEA reports of the
dangers associated. It was presumed such reserves were not commercially viable. However, things are starting to change. Technological
developments in the extraction industry China’s state oil companies previously lacked the ability to extract deep-sea hydrate reserves. Yet, in
2012 China’s first deep-water drilling rig, the CNOOC 981 (also known as the HYSY 981), commenced operations in an area in the South China
Sea with reports suggesting the drilling to depths of 2,335 meters. In March 2013, Japan
used a deep-sea drilling vessel to
successfully extract natural gas from offshore methane hydrate deposits off Atsumi Peninsula. The
technology is available .
Japan is key- recent extractions prove
The Guardian 13 [Japan becomes first nation to extract 'frozen gas' from seabed, Successful
extraction from frozen methane hydrate deposits is the first example of production of the gas offshore,
Staff and agencies, theguardian.com, Tuesday 12 March 2013
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/mar/12/japan-extract-frozen-gas-seabed]
Japan has successfully extracted natural gas from frozen methane hydrate deposits under the sea, in
the first example of production of the gas offshore, officials said on Tuesday. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
showed what it said was gas flaming from a pipe at the project in the Pacific Ocean 80 kilometres (50 miles) off the coast of central Japan. The
breakthrough could be a step toward eventual commercial production, though the costs of extracting
gas from the seabed are much higher than for other forms of production. Methane hydrate is a form of methane
gas frozen below the seabed or in permanently frozen ground. Japan earlier succeeded in producing such gas from permafrost in Canada in
2007-08. Resource-scarce Japan, which imports most of its energy, hopes
to develop ways to produce natural gas from
its own reserves. The Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp and a government research institute, the National Institute of Advanced
Industrial Science and Technology, used a technology they developed to reduce pressure in the underground layers holding the methane
hydrate 1,330 metres (4,363 feet) below the sea surface, and then dissolved it into gas and water, collecting the gas through a well, the ministry
said. Speaking to the Financial Times, Ryo Minami, director of the oil and gas division at Japan's Agency for Natural Resources, compared
methane hydrate to shale gas, a once-marginal resource which is transforming the US energy market. "Ten years ago, everybody knew there
was shale gas in the ground, but to extract it was too costly. Yet now it's commercialised," he said. Methane hydrate looks like ice but burns like
a candle if a flame is applied. With the boom in production of natural gas from the fracking of shale gas boosting supplies in the US in particular,
there is little need to resort to the more costly extraction of the frozen gas in those regions. But
it is considered a future
potential resource by some, and studies show substantial reserves in various regions, including the
Nankai trough off Japan's eastern coast, the northern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska's North Slope.
Japan solves- Joint venture with Canada to extract hydrates
Arango 13 [Canada drops out of race to tap methane hydrates, Funding ended for research into how
to exploit world's largest fossil energy resource, By Santiago Ortega Arango, a freelance contributor for
the Thomson Reuters Foundation, is a Colombian engineer and freelance journalist interested in climate
change, May 7th, 2013, http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canada-drops-out-of-race-to-tapmethane-hydrates-1.1358966]
Canada and Japan have been partners in the quest to extract methane from hydrates. Since 2000, Natural
Resources Canada has invested more than $16 million in the venture. Japan spent around $60 million between 2002 and
2008 to finance production tests in the Canadian Arctic. On March 18 this year the Japan Oil, Gas and
Metals National Corp. reached a milestone, successfully completing a test to produce methane gas from
offshore hydrate formations for the first time, using extraction techniques pioneered in Canada. Despite
the success, Canadian federal funding from Natural Resources Canada for research into exploiting
methane hydrates was cut as of March 31 — just a couple of weeks after the offshore production tests in Japan. The ministry
told CBC News the decision was made in 2012.
Japanese tech and funding solves- Successful extraction of Canadian hydrates
Japan Times 13 [New fossil fuel resources, The Japan times, January 3rd, 2013,
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/01/03/editorials/new-fossil-fuel-resources/#.U7tC0E_ViSo]
It is not easy to extract methane from methane hydrate because the latter exists in the form of solid
matter. But Japan has succeeded in getting methane from an underground methane hydrate layer in a
test in Canada. In the test, the pressure inside the layer was lowered to let methane vaporize. Around
mid-February in 2013, Japan, Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. plans to start a test to dissolve methane
hydrate in a layer some 1,300 meters below the sea surface off Atsumi Peninsula of Aichi Prefecture.
Japan should develop methane hydrate resources in earnest . In doing so, it should work out an
efficient method for extracting methane without causing environmental problems. Because Japan’s
territorial waters plus its exclusive economic zone are the world’s sixth largest, serious efforts to exploit
methane hydrate resources may help to give it an advantageous position in negotiations on imports of
crude oil and liquefied natural gas. At present, Japan’s power companies must import a large amount of
LNG as fuel for thermal power plants. The government should accelerate the development of methane
hydrate resources by providing sufficient financial support to the entities concerned.
2NC Internal Net Benefit
CP Solves Japan Energy Independence- no alternatives in the Squo
Pfeifer 14 (Silvia, Energy Editor, Financial Times “Methane hydrates could be energy of the future”, Financial Times, 1/17/14,
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/8925cbb4-7157-11e3-8f92-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2qfjtQxRv) EK
Forget the shale gas revolution that has transformed North America’s energy landscape. The
energy of the future could lie
buried deep underneath the world’s oceans and the Arctic permafrost: giant reservoirs of gas trapped in ice
crystals. Sometimes called flammable ice, these methane hydrates also hold out the potential to alter trade flows and
the geopolitics of energy. Countries such as Japan and India, which rely heavily on energy imports, could
suddenly find themselves important energy suppliers . Late last year, China announced it had identified a big gas hydrate
reserve in the northern part of the South China Sea. It is very early days. Test drillings have so far taken place only in Canada and Japan, but
the International Energy Agency, the western world’s energy watchdog, does not rule out the possibility of
another energy revolution to rival that of the shale boom in North America. Maria van der Hoeven, the IEA’s
executive director, said in an interview last year: “There may be other surprises in store. For example, the methane
hydrates off the coasts of Japan and Canada ... This is still at a very early stage. But shale gas was in
the same position 10 year ago. So we cannot rule out that new revolutions may take place through
technological developments.” Methane hydrates are deposits of natural gas trapped with water in a crystalline structure that forms
at low temperatures and moderate pressures. Although estimates of the resources vary widely, experts agree they are extremely large.
According to the IEA’s most recent World Energy Outlook published last autumn, even the lower estimates give resources larger “than all other
natural gas resources combined”. Many estimates fall between 1,000tn and 5,000tn cubic metres, or between 300 and 1,500 years of
production at current rates. The US Geological Survey estimates that gas hydrates worldwide are between 10 to 100 times as plentiful as US
shale gas reserves. However, although
several governments have investigated methane hydrates since the
early 1980s, no country has been especially focused on developing them. Exploiting them has to make
sense from a cost perspective. There have also been other sources of fossil fuels – notably conventional oil and gas and more
recently shale – that have been easier and cheaper to access. Things changed early last year. In March, Japan became the first country to get
gas flowing successfully from methane hydrate deposits under the Pacific Ocean. The country
has a big reason to pursue
methane hydrates . After shutting down most of its nuclear power stations three years ago after the crisis
at its Fukushima nuclear plants, the
country has relied on expensive imports of liquefied natural gas from countries
such as Qatar. Before the Fukushima disaster, nuclear provided about 30 per cent of Japan’s power generation, compared with LNG at 25 per
cent. Since that time, LNG’s share has soared to 45 per cent. The increasing energy imports have helped drive the country’s trade balance into
deficit. According to Paul Duerloo, partner and managing director at Boston Consulting Group in Japan, the country tops
the list of
those with an incentive to develop their methane hydrate deposits. Japan, he says, is paying about $15 per million
British thermal units (mBTU), compared with the US Henry Hub price of just $4-$5.5 per mBTU and a price of well below $10 per mBTU in
Europe. The
country, adds Mr Duerloo, has few alternatives in terms of energy sources and is keen to become
self-sufficient. The resource could be enormous. Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation, the state oil group, estimated in 2008
that 1.1tn cubic metres of methane hydrates lay beneath the eastern Nankai Trough, enough to offset at least a decade’s worth of foreign gas
imports. Even so, huge
challenges remain before natural gas can be produced from these reserves and the
relevant extraction technology is still in its infancy. Hydrates form under high pressure caused by the weight of the
seawater or rock above them. That pressure needs to be maintained when the sediment cores are analysed or else the hydrates within quickly
dissociate into water and gas. There are also concerns about what the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, could do to the
atmosphere. To extract the gas last March, the Japanese team used conventional methods. These involved first lowering a drill about 1,000m to
the bottom of the Nankai Trough. They then had to drill another 300m into the rock, drain the water out of the hydrate layer to lower the
pressure in the deposit and free the methane gas which was then pumped to the surface. Nevertheless, more
work needs to be
done. Researchers in Japan hope to develop production technology that achieves controlled release of
the methane from the ice into the production well, thereby minimising the risk of gas escaping into
the atmosphere. According to the IEA, “the longer-term role of methane hydrates will depend on climate change policies as well as
technological advances, as meeting
ambitious goals to reduce emissions could require a reduction in demand
from all fossil fuels, certainly in the longer term”. Japan has set itself the target of bringing methane
hydrates into the mainstream by the early 2020s. Despite the significant challenges, Mr Duerloo believes the world should
not underestimate its dedication, inventiveness and willingness. “I think the chances they pull it off are more than half.”
Japan energy dependence drains their economy- trade imbalance
Pagliarulo 13 (Ned, Global Risk Insights “Fukushima Amplifies Japanese Energy Import Dependence”, Zero Hedge, 10/30/13,
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-10-30/fukushima-amplifies-japanese-energy-import-dependence) EK
When Typhoon Wipha flooded Japan with heavy rains last week, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant ordered precautionary
measures to prevent leakage of contaminated water. Ever
since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami caused a
reactor meltdown at the plant, Fukushima has become a symbol of a Japanese nuclear strategy and
energy supply in disarray. As the clean-up from the disaster continues, all fifty of Japan’s nuclear reactors have
been taken offline, creating a large shortfall in energy production that Japan has had to fill from abroad. Growing dependence on
imports According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Japan falls far short of providing enough
energy for its domestic uses, with only 16% domestic energy production. Not surprisingly, Japan needs to
import heavily — it is the world largest importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Before the disaster at Fukushima and the following
reevaluation of nuclear power in Japan, nuclear sources supplied 13% of Japan’s energy consumption. The EIA notes in another report that
“Japan’s
electric power utilities have been consuming more natural gas and petroleum to make up for
the shortfall in nuclear output…” With this shift, fossil fuel use has jumped 21% in 2012 compared to
2011 levels. High energy costs in the near term (the IMF forecasts that the spot price for crude will remain above $100/barrel
for 2014)
pose a problem for Japan’s trade balance . As Japan imports more fossil fuels, its trade deficit
widens (Japan ran a surplus before 2011). This hurts its current account , which has shrunk considerably. While the
depreciation of the yen would usually helps by making exports competitive, the IMF’s Article 4 consultation with Japan noted that the
weaker yen has yet to improve the current account.
Japanese econ collapse causes Asian Instability
Auslin 9 (Michael, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute “Japan’s Downturn Is Bad News for the World”, The Wall Street
Journal, 2/17/09, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123483257056995903.html)
Recently, many economists and scholars in the U.S. have been looking backward to Japan's banking disaster of the 1990s, hoping to learn
lessons for America's current crisis. Instead, they should be looking ahead to what might occur if Japan goes into a full-fledged
depression. If
Japan's economy collapses, supply chains across the globe will be affected and numerous
economies will face severe disruptions, most notably China's. China is currently Japan's largest import
provider, and the Japanese slowdown is creating tremendous pressure on Chinese factories. Just last
week, the Chinese government announced that 20 million rural migrants had lost their jobs. Closer to home, Japan may
also start running out of surplus cash, which it has used to purchase U.S. securities for years. For the first time in a generation, Tokyo is
running trade deficits -- five months in a row so far. The
political and social fallout from a Japanese depression also
would be devastating. In the face of economic instability, other Asian nations may feel forced to turn
to more centralized -- even authoritarian -- control to try to limit the damage. Free-trade agreements
may be rolled back and political freedom curtailed. Social stability in emerging, middle-class
societies will be severely tested, and newly democratized states may find it impossible to maintain
power. Progress toward a more open, integrated Asia is at risk, with the potential for increased
political tension in the world's most heavily armed region. This is the backdrop upon which the U.S.government is
set to expand the national debt by a trillion dollars or more. Without massive debt purchases by Japan and China, the U.S. may not be
able to finance the cost of the stimulus package, creating a trapdoor under the U.S. economy.
Asian Instability causes nuclear war
Dibb 1 (Paul, Professor at the Australian National University “Strategic Trends: Asia at a Crossroads”, Naval War College Review, Winter 2001,
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/2001/Winter/art2-w01.htm)
The areas of maximum danger
and instability in the world today are in Asia, followed by the Middle East and parts
strategic situation in Asia is more uncertain and potentially threatening than
anywhere in Europe. Unlike in Europe, it is possible to envisage war in Asia involving the major powers: remnants
of Cold War ideological confrontation still exist across the Taiwan Straits and on the Korean Peninsula; India and
Pakistan have nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and these two countries are more confrontational than at any time since the
early 1970s; in Southeast Asia, Indonesia—which is the world’s fourth-largest country—faces a highly uncertain future that
could lead to its breakup. The Asia-Pacific region spends more on defense (about $150 billion a year) than any other
part of the world except the United States and Nato Europe. China and Japan are amongst the top four or five
global military spenders. Asia also has more nuclear powers than any other region of the world. Asia’s
security is at a crossroads: the region could go in the direction of peace and cooperation, or it could slide into
confrontation and military conflict. There are positive tendencies, including the resurgence of economic growth and the spread of
democracy, which would encourage an optimistic view. But there are a number of negative tendencies that must be of
serious concern. There are deep-seated historical, territorial, ideological, and religious differences in
Asia. Also, the region has no history of successful multilateral security cooperation or arms control. Such multilateral institutions as the
of the former Soviet Union. The
Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the ASEAN Regional Forum have shown themselves to be ineffective when confronted with major
crises.
AT: No Tech
New Japanese technology solves methane hydrate extraction
Tsuru, 2012 (Etsushi Tsuru, The Asahi Shimbun GLOBE correspondent, “1,600 meters below sea level: Japan's coveted deep sea mineral
resources”, The Asahi Shimbun, 06/24/2012, http://ajw.asahi.com/article/globe/feature/deepsea/AJ201206240043)
Waters off Papua New Guinea are proving to be a testing ground for a world-first attempt to extract metallic minerals on a commercial basis
from the ocean floor 1,600 meters below sea level. Efforts
are under way to exploit what is referred to as the "third
major natural resource" following crude oil and natural gas. The project is being undertaken by Canada-based venture company
Nautilus Minerals. The company aims to mine gold, copper, silver, zinc, and other precious metals. The estimated amount of deposits in the
mining area marked for exploitation is 1.54 million tons. The company expects to start production in 2014. Construction began in April on
equipment that will be used for the project, one that has drawn considerable attention among industry insiders. Investors include major
resource companies Anglo American of Britain and Teck Resources of Canada. It has
long been known that this part of the
ocean floor is rich in resources, but extraction technology had been considered inadequate and
expensive, rendering commercialization unfeasible. But two things have since come into play:
technological advancements and soaring prices of natural resources in recent years. "Depending on the quality and
amount, (deep sea mining) can now pay for itself," explains Koichi Nakamura of the National Institute of Advanced Science and Technology
(AIST). * * * Japan
may rank only 62nd in the world in terms of land mass, but it is being eyed as a top
class prospect in terms of the volume of rare metals deposits in its territorial waters and exclusive economic
zone (EEZ), for which it possesses resource exploitation rights. In particular, the waters around Okinawa Prefecture
and the Ogasawara island chain, where several hydrothermal vents have been discovered on the seabed, are
comparatively shallow. They lie at depths of between 700 and 1,600 meters. This means it is relatively easy to start
commercial mining operations there. The mining companies believe that dissolved metals in the hot water pumped out of the
vents are being cooled by the sea, and accumulating in large amounts on the ocean floor. According to some calculations, the deposits could be
worth around 80 trillion yen ($1.016 trillion). Foreign mining companies are taking a keen interest in Japan's seabed resources, and vying to be
the first to secure rights to exploit its waters. In February 2007, the Japan subsidiary of a British corporation applied to the Japanese
government to establish mining zones for metallic minerals in nine marine areas and 133 locations within Japan's EEZ. The following year, it
applied for a further 405 locations. This rattled the Japanese government. Regardless of whether the technology to exploit these zones existed,
it meant that a system was in place in which the first party to make an application was given priority in mining zone acquisitions. "If we had left
things as they were, there was a risk the companies which existed only on paper for the purpose of securing mining zones would run rampant,"
says an official from the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy. Applications were put on hold. The Mining Act was only revised this year.
Aside from adding clearance requirements based on the technological and financial ability of applicants, it was decided to give the government
the power to select the party that will engage in resource exploitation. Even so, domestic
movement on the issue remains
sluggish. In 2008, the Japanese government established a project aimed at commercializing methane
hydrate and seabed mineral resources by 2018.
Japanese extraction is the best- successful depressurizing process
Fitzpatrick 10 [Japan to drill for controversial 'fire ice' Japan seeks to improve energy security by
drilling for frozen methane but environmentalists fear a leak of the greenhouse gas, which is 21 times as
damaging as carbon dioxide, Michael Fitzpatrick, reporter at theguardian.com, Monday 27 September
2010, http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/sep/27/energy-industry-energy]
In a bid to shore up its precarious energy security Japan
is to start commercial test drilling for controversial frozen
methane gas along its coast next year. The gas is methane hydrate, a sherbet-like substance consisting of methane
trapped in water ice – sometimes called "fire ice" or MH – that is locked deep underwater or under permafrost by the cold
and under pressure 23 times that of normal atmosphere. A consortium led by the Japanese government and the Japan
Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (Jogmec) will be sinking several wells off the south-eastern
coast of Japan to assess the commercial viability of extracting gas from frozen methane deep beneath
local waters. Surveys suggest Japan has enough methane hydrate for 100 years at the current rate of usage. Lying hundreds of metres
below the sea and deeper still below sediments, fire ice is exceedingly difficult to extract.
using a method that gently depressurises the frozen gas.
Japan is claiming successful tests
Tokyo plans to start commercial output of methane hydrates
by 2018. At present, Japan imports nearly all its gas – about 58.6m tonnes of liquified gas annually – and is heavily dependent on oil imports. In
a desperate attempt to secure more oil, for example, Japan recently did a deal with the United Arab Emirates. In exchange for using Japan as a
base for Asian oil trading, Japan now has priority to purchase rights to up to 4m barrels of immediately accessible crude. Lucia van Geuns, an
energy analyst at the international energy programme of the Clingendael Institute, said: "Methane
hydrates could make Japan
energy independent. Japan put a lot of R&D into this project because of course the less energy it
imports the better. Whether they can commercialise methane hydrates remains to be seen. "If it does succeed, and that's very much a
long shot, it will have a huge impact – equivalent to the use of gas shales in the US."
Japan tech solves methane hydrates and leads to global adoption after it is seen as
successful.
WSJ 13 [Wall Street Journal, News agency “Scientists Envision Fracking in Arctic and on Ocean Floor”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324694904578600073042194096]
Nevertheless, the government of Japan—where natural gas costs are currently $16 per million British thermal units, four times the level in
the U.S.—has vowed to
bring methane hydrate into the mainstream by 2023 after a successful drilling test
in March. In the government-sponsored test off of the southern coast of Japan's main island, Honshu, a
drilling rig bored nearly 2,000 feet below the seafloor. Special equipment reduced the pressure around
the methane hydrate crystals, dissolving them into gas and water, and then pumped about 4.2 million
cubic feet of gas to the surface. While not a huge haul, it was enough to convince Japanese researchers that
more natural gas could be harvested. If Japan can deliver on its vow to produce natural gas economically
from the methane hydrate deposits off its shores, it could experience a natural-gas boom that matches
the fracking-fueled one under way in North America, said Surya Rajan, analyst at IHS CERA. "If you look at what a dramatic
shift the North American gas industry has gone through, could you afford to bet against something similar happening in methane hydrate?" Mr.
Rajan said. Successful development of methane hydrates could throw a wrench into liquefied-natural-gas
megaprojects such as Australia's $50 billion Gorgon development led by Chevron Corp. CVX -0.44% , experts say. "It would make me have pause
about investing billions of dollars in an LNG export terminal," said Christopher Knittel, an energy economics professor at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Not
all observers think that the costs can come down enough to make
methane hydrate viable. But plenty of countries, particularly in Asia, are planning to try. China plans to
host an international conference on methane hydrate in 2014. India is contemplating a push to develop
the vast quantities of methane hydrate discovered off its coast in the Indian Ocean in 2006, according to the U.S.
Geological Survey, a part of the U.S. Department of Interior that conducts scientific research. In the U.S., scientists explored the northern Gulf
of Mexico in May to map some of the 6.7 quadrillion cubic feet of methane-hydrate clusters believed to be underwater there. The Consortium
for Ocean Leadership, a nonprofit group of researchers, is now trying to convince the Department of Energy to lend it a research drilling ship to
do more tests. "There are a huge amount of people internationally working in this area," said Carolyn Ruppel, head of
the gas hydrates project at the USGS. "A lot of national governments have gotten into the game." The most optimal places to harvest methane
hydrate are near where the continental shelf transitions to the deep ocean, areas difficult to access from sea level.
AT: No Energy Independence
CP solves energy independence- Japan commercializes hydrates—makes them
available for the US
Max et. Al 13[Michael d., world's leading consultancies for unconventional gas resources, “Natural Gas Hydrate - Arctic Ocean
Deepwater Resource Potential” chapter 6, http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/760/chp%253A10.1007%252F978-3-319-025087_6.pdf?auth66=1405009459_e105112ca2e5e2501764c04c4bb61a85&ext=.pdf 2013 DG]
As will be discussed elsewhere in this volume, very great progress has been made in understanding the NGH system and developing exploration
tools that can bring discoveries to the level of a prospect. The
world's first technical production test of oceanic NGH
was carried out on the 40 TCF Nankai NGH deposit according to a planned timeline (Kurihara et al.
2011) during March 2013 by IOGMEC (2013). Part of the Nankai deposit is scheduled for production in
2018, which is only 5 years from the first production test. This is a near-term development timeline
consistent with conventional deepwater field development. Commercial production of NGH off Japan
is likely because natural gas produced from the Nankai NGH deposit should compete well with the rather high
delivered price of liquefied natural gas (LNG) that has been in the $15-$18 MMcf range in the 2011-2013 time period. With
improvement of the development cost of NGH exploration and production techniques, it is entirely
possible that oceanic NGH may compete on a produced cost with other natural gas resources.
Natural Gas Drilling
1NC Natural Gas Drilling
Japan solves offshore natural gas drilling
Nikkei, 03/27/2014 (Nikkei Asian Review, “Japan to finance offshore LNG projects to support domestic firms”, Nikkei Asian Review,
03/27/2014, http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Policy-Politics/Japan-to-finance-offshore-LNG-projects-to-support-domestic-firms)
TOKYO -- The
Japanese government plans to provide financing to liquefied natural gas development
projects off the coasts of Asian nations and Australia to help Japanese engineering companies and shipbuilders win more orders. A panel
studying natural resources and energy under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is expected to unveil the financing initiative in a
meeting Friday. The government intends to guarantee up to 75% of the amounts of loans taken out by Japanese businesses and invest in energy
development joint ventures through a program under the government-backed Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp., or Jogmec. Several
offshore LNG projects are underway in Australia and Southeast Asia, with an eye toward beginning production around 2016.
Inpex is participating in the Prelude project off the Australian coast, for example. Offshore LNG projects drill the ocean floor
for natural gas, which is liquefied on huge floating facilities. They eliminate the need to lay the pipelines, costing
hundreds of millions of yen per kilometer, that traditional offshore natural gas projects need to transport gas to land for liquefaction. But
constructing just one of the floating facilities can run to a massive 300 billion yen to 500 billion yen ($2.9 billion to $4.84 billion). The financial
risks make the field difficult to enter, according to an official at a major engineering company. By some estimates, total
investment in
offshore natural resource development will grow from 6 trillion yen at present to 11 trillion yen in 2020. Orders for offshore
LNG facilities are projected to increase.
Japanese corporations possess strong technologies that would be useful
for offshore LNG projects.
Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding subsidiary has technologies for
A
stabilizing floating plants. And engineering companies from around the world are interested in IHI's work on
developing tanks that inhibit the gasification of LNG due to wave movements. The government hopes to help Japanese businesses compete on
a better footing with South Korean shipbuilders and other rivals.
Ocean Acidification
1NC Ocean Acidification
Japan solves ocean acidification
UNCSD, 2011 (United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, “Messages for Rio+20”, UNCSD,
2011http://www.bioacid.de/upload/downloads/press/OA.AoE_RIO20_low-res.pdf)
Five major
programmes in Japan fund research relevant to ocean acidification. Japan’s Ministry of
Environment supports research programmes to elucidate the future impact of ocean acidification on
various marine organisms using sophisticated mesocosm facilities (e.g. AICAL, Acidification Impact on CALcifiers). The Ministry of Education,
Science, Sport and Culture (MEXT) and the Japan Agency for Marine Science and TEChnology ( JAMSTEC) also support ocean acidification
research such as modelling efforts on the Earth Simulator supercomputer to predict future ocean
conditions.
Ocean Mapping
1NC Ocean Mapping
Japan solves ocean floor mapping—recent earthquake jumpstarted new tech
AFP, 2012 (AFP, “Experts to get first look at buckled ocean floor”, IOL Scitech, 03/12/2012,
http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/science/environment/experts-to-get-first-look-at-buckled-ocean-floor-1.1254574#.U8VOcvldWSo/)
Tokyo - Scientists
have launched a mission to the seabed off Japan where a massive quake triggered last year's
to get their first proper look at the buckled ocean floor. Researchers from Germany and
Japan are sending high-tech vehicles to probe the seabed up to 7,000 metres below the surface where
the massive seismic shock hit last March. “We want to deploy instruments on the sea floor and also map the area
to see the large changes caused by the earthquake,” said Gerold Wefer, who is leading the project. His team said the
data gathered from the month-long mission covering a rupture zone stretching hundreds of kilometres would help them
understand the mechanism of huge quakes and the tsunamis they can spawn. The mission comes as Japan readies to
devastating tsunami,
mark the first anniversary of the 9.0 magnitude quake that unleashed a huge tsunami on March 11. More than 19,000 people died and vast
tracts of coastline were crushed by towering waves that rushed ashore, swamping the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and sparking the
worst atomic accident in a generation. Wefer, director of the German Centre for Marine Environmental Changes at Bremen University, told
reporters he was feeling “quite high” ahead of the start of the mission. He said scientists would see “huge cracks” in rocks that run parallel to
the trench off the main Japanese island of Honshu. “The rocks were broken into pieces” by the quake, releasing fluid and gas into the ocean, he
said. The
team will use an autonomously controlled 5.5-metre vehicle, which looks like a small submarine, to map
the sea floor with a multibeam sonar device. The mothership from which the vehicle will be launched is equipped with echo
sounders and will map several longer profiles extending from the shelf off Honshu across the deep-sea trench. The new maps will be
compared with profiles Japan had earlier obtained to shed light on what happened on the sea floor
when the quake hit. The epicentre of the quake was in the Pacific some 130 kilometres off Honshu, where an ocean tectonic plate slides below
Japan. A
remotely-controlled 3.5-ton vehicle, equipped with cameras, sonar and lights and cabled to the
ship, will install instruments at boreholes drilled earlier to activate a system to precisely measure future earthquakes. The mission
will also take sediment samples from the trench area, whose analysis scientists hope will help them find a very rough timing for the next huge
tremor. “If you think about earthquake predictions, it is very very difficult at this moment using present-day technology and data,” said Shuichi
Kodaira, of the Institute for Research on Earth Evolution, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. “But what
we can do
right now is that we can probably understand the recurrence or history of great earthquakes in the Japan Trench by
using data from this cruise and from other cruises,” he said.
2NC Ocean Mapping
Japan high-level technology solves seafloor mapping
JAMSTEC, 2010 (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, the independent administrative institutions upon reorganized from its former organization, Japan Marine Science and Technology Center. JAMSTEC has the main objective to contribute to the
advancement of academic research in addition to the improvement of marine science and technology by proceeding the fundamental research
and development on marine, and the cooperative activities on the academic research related to the Ocean for the benefit of the peace and
human welfare, “High-Resolution Seafloor Mapping Reveals Marine Landslide Triggered by 2009 Suruga Bay Earthquake”, JAMSTEC,
05/25/2010, https://www.jamstec.go.jp/e/about/press_release/20100525/)
The Earthquake and Tsunami Research Project for Disaster Prevention, Japan
Agency for Marine-Earth Science and
Technology (JAMSTEC), have found geologic evidence of submarine landslide, possibly triggered by a
magnitude-6.5 earthquake occurred in the Suruga Bay on August 11th, 2009. The trace of the landslide was recognized in
the earthquake source region, by the high-resolution bathymetric survey onboard the Research
Vessel(R/V) Natsushima and remotely-controlled autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) named “Urashima,
“ along with underwater visual observation using a 3000m-class remotely operated vehicle “HYPERDOLPHINE”. A high-resolution 3D image of the seafloor, created by AUV Urashima, clearly depicted a horse-shoe
shaped scarp measuring 450 meters wide and 10 to 15 meters deep approximately 5 kilometers off the coast of Yaizu City, Shizuoka
Prefecture. The map also implied the occurrence of turbidity currents along a nearby submarine canyon. The
comparison of bathymetric profiles newly obtained from this study with those collected in the past
illustrates significant changes in water depth at the source region of the August 2009 earthquake, implying the involvement
of the earthquake in the above slope failure and sediment transport. The signs of submarine landslide also highlight its possible involvement in
the damage to a deep-sea water suction pipe laid at a depth of 687 meters below the sea surface in the surveyed area. The pipe was later found
to be destroyed following the earthquake. Submarine
landslides often generate unexpected tsunamis and cause damage to seafloor
has not been fully understood; thus detailed
studies on the submarine landslide identified in this study are expected to improve tsunami predictions
installations such as telecommunication cables. Yet, their dynamic behavior
and measures against possible damage to submarine cables.
OTEC
1NC OTEC
Japan OTEC solves—recent tech improvements prove—the tech will reach the US
ERC, 2010 (Energy Resource Center, “Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)”, ERC, 03/05/2010,
http://energyplace.com/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26view%3Darticle%26id%3D7%26Itemid%3D11//MD
Japan has been a major contributor to the development of OTEC technology, primarily for export to
other countries . In the 1970s, the Tokyo Electric Power Company built a 100 kW closed-cycle OTEC plant
on the island of Nauru. The plant became operational in 1981 and produced about 120 kW of electricity (90 kW was used to power the plant,
and the remaining electricity was used to power a school and several other facilities in Nauru).
This set a world record for power
output from an OTEC system where the power was sent to a real power grid. What Share of the World’s Energy
Needs Could OTEC Supply? Some experts believe that if OTEC became cost-competitive, it could provide gigawatts of
electrical power, and in conjunction with electrolysis, could produce enough hydrogen to completely replace all projected global fossil
fuel consumption. What Barriers Stand in the Way OTEC Power Production? Managing costs remains a huge challenge. OTEC plants require
expensive, large-diameter intake pipes, submerged at least a kilometer deep in the ocean to bring very cold water to the surface. Cold seawater
is a requirement for all three types of OTEC systems. The cold seawater can be brought to the surface by direct pumping, or by desalinating the
seawater near the sea floor, lowering its density and causing it to “float” through a pipe to the surface. Has a Closed-cycle OTEC Plant Ever Been
Built? In 1979, the Natural Energy Laboratory and several private-sector partners developed a mini OTEC experiment that achieved the first
successful at-sea production of net electrical power from closed-cycle OTEC. (Net power is that which remains after subtracting the power
required to run the plant.) The mini OTEC vessel was moored 1.5 miles off the Hawaiian coast and produced enough net electricity to illuminate
the ship's light bulbs and run its computers and televisions. In 1999, the Natural Energy Laboratory tested a 250 kW pilot closed-cycle plant, the
largest of its kind. Since then, no further tests of OTEC technology have been conducted in the U.S., largely because the costs of energy
production today have delayed financing of a permanent, continuously operating plant. What OTEC Projects are on the Drawing Board?
Planned OTEC projects include a small plant for the U.S. Navy base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, to replace existing diesel
generators. The plant would also provide 1,250 gallons of drinking water to the base per day. A private firm has proposed building a 10-MW
OTEC plant on Guam. And Lockheed Martin’s Alternative Energy Development team is in the final design phases of a 10-MW closed cycle OTEC
pilot system that will become operational in Hawaii in 2012 or 2013. The system will be designed to expand to 100-MW commercial systems in
the near future. Does OTEC Have Benefits Beyond Producing Power? Yes, indeed. For example, the cold seawater from an OTEC system can
provide air-conditioning for buildings. If such a system operated 8000 hours per year in a large building, and local electricity sold for 5¢-10¢ per
kilowatt-hour, it could save $200,000-$400,000 in annual energy bills (U.S. Department of Energy, 1989). The InterContinental Resort and
Thalasso-Spa on Bora Bora now uses OTEC technology to air-condition its buildings. The system passes cold seawater through a heat exchanger,
where it cools fresh water in a closed-loop system. The cool freshwater is then pumped to buildings for cooling (no conversion to electricity
takes place). Another application is chilled-soil agriculture . When cold seawater flows through underground pipes, it chills the surrounding soil.
The temperature difference between plant roots in the cool soil and plant leaves in the warm air allows many plants that evolved in temperate
climates to be grown in the subtropics. Aquaculture, another viable OTEC offshoot, is considered one of the best ways to reduce the financial
and energy costs of pumping large volumes of water from the deep ocean. Deep ocean water contains high concentrations of essential
nutrients that are depleted in surface waters due to consumption by animal and plant life. This “artificial upwelling” mimics natural upwellings
responsible for fertilizing and supporting the largest marine ecosystems, and the largest densities of life on the planet. Cold-water delicacies
such as salmon and lobster, and microalgae such as spirulina can also be cultivated in the nutrient-rich cold water from OTEC plants. As
described earlier, open-cycle and hybrid OTEC plants produce desalinated wate. System analysis indicates that a 2-megawatt (net) plant could
produce about 4300 cubic meters of desalinated water per day (Block and Lalenzuela 1985). OTEC
plants can produce hydrogen
via electrolysis, using electricity generated by the OTEC plant. Also, minerals can be extracted from seawater pumped
by OTEC plants . Japanese researchers have recently found
that
developments
in materials sciences
and
other technologies are improving the ability to extract minerals efficiently, using ocean energy.
2NC OTEC
Japan solves OTEC—it gets modelled
ON, 2012 (Otec News, “OTEC pilot plant to be built in Okinawa Prefecture”, Otec News, 07/27/2012,
http://www.otecnews.org/2012/07/otec-pilot-plant-to-be-built-in-okinawa-prefecture)
This month, Japanese
engineering companies IHI Plant Construction Corporation, Xenesys Incorporated and Yokogawa Electric
Corporation announced their collaboration in building a 50kW OTEC demonstration plant in the waters of
Kumejima Island, located in the very south of Japan and part of the Okinawa Islands. The OTEC plant will be integrated in
the Okinawa Prefecture Deep Seawater Research Center, which is the largest of four deep seawater
pumping systems in Japan. The companies aim to have the OTEC plant up and running in March 2013. Regarding the roles in this project:
Xenesys will design and manufacture the power generation unit and the heat exchangers; Yokogawa will design, manufacture and do the
engineering of the monitoring and control system for the generation unit and the electronics for the interconnected power schemes; and IHI
will develop and construct the entire facility. Okinawa
Research Center is active in deep seawater utilization for over
10 years. The center established several deep seawater projects, including local area cooling services, water desalination,
aquaculture and agriculture. Next year the OTEC demonstration plant will be added and connected to the deep seawater infrastructure. The
OTEC plant will be used for practical testing and optimization of the output . It is an important step in
the
commercialization
following the 30kW demonstration unit at Saga University in Saga, Japan. The current capacity of the Okinawa
Research Center is about 13,000 tons of seawater per day, pumped up from a depth of 612 meter where the water is between 6 and 8°C. The
temperature of the surface seawater is around 26°C annual average, providing stable production possibilities. Regarding future scale-ups,
Xenesys estimated that it is possible to increase the intake of deep seawater to 100,000 tons per day and install 1.25MW OTEC power capacity.
This would supply 10,600 MWh of electricity per year, which accounts for 10% of Kumejima’s total annual
consumption.The island of Kumejima, which entered into a Sister City Relationship with the county of Hawaii last year, aims
to become a self-sustaining community and model
for other small islands in the Okinawa Prefecture.
Japan tech solves OTEC
Friedman, 03/26/2014 (Becca Friedman, OCEAN Energy Council Reporter, “EXAMINING THE FUTURE OF OCEAN THERMAL
ENERGY CONVERSION”, OCEAN Energy Council, 03/26/2014, http://www.oceanenergycouncil.com/examining-future-ocean-thermal-energyconversion)
In fact, as
the U.S. government is dragging its feet, other countries are moving forward with their own
designs and may well beat American industry to a fully-functioning plant. In India , there has been significant
academic interest in OTEC, although the National Institute of Ocean Technology project has stalled due to a lack of funding. Japan , too, has
run into capital cost issues, but Saga University ’s Institute of Ocean Energy
refinement of the OTEC cycle.
has recently won prizes for advances in
Taiwan and various European nations have also explored OTEC as part of their long-term energy
strategy. Perhaps the most interest is in the Philippines , where the Philippine Department of Energy has worked with Japanese experts to
select 16 potential OTEC sites. The Future of Oceanic Energy Were
its vast potential harnessed, OTEC could change the
face of energy consumption by causing a shift away from fossil fuels. Environmentally, such a transition would
greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and decrease the rate of global warming. Geopolitically, having an alternative energy source could
free the United States , and other countries, from foreign oil dependency. As Huang said, “We just cannot ignore oceanic energy, especially
OTEC, because the ocean is so huge and the potential is so big… No matter who assesses, if you rely on fossil energy for the future, the future
isn’t very bright…For the future, we have to look into renewable energy, look for the big resources, and the future is in the ocean.” •
Japan has the tech to make OTEC viable
Elliott, 2012 (Dave Elliott, Professor of Technology Policy at Open University Milton Keynes, United Kingdom & research associate
studying microbial communities and their interactions with the environment, “Greening Japan’s energy”, Environmental Research Web,
07/14/2012, http://blog.environmentalresearchweb.org/2012/07/14/greening-japans-energy)
In addition, Japan
is following up other offshore options. The marine energy programme will be expanded in
2013 to include tidal and wave energy, along with OTEC ocean thermal gradient technologies . Tests are likely to
be carried out off the Tohoku & Kyushu regions, in co-operation with the private sector and universities. In parallel, the Ocean
Energy Association of Japan (OEAJ), is to set up a Japanese Marine Energy Centre (JMEC), with help from EMEC
in Scotland. It’s a two-way exercise: Kawasaki Heavy Industries is to test a newly developed tidal energy
system at EMEC on the Orkneys. Some of the more developed renewables are also being pushed hard. PV solar is already in quite widespread
use, and being mostly on rooftops, is not land-using. To accelerate consumer uptake, in June the government approved Feed-In Tariff (FiT) subsidies under which
utilities will pay 42yen (53 U.S. cents) per kWh for solar-generated electricity, double the tariff offered in Germany and more than three times that paid in China.
Despite the land use constraints, there is also some potential for on-land wind and wind power will get at least 23.1 yen/ kWh in the new FiT system, compared with
as low as 4.87 euro cents (6 U.S. cents) in Germany. The new wind tariff converts to about 18p/kWh, which compares to 5p/kWh (10p/kWh offshore) available for
wind projects under the Renewables Obligation in the UK. So they are really pushing it. Geothermal energy is also being backed. It is already widely used for heating.
So is solar thermal- there is over 3.7GW(th) installed on rooftops. We can expect to see much more. However
there is still a long way to go:
renewables, apart from large hydro, account for only 1% of power supply in Japan. But the government estimates that, on current plans, capacity from renewables
will rise to 22 GW by March 2013, up from 19.5 GW now, with 2GW of that from solar panels. And CLSA Asia-Pacific say solar capacity will jump to about 19GW by
2016 from about 5 GW or less now, while wind may reach 7.6 GW. See http://tinyurl.com/cbox2m7. Looking further ahead, the
Japan Renewable
Energy Foundation (JREF) and the German based Desertec Foundation have teamed up to promote an Asia Supergrid to
connect the national grids of Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia and Russia. This they say could open up opportunities for
renewable energy development, with the power produced being moved to where it’s needed most. So
Japan, with fewer areas on land in which to build renewable energy projects, could benefit from on-land wind power produced in places like Inner Mongolia, where
potential capacity far exceeds demand, and possibly also from CSP solar projects in the Gobi desert. See http://www.gobitec.org/. Supergrid links to other countries
in the region would clearly help Japan and will be necessary for grid balancing if it is to expand its indigenous renewables significantly. That is certainly what the
JREF wants. It says that ‘stronger renewable energy targets for Japan are essential. The current provisional target of a 10% share of energy by 2020 is not enough’.
The government is about to produce a new long-term energy plan. Offshore wind is an obvious option. There had already
been calls for 25 GW on shore and 25 GW offshore and the Japanese Wind Power Association has put the longer-term wind potential at over 200 GW, on and
offshore, even taking account of locational constraints. That is similar to Japans total present energy generating capacity. It will be interesting to see what the
government decides to do in it new plan. According to Reuters, an early draft said that the aim would be to create a 50 trillion yen ($628 billion) green energy
market by 2020 through deregulation and subsidies to promote development of renewable energy and low-emission cars.
Japan OTEC solves
Uehara 04 (Haruo Uehara, Doctor of Engineering from Yamaguchi University, OTEC scientist, Department of Literature and Science,
Physics, past President of Saga University, Director of OTEC Laboratory at Saga, Chairman of OPOTEC. Kobayoshi, H. Jutsuhara, S. Uehara, H.
“The Present Status and Features of OTEC, and Recent Aspects of Thermal Energy Conversion Technologies,” 24th Meeting of the UJNR Marine
Facilities Panel, November 2004. http://www.nmri.go.jp/main/cooperation/ujnr/24ujnr_paper_jpn/Kobayashi.pdf//ghs-kw)
New Aspects of OTEC Development One
of the major causes for global warming is said to be attributable to
heavy dependence upon fossil fuel for electricity. Nevertheless, a number of countries have been
relying on diesel generators for their electricity, since they have had no alternative to take up. But now,
the story is getting different turn. Some of island countries in the south Pacific region, whose life is being threatened by rising sea level, have
started to look into the OTEC more seriously than ever. For instance, a technical collaboration agreement was signed in April 2001 by and
among the Republic of Palau, Saga University and Xenesys Inc. The President of the Republic of Palau expressed at a news conference his
determination to replace their diesel power stations with OTEC power plants at an earliest possible date. Positive movement is
recognized in Japan, too. Japan is well known as world-leading country in shipbuilding industry. In
order to realize the OTEC, technologies developed and accumulated in shipbuilding industry are very
helpful. Hitachi Zosen Corporation, one of the world-most advanced shipbuilding companies in Japan,
has started to develop conceptual design for several OTEC applications with the latest technologies in
alliance with Saga University and Xenesys Inc.
Japan can develop the tech for successful OTEC—first plant proves
SB, 02/24/2014 (Sci Bytes, “Overlooked Oceanic Sci-fi Technologies”, Scitable, 02/24/2014,
http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/scibytes/overlooked_oceanic_scifi_technologies)
It may seem complicated at first glance, but ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC)
is simply the way of using the
difference in temperature between superficial and deep water in the ocean to create electricity [1]. The
two main types of OTEC systems are open and closed. A closed system uses the warm surface water to boil a gas with a relatively low boiling
point, like ammonia, which then spins a turbine to generate electricity. The cold water is used to cool down the hot gas so that it can be used
again. An open system takes the warm water into a container with low enough pressure that the water evaporates, which causes turbines to
spin and electricity to be produced. The advantage of this system is that the steam is extremely pure water, and it can be cooled by the deep,
cold water to produce drinking water as a byproduct, which has numerous applications to humans and the environment as a whole, as
illustrated below. Analyzing OTEC's efficiency with thermodynamics and Carnot's theorem leads to two conclusions. First, places
with
greater temperature differences (as shown in the map below) are better potential places for OTEC plants.
Second, OTEC is quite inefficient, with more than 90% of energy wasted [2]. Unfortunately, that inefficiency, coupled with high startup costs,
has been a huge obstacle to widespread implementation.
In the future, we hope to see this emerge as a viable
alternative energy source. Japan recently constructed the first OTEC plant at Kume Island, and the
Japanese marketing group Fuji Keizai predicts a substantial growth for the technology in the coming years [3].
2NC Old OTEC Solvency
Increasing research funding will promote OTEC commercialization in Japan.
Bruch ’94 (Vicki L. Bruch, April 1994. Energy Policy and Planning Department Sandia National
Laboratories in New Mexico. “AN ASSESSMENT OF RESEARCHAND DEVELOPMENT LEADERSHIP IN
OCEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES,” www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/10154003z9rVWD/native/10154003.pdf.)
Japan is focusing its R&D efforts on wave energy and OTEC. Japan is interested in wave energy because
it has adequate wave resources required to generate power. Japan has an active wave energy program
and has commercialized small wave energy devices, such as buoys. OTEC (ocean thermal energy
conversion) is being investigated by the Japanese primarily for its export potential. OTEC work has
included the demonstration of a small plant on the island of Nauru. R&D work is underway to expand
OTEC technology to larger power plants. R&D ocean energy work in Japan is performed by consortia of
universities, private industry, and government. Both the Japanese and British governments, have
supported ocean energy R&D for several years and both governments are interested in developing
export markets for these technologies. Thus, it appears that both countries will remain leaders in the
field.
That will trigger OTEC commercialization faster than the plan.
Bruch ‘94(Vicki L. Bruch, April 1994. Energy Policy and Planning Department Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. “AN
ASSESSMENT OF RESEARCHAND DEVELOPMENT LEADERSHIP IN OCEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES,”
www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/10154003-z9rVWD/native/10154003.pdf.)
Ocean energy R&D in Japan has benefitted from consistent government support, although the support
has been at a low level. This has allowed Japanese industry to advance from the research and
development stage to the demonstration stage for several ocean energy devices. This has given the
Japanese a "leg up" on their competition, and as a result, Japanese ocean energy technologies will
probably be commercialized sooner than ocean energy technologies from other countries.
Japan manufactures and sells OTEC to other countries—promotes global OTEC.
JFS 8 (JFS, 9/20/2008. Japan For Sustainability. “Kuwait to Adopt Japanese Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Technology,”
www.japanfs.org/db/1839-e.)
Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) decided
to introduce a power generation and water production
system utilizing ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) technology developed by a Japanese venture,
Xenesys Inc. KNPC and Xenesys will sign an official contract in the summer of 2007. OTEC is a clean power generation system
utilizing temperature difference between cold deep seawater and the warmer surface. As it needs a difference of 15 degrees
Celsius or more to generate electricity without any fuel, tropical and sub-tropical regions within 30 degrees of the equator are suitable for this
system. Technological development of OTEC began in earnest after the oil crisis of the 1970s. The
world's first practical OTEC
plant became feasible with the invention of a new OTEC system known as the "Uehara Cycle" developed by the
research team of Dr. Haruo Uehara at Saga University, Japan. Obtaining an exclusive license of the government-patented system,
Xenesys developed practical technologies for OTEC power generation and water production through its joint research with Saga University.
Saudi Arabia is considering the construction of this new OTC plant as well. Xenesys is also working to introduce its
new technology to Thailand and other countries along the Indian Ocean.
Japan is focusing efforts on OTEC
Bruch ’94 (Vicki L., Energy Policy and Planning Department Sandia National Laboratories, “AN ASSESSMENT OF RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT LEADERSHIP IN OCEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES,” 1994-04-01, http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/10154003)
Japan is focusing its R&D efforts on wave energy and OTEC. Japan is interested in wave energy because it has adequate wave
resources required to generate power. Japan has an active wave energy program and has commercialized small wave energy devices, such as
buoys. OTEC (ocean thermal energy conversion) is
being investigated by the Japanese primarily for its export
potential. OTEC work has included the demonstration of a small plant on the island of Nauru. R&D
work is underway to expand OTEC technology to larger power plants. R&D ocean energy work in Japan is performed
by consortia of universities, private industry, and government
Japan is working on OTEC
Bruch ’94 (Vicki L., Energy Policy and Planning Department Sandia National Laboratories, “AN ASSESSMENT OF RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT LEADERSHIP IN OCEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES,” 1994-04-01, http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/10154003)
Like the United Kingdom,
Japan has performed many studies on ocean energy technologies. Unlike the UK, Japan
has progressed to demonstrating several devices, particularly for wave energy. The Japanese have
concentrated on wave energy and OTEC. Japan has good resources in the Sea of Japan for wave energy. Ocean conditions around
Japan have high amounts of potential energy created by winds blowing across the ocean. The Japanese are primarily interested
in the export potential of OTEC as the country has no suitable resources of its own for OTEC. Japan has had an active wave energy
R&D program for 30 years. The Japan Marine Science and Technology Center, began investigating offshore devices for wave energy in 1974. Its
work has focused on the Kaimei, a floating ship that tested different pneumatic devices. The Kaimei is considered one of the more advanced
large (approximately 125 kW) wave energy devices. Development of the Kaimei was an International Energy Agency project funded by the US,
Canada, the UK and Ireland.
Japan has the tech to solve OTEC
Bruch ’94 (Vicki L., Energy Policy and Planning Department Sandia National Laboratories, “AN ASSESSMENT OF RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT LEADERSHIP IN OCEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES,” 1994-04-01, http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/10154003)
Like wave energy R&D, OTEC R&D is performed by government/industry consortia. Japanese
R&D work in OTEC began in 1970
by the Tokyo Electric Power Services Company. It has developed and demonstrated a successful 100
kW closed-cycle OTEC plant for the island of Nauru and is designing a 10 MW floating closed-cycle
OTEC plant for use on this island. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry is supporting this work.
The Japanese government is also supporting work on the design of a 1 MW floating closed-cycle OTEC
plant. Other institutions engaged in OTEC R&D include Kyushu Electric Power Company and the
University of Saga. Ocean energy R&D in Japan has benefitted from consistent government support,
although the support has been at a low level. This has allowed Japanese industry to advance from the research and
development stage to the demonstration stage for several ocean energy devices. This has given the Japanese a "leg up" on
their competition, and as a result, Japanese ocean energy technologies will probably be commercialized sooner than
ocean energy technologies from other countries.
Japanese islands are suitable to solve OTEC
Uchida ‘83(Richard, Southwest Fisheries Center Honolulu Laboratory, National Marine
Fisheries Service, August, “Summary of pertinent biological characteristics of potential
ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) sites in the Pacific Ocean”)
Although the
Japanese islands are well north of lat . 20°N and outside the tropical zone where the ocean thermal resources can be
found year round, they are strategically located, because the Kuroshio constantly brings a large amount of
thermal energy in the form of warm surface water from the tropics . Oceanographic studies indicate that the Pacific
coast of Japan is bathed by the Kuroshio which brings sufficiently
warm surface temperature (28OC) and has cold
water that can be obtained from 790-111 for the needed AT. Homma et al . (1979) considered five sites for OTEC
development off Japan. These were at Iriomote Island, Okinawa Island, Toyama Bay, Osumi Islands, and the Izu Peninsula. Data
collected from four of the sites showed maximum wind velocity ranging from 39.6 t o 78.6 m/sec, significant wave height varying between 8.5
and 15.0 m, and frequency of typhoons ranging from 21-40 times/year a t Toyama t o 41-60 times/year at Iriomote, Okinawa, and Osumi.
They concluded from their studies that Osumi and Toyama would be most suitable as representative sites for
OTEC development in Japan. Homma et al. reported that the temperature profile at Osumi was quite different from that at Toyama. At
500 m, the temperature at Osumi reached 9.18OC whereas at Toyama, it was 0.35OC. depth was determined to be 790 m at Osumi and 370 m
a t Toyama. Maximum mean surface temperatures 1,000 m off Osumi and Toyama are shown in Figure 5. The optimum cold-water intake
Minimum and. In
addition to developing OTEC facilities to satisfy their own power needs, the Japanese are
also vitally cognizant of the market in technology transfer , particularly along oil-dependent Pacific
islands where AT'S are excellent all year long and deep cold water is available nearshore. In 1979, Tokyo
Electric Power Services Company, Ltd. began work on a 100 kW “experimental confirmation" closed cycle plant sited on the island of Nauru.
This plant was a research facility for testing heat exchangers (H. Pennington, DPED, pers. commun., September 15, 1982).
Rare Earth Minerals
1NC Rare Earth Minerals
Japan solves REE better than the aff—better tech and higher concentrations
INN, 2013 (Investing News Network, the network of focused, unbiased news and education for investors in targeted niches, “OCEAN
EXPLORATION: Underwater rare earth behemoth arises”, Resource Intelligence, 04/02/2013, http://www.resourceintelligence.net/oceanexploration-underwater-rare-earth-behemoth-arises)
All eyes shifted east this week when Japanese researchers announced the discovery of a large-scale
deposit of rare earths in the seabed surrounding Minami-Tori-shima Island in the Pacific Ocean. Scientists from the Japan Agency
for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and the University of Tokyo confirmed the discovery of a “huge new
deposit” on the Pacific seabed. They claim that the deposit can be mined at very low cost and will be able to produce
materials that are 20 to 30 times more concentrated than those currently being mined in China. Some analysts
believe that if the Asian manufacturing giant is able to implement a cost-effective way of extracting this resource, which is said to be located approximately 5,700
meters below sea level, it will have access to approximately 6.8 million metric tons (MT) of rare earths, equivalent to 230 years of local demand, according to The
Australian. What sets this discovery apart? Mud
sample concentration is what makes this discovery notable. Yasuhiro
Kato, a Tokyo University professor and the researcher who led the underwater discovery, admitted that he assumed the finding was a
mistake when he first saw the “astronomically high level of rare earth minerals” present, The Guardian
reported. The newly discovered metals are in higher than usual concentrations and will be cheap to mine ;
researchers intend to explore for another two years before scaling up efforts aimed at the extraction of the elements from the seabed, according to a report by The
Telegraph. “When researchers brought back the data to me, I thought they must have made a mistake, the levels were so high. The fact is this discovery could help
supply Japan with 60 percent of its annual needs merely with the contents of a single vessel,” said Kato.
While countries such as the US and
Australia have been actively ramping up production of rare earth elements (REEs), they have yet to
discover viable quantities of heavy rare earth elements (HREEs),
such as dysprosium, terbium, europium and ytterbium. The
possible exception is Ucore Rare Metals (TSXV:UCU), whose Bokan property in Alaska is enriched with heavy REEs, including dysprosium, terbium and yttrium,
according to the company’s 2012 PEA. The importance of securing such REE supplies was highlighted only last week, when the Department of Defense released its
biannual Strategic and Critical Materials 2013 Report on Stockpile Requirements, which calls for the government to stockpile $120.43 million worth of HREEs. On the
same note, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced earlier this year that it would allocate up to $120 million for the creation of a rare earths research facility
aimed at decreasing the country’s dependence on REEs from China. Exploration gaining momentum This
is not the first instance of Japan
expanding its search for viable REE resources into more remote locations. The country has been openly
aggressive in its stance towards diversifying supply, and this search gained momentum when it, along with the US and European
Union, formed an alliance that moved in on the World Trade Organization to challenge China’s restrictive REE export policies. The country’s goal of breaking its
reliance on China was highlighted when Kato told The Telegraph that China’s restrictive export policies are meant to force manufacturing companies to build inside
of the country, allowing the communist state to steal their technologies. This
is also not the first time Japanese researchers have claimed to have discovered an
unusual REE deposit. Earlier this year, Japanese mining company Nippon Light Metal Holdings Company (TSE:5703) stated that Jamaica may host a large amount of
REEs in its red mud, or bauxite residue. “
A dramatic and highly significant new development ” While this latest discovery is
undoubtedly a coup for Japan in its efforts to diversify its rare earth supply, some investors are questioning whether a large-scale mining operation in such a remote
location is in fact feasible. “The discovery of REEs in 2011 in the deep ocean sediments of the Pacific was a significant event and indicated a potential long-term
source of REEs. However, the new discovery of REE- and yttrium-rich nodules close to the ocean bottom, and within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of Japan, is a
dramatic and highly significant new development,” said Peter Kowalczyk, CEO of Ocean Floor Geophysics, in a conversation with Rare Earth Investing News. Ocean
Floor Geophysics is a Canada-based private company that provides geophysical services for the exploration of submarine massive sulphides. “The ore tenor of these
nodules is presumably higher than that of the previously discovered REE-rich sediments. The fact that this resource exists as nodules close to the ocean bottom
means it is likely to be simple to mine. It will not require burrowing or the removal of significant amounts of overlying sediments,” he said. No territorial implications
another advantage to the find is that any political issues related to the holding of tenements
under the authority of the International Seabed Authority will be eliminated as the resource lies
within Japan’s established EEZ and not within the disputed area of the Japanese EEZ in the South China Sea. Investors are also questioning the
He added that
logistical viability of an underwater project of this scale; however, Kowalczyk noted that the oil industry is already working at depths up to 3,000 meters, with the
move to 6,000 meters already well underway in the equipment industries. “Japan
has already committed to developing the
technology to mine copper, gold and zinc in from sea floor deposits and to begin sea floor mining
within this decade. Mining REEs and yttrium from a deep sea nodule resource is a natural extension to the present Japanese technology track. The
discovery of REEs and yttrium in nodules will add impetus to their present work to begin sea floor mining,” he added.
2NC Rare Earth Minerals
Japan solves rare earth minerals mining
Park, 2012 (Paula Park, SciDevNet correspondent, “India backs exploration of rare earths in deep sea”, Sci Dev Net, 08/28/2012,
http://www.scidev.net/global/biodiversity/feature/india-backs-exploration-of-rare-earths-in-deep-sea-1.html)
Deep-sea riches All three countries
have been eyeing exploration of as yet untapped deep-sea deposits of rareearth minerals in the wider region. Last year, Japanese scientists identified major new mineral supplies in the
Pacific. But so far, India has done little relating to the commercial mining of the seabeds. In the past, like most governments, India found
that establishing mines under the sea would be more expensive than land-based mining, according to Carl Gustaf Lundin, director of the global
marine and polar programme at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It also considered that mineral costs did not justify
the expenditure, Lundin explained. More recently, however, worries
over China's market domination and its ability to
set prices for rare earth and other minerals have increased international interest in deep-sea mining.
At the same time, innovations in underwater robotics created for the petroleum industry have improved
prospects for mining undersea metals, Lundin said. So far, the only company with a licence to mine the seabed is the Canadian
firm Nautilus Minerals. In 2011, the company received a licence to mine massive seabed sulphide resources at a depth of about 1,600 metres
off the coast of Papua New Guinea, as part of the much criticised Solwara 1 project. However, Nautilus's president and executive director,
Stephen Rogers, told SciDev.Net that countries like India may be better positioned than private companies to develop undersea resources. "We
see that there are many countries both exploring and developing technologies," Rogers said. Several countries, including China and Korea, have
been granted seabed access; Japan is investing US$200
extensive research programmes underway, Rogers said.
million in deep-sea prospecting; and the United States has
Japan technology solves REE acquisition
Kabukuru, 06/02/2014 (Wanjohi Kabukuru, “Oil and gas finds lift western Indian Ocean prospects”, Seychelles News Agency,
06/02/2014, http://www.seychellesnewsagency.com/articles/640/Oil+and+gas+finds+lift+western+Indian+Ocean+prospects)
This oil boom in the Western Indian Ocean has excited the world and stirred immense interest of exploration studies across the region. On May
18, this year Japan
Oil, Gas and Metals National Cooperation (JOGMEC) and Seychelles national oil company
PetroSeychelles announced that they had completed a joint 2D seismic data acquisition and had embarked
on acquisition collection of geochemical –data. This was a significant step for the Japanese energy
giant as in July 2013 JOGMEC had been granted an exploration license by the Jamaica-based International Seabed
Authority (ISA) to prospect for deep sea minerals such as cobalt, platinum, nickel, molybdenum and other rare earth
metals in the vicinity of the Indian Ocean. Promising prospects of abundant mineral resources in the western Indian Ocean is a magnet to
several Asian economies. The ISA has also licensed China Ocean Mineral Resources’ Research and Development Association (COMRA) and the
Indian government to prospect for mineral resources in the Indian Ocean deep sea. The three
Asian nations of Japan, China and
India have huge domestic demands for energy resources. The US Energy Information Agency (EIA) has put India as the
fourth largest energy consumer after the US, China and Russia. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) Energy Outlook report issued in midOctober 2013 notes that the Asia-Pacific nations will need $11.7 trillion worth of investments in the energy sector in the next 25 years to meet
their energy demands. It is this huge energy demand that has fuelled the current interest witnessed in the western Indian Ocean and is highly
unlikely to end soon. The challenge currently facing the region is harnessing the exploitation of the hydrocarbon find into a blessing and
avoiding the pitfalls of “resource curse.”
2NC Solves China Monopoly
Japan solves China’s monopoly on rare earth minerals—high concentrations in its EEZ
Evans-Pritchard, 2013 (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor of The Daily Telegraph. He has covered world
politics and economics for 30 years, “ Japan
breaks China's stranglehold on rare metals with sea-mud bonanza ”,
The Telegraph, 03/24/2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9951299/Japan-breaks-Chinasstranglehold-on-rare-metals-with-sea-mud-bonanza.html/)
"We
have found deposits that are just two to four metres from the seabed surface at higher
concentrations than anybody ever thought existed, and it won't cost much at all to extract," said
professor Yasuhiro Kato from Tokyo University, the leader of the team. While America, Australia, and other countries
have
begun to crank up production of the seventeen rare earth elements, they have yet to find viable
amounts of the heavier metals
such as dysprosium, terbium, europium, and ytterbium that
are most important.
China has a near total monopoly in the heavier end of the spectrum, though it is also the dominant supplier of the
whole rare earth complex after driving rivals out of business in the 1990s. It still accounts for 97pc of global supply. Beijing
shocked the world when it suddenly began to restrict exports in 2009, prompting furious protests and legal complaints by both the US and the
EU at the World Trade Organisation. China claimed that it was clamping down on smuggling and environmental abuse. "Their real intention is to
force foreign companies to locate plant in China. They're saying `if you want our rare earth metals, you must build your factory here, and we
can then steal your technology," said professor Kato. The
team of scientists from Japan's Agency for Marine-Earth
Science and the University of Tokyo first discovered huge reserves in the mid-Pacific two years ago.
These are now thought to be 1000 times all land-based deposits, some of it in French waters around Tahiti. The
latest discovery is in Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone in deep-sea mud around the island of Minami-Torishima at
5,700 meters below sea level. Although it is very deep,
the deposits are in highly-concentrated nodules that can be
extracted using pressurised air with minimal disturbance off the seafloor and no need for the leaching. Professor Kato said
exploration will continue for another two years before scaling up towards production. Over 50pc of
the metal in the deposit is the heavier end of the spectrum, twice the level of China's key mines and
without the radioactive by-product thorium that makes the metals so hard to mine. Japan consumes half the
world's rare earth metals in its cars, electronics, and environmental industries, and has accused China of withholding supplies as a pressure
tool. The
country has been scrambling to find other sources under its "Strategy for Ensuring Stable
Supplies of Rare Metals", but a joint venture in Vietnam that once looked promising has so far yielded only lighter rare earths.
Professor Kato said a single ship drilling in the target zone at Minami-Torishima could supply Japan's needs for a
year, breaking strategic dependence at minimal cost. "We don't need to mine it intensively. All we
need is enough to force China to lower its prices." Rare earth metals are the salt of life for the hi-tech revolution, used in
iPads, plasma TVs, lasers, and catalytic converters for car engines. Dysprosium is crucial because it is the strongest magnet in the world but also
remains stable at very high temperatures. Neodymium is used in hybrid cars, and terbium cuts power use for low-energy lightbulbs by 40pc.
The metals are also used in precision-guided weapons, missiles such as the Hellfire, military avionics, satellites, and night-vision equipment.
America's M1A2 Abrams tank and the Aegis Spy-1 radar both rely on samarium. Washington was
caught badly off guard
when China started restricting supplies. The US defence and energy departments have now made it an urgent priority to find
other sources, but warn that it may take up to a decade to rebuild the supply-chain. The US Magnetic Materials Association said America had
drifted into a "silent crisis". Most
rare earth metals are not that rare but they are hard to find in viable
concentrations, and the metallurgy is complex. The new discovery is the second time this month that Japan has announced a major find
on the sea floor. It announced a break-through in extracting gas from methane hydrates under the ocean last week, a technology that is likely
to prove costly but could meet Japan's gas needs for a century.
Japan can crowd out Chinese rare earth mineral market
Brunner, 2013 (Grant Brunner, writer at Extreme Tech, “Japan discovers large quantity of rare earth, hopes to break China’s chokehold
on supply”, Extreme Tech, 03/25/2013, http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/151513-japan-discovers-large-quantity-of-rare-earth-hopes-tobreak-chinas-chokehold-on-supply)
Good news! Japan
has just discovered a large amount of rare earth elements in the seabed around Minami-Torishima island. While this is a boon to the tech field and consumers alike, this news undoubtedly comes as a
disappointment for China. Turns out, that near-monopoly on rare earth materials was short lived for
everyone’s favorite communist state. From televisions to airplanes, rare earth elements are required for most modern
electronics. Unfortunately, rare earths aren’t distributed equally around the world. By the luck of the draw, China
makes out like a bandit now that so many industries are in need of these elements. The US, EU, and Japan
even battled with China last year in the World Trade Organization over China’s attempt at jacking up rare earth prices. Fortunately,
Japan’s
findings combined with increased mining activity in other countries are starting to ease China’s
chokehold on the world’s supply.
Tokyo University’s Yasuhiro Kato assumed the
finding was a mistake when he first saw
“astronomically high level of rare earth minerals” in the mud sample. That’s what makes this discovery noteworthy.
Rare earth elements aren’t actually all that hard to find, but they’re usually found in very tiny
amounts. Back in 2011, Japan found a large supply of rare earth elements under the Pacific Ocean, but in
the
concentrations of about 2000 parts per million. However, this latest find is reportedly 20-to-30 times
more concentrated than China‘s rare earth ore. This deposit of rare earth is an estimated 6.8 million
metric tons sitting a little over three and a half miles under the ocean. Japan is now tasked with finding an
economical way of mining the ore. While the real results of this find are still years away, the threat of Japan taking over the rare
earths market should be sufficient enough to keep China in check. Even with China estimating that it has less than a
third of the world’s reserves of rare earth minerals, it controls over 90% of the market. With any luck, China’s lead will shrink
significantly over the next few years. Considering how important these elements are, relying on one country to
supply the lion’s share is scary. Not only is competition good for keeping the price down, but having a single
point of failure is incredibly dangerous. If something were to happen to China’s mining operations right now, we would be in dire straits. All
eyes are now on Japan — waiting to see if it can pull this off.
Rando Case Card v REE
Market forces correct US dependence and risk of conflict
SCD, 02/04/2014 (Supply Chain Digest, “Supply Chain News: Is Rare Earth Metals Crisis Disappearing? Prices are Falling, Immediate
Threat has almost Disappeared, but Risks Still Out There”, SC Digest, 02/04/2014, http://www.scdigest.com/ontarget/14-02-041.php?cid=7801)
In 2010 and 2011, China's near monopoly in production of a family of so-called rare earth metals had
companies and governments across the globe in near panic state. Rare earth metals are a group of 17 elements, such
as yttrium and dysprosium, that are used in everything from cars and defense systems to smart phones and "green" energy products. Though
they typically only represent a small fraction of the finished product's make-up, these metals add certain key characteristics to the product,
such as heat resistance. Though
the US and other countries once mined these metals, most of those facilities
closed by the 1980s, in no small part because processes are messy and very environmentally unfriendly. That left China as
nearly the world's only producer, at a time when demand for these materials was rising rapidly from their use in
new high tech and green products. First, prices started to rise substantially. At one point, for example, the price of cerium oxide, a rare earth
compound used in catalysts and glass manufacturing, rose to $110,000 per metric ton outside China, up from $3,100 2009. China also started to
apply strict quotas on the exports of rare earth metals, cutting Japan off entirely at one point. The price of the metals inside China were
available at a fraction of the global market price, as China lured global manufacturers to move into the country with the promise of these
dramatically lower costs. This led to both fear and anger across the globe, with US Defense officials, for example, saying the lack of open access
to rare earth metals was a national security threat, while others warned this was going to move even more production and jobs to China from
developed economies. Especially
worrisome was that China's temporary cut off of rare earth exports to
Japan seemed tied to territorial disputes in the South China Sea. However, some three years later, the
situation seems to have largely corrected itself through basic market forces
out in the mid- and longer term remains unclear. Global
- at least for now. How this will play
rare earth metal prices have fallen by about 60% from their
2011 peaks. This has come in large part as the soaring prices led to creation of a number of new mining operations in China, many of them
operating outside official scrutiny, along with tactics to skirt export quotas. Two weeks ago, the Chinese government unveiled a plan to
consolidate its rare earth industry into six large extraction and processing companies. For example, the Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth
Hi-Tech Company is buying nine smaller miners in the north, with more mergers and acquisitions to come. The logical conclusion: Beijing is
worried about over supply of rare earth metals. New
production is also finally starting to come on-line outside of
China. Greenland and Russia both have opened new tracts to rare-earths exploration in the past year.
There is activity in Australia as well. In the US, Molycorp's Mountain Pass operation in California continues to increase its
production. The company is also producing or developing rare earth metals in other global facilities. There is
also relief coming on the demand side. Faced with soaring prices and supply availability concerns, manufacturers across the globe looked for
ways to reduce their dependence on rare earth metals. That included in some cases dropping products with a high dependence on the
materials, in other cases engine
Resource Extraction Generic
1NC Resource Extraction
Japan solves resource extraction
MC, 2012 (Maritime Connector, “New Japanese Deep Ocean Exploration Ship Shown in Tokyo”, Maritime Connector,
03/24/2012, http://maritime-connector.com/news/environment-and-technology/new-japanese-deep-ocean-exploration-ship-shown-in-tokyo)
New 6,283-ton exploration vessel that will search for rare metals and other natural resources in
waters around Japan has been unvield. The Hakurei, 118 meters long and 19 meters wide, was shown to the media at
Harumi Wharf in Tokyo. The vessel features drilling equipment that can dig up 400 meters into the seabed at
a depth of 2,000 meters. The ship will initially search for resources off Okinawa Prefecture and the Ogasawara Islands.
The Hakurei is owned by the government-backed Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. and is the first marine resources survey ship built in
Japan in 30 years. It cost 27.5 billion yen ($329.4 million). Hakurei
is expected to confirm the resource potential in waters
around Japan, including manganese nodule and submarine hydrothermal deposit.
2NC Resource Extraction
Japan solves resource extraction—new drilling technology
OAP, 2012 (Our Amazing Planet, “Researchers Sink to a New Low in Deep-Sea Drilling”, NBC News, 09/06/2012,
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/48931424/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/researchers-sink-new-low-deep-sea-drilling/#.U8UvZ_ldWSo)
A Japanese drilling vessel has set a record by drilling more than 6,926 feet (2,111 meters) beneath the
seafloor, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, the organization behind the
expedition, announced Thursday. The drilling was done off Shimokita Peninsula of Japan as part of an expedition that
began in July and is scheduled to continue for three more weeks. It's less than 3 feet (1 meter) deeper than the previous record for scientific
ocean drilling. The goal of the expedition and its vessel, the Chikyu, is to drill down to 7,220 feet (2,220 meters) beneath the ocean's bottom.
"This scientific vessel has tremendous potentials to explore very deep realms that humans have never
studied before," expedition scientist Fumio Inagaki said in a statement. "The deep samples are precious, and I am confident
that our challenges will extend our systematic understanding of the nature of life and earth."
Submarine Cables
1NC Submarine Cables
Japanese solves undersea cables—it’s currently a Pacific hub—proves solvency
Higginbotham, 2011 (Stacey Higginbotham, Gigaom Correspondent, “Despite Quake Japan’s Undersea Cables Still Hold”, GIGAOM,
03/11/2011, http://gigaom.com/2011/03/11/despite-quake-japans-undersea-cables-still-hold/)
Japan is a hub for trans-Pacific undersea cables that provide Internet access between many regions of
the world. About 20 submarine cables land in Japan, giving Friday’s 8.9-magnitude earthquake the potential to disrupt
communications around the globe. Luckily, so far, reports of cable damage have been low, according to
TeleGeography. Stephan Beckert, an analyst with the research firm, which tracks telecommunications, says that, so far, the quake has
likely damaged APCN-2 intra-Asian cable, which forms a ring linking China, Hong Kong, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore and Taiwan. However, the web traffic in the region has not been disrupted. Beckert emailed me the following:
It’s not clear how much damage there has been to undersea cables, but thus far, there haven’t been any reports of major disruptions. There’s
one report of 2 or 3 cables being damaged, but the report is riddled with errors (calls them undersea power cables, and says it will disrupt
phone calls to China), so I’m discounting it, for now. The most concrete report I have is from Chunghwa Communications of Taiwan, which
reports that the earthquake damaged the APCN-2 intra-Asian cable, but that communications have not been disrupted. It’s not clear from their
statement if the APCN-2 cable is still carrying traffic, or if APCN-2 is down and Chunghwa is rerouting traffic over alternate cables. I suspect it’s
the latter. This
is no small mercy, given how important communications are in the aftermath of a disaster
of this nature. Texts, tweets, web services, such as the recent Google’s People Finder registry, all rely on Internet
connectivity provided through those cables. Below is a map of the undersea cables that land in Japan provided by
TeleGeography, and we’ll update the story if we get more details.
2NC Submarine Cables
Japan submarine cable network is a Pacific hub—they can solve
SCN, 2011 (Submarine Cable Networks, an encyclopedia on the submarine cable industry providing full range of information on the
technology, financing, planning, construction, operation and maintenance, marketing, commercial and technical solutions regarding the
undersea cable systems and networks, “Cable Landing Stations in Japan”, 09/07/2011, http://submarinenetworks.com/stations/asia/japan/clsin-japan)
Japan is the Hub for trans-Pacific and intra-Asia submarine networks, most of the trans-pacific
submarine cable systems landing in Japan . There are now 17 international submarine cable landing
stations . List of cable landing stations in Japan: Kita Ibaraki Cable Landing Station Ajigaura Cable Landing Station Emi Cable Landing Station
Wada Cable Landing Station Maruyama Cable Landing Station Shin-Maruyama Cable Landing Station Chikura Cable Landing Station Mirura
Cable Landing Station Ninomiya Cable Landing Station Toyohashi Cable Landing Station Shima Cable Landing Station Miyazaki Cable Landing
Station Fukuoka Cable Landing Station Kitakyushu Cable Landing Station Naoetsu Cable Landing Station Ishikari Cable Landing Station Okinawa
Cable Landing Station
Offshore Solar
1NC Offshore Solar
Japan solves offshore solar—new technology
Moline, 01/22/2014 (Aaron Moline, a writer, editor, and news analyst for Truth Atlas, “Scientists Develop Offshore Solar Farms”,
Truth Atlas, 01/22/2014, http://truthatlas.com/scientists-develop-offshore-solar-farms/)
For Japan, one of the most energy hungry nations in the world, power production has always been a problem. With no
natural oil reserves, it has relied on imports from neighbors. With the advent of nuclear power, Japan has increasingly placed
its reliance on the production of numerous nuclear reactors to power the country. However, as a result of the recent tsunami and the attendant
meltdown of the Fukushima Reactor, Japan
has been seeking to develop new methods of producing clean energy
that are less precarious and potentially harmful than nuclear power. The problem stems from the lack of space: a small,
mountainous island chain just doesn’t have the green energy potential that a massive American wind or solar farm has. To solve this
problem, Japanese scientists have developed revolutionary solar panels to take advantage of a geographical feature
abundant in Japan: the ocean. Unveiled in November, the offshore solar farm absorbs enough energy to power 22,000 homes. This is
just the latest development in adaptive solar power. Other projects to help smaller nations with energy production include
the introduction of floating solar islands to Singapore. In the future, Japanese scientists want to take their power generation ideas into space
and install a band of solar panels around the equator of the moon, a project they estimate could provide 3 times the yearly power output of the
United States. With
increased research into these innovations, even the smallest countries will be able to
produce the power they need efficiently and cleanly.
2NC Offshore Solar
Japan solves offshore solar power
Gan, 02/15/2014 (Vicky Gan, former editorial intern at Smithsonian Magazine, currently works for the Washingtonian, “Is Japan’s
Offshore Solar Power Plant the Future of Renewable Energy?”, Smithsonian, 02/15/2014, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovations/IsJapans-Offshore-Solar-Power-Plant-the-Future-of-Renewable-Energy-180949453)
Across Japan, 50 nuclear power plants sit idle, shut down in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Nobody is certain when
government inspectors will certify that the plants are safe enough to be brought back online. Anti-nuclear
activists point to this
energy crisis as evidence that Japan needs to rely more on renewables. One think tank has calculated that a
national solar power initiative could generate electricity equivalent to ten nuclear plants . But skeptics have
asked where, in their crowded mountainous country, they could construct all those solar panels. One solution was unveiled this past
November, when Japan flipped the switch on its largest solar power plant to date, built offshore on
reclaimed land jutting into the cerulean waters of Kagoshima Bay. The Kyocera Corporation’s Kagoshima Nanatsujima
Mega Solar Power Plant is as potent as it is picturesque, generating enough electricity to power roughly
22,000 homes. Other
densely populated countries, notably in Asia, are also beginning to look seaward . In
Singapore, the Norwegian energy consultancy firm DNV recently debuted a solar island concept called SUNdy, which links 4,200 solar panels
into a stadium-size hexagonal array that floats on the ocean’s surface.
Offshore Wind
1NC Offshore Wind
Japan solves offshore wind—they can take the lead
Tabuchi, 2013 (Hiroko Tabuchi, NYT writer, “To Expand Offshore Power, Japan Builds Floating Windmills”, New York Times,
10/24/2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/business/international/to-expand-offshore-power-japan-builds-floatingwindmills.html?pagewanted=all)
OFF THE COAST OF FUKUSHIMA, Japan — Twelve
miles out to sea from the severely damaged and leaking nuclear reactors at Fukushima, a giant
floating wind turbine signals the start of Japan’s most ambitious bet yet on clean energy. When this 350-foottall windmill is switched on next month, it will generate enough electricity to power 1,700 homes. Unremarkable, perhaps, but consider the goal of this offshore
project: to generate over 1 gigawatt of electricity from 140 wind turbines by 2020. That is equivalent to the power generated by a nuclear reactor. The project’s
backers say that offshore
windmills could be a breakthrough for this energy-poor nation. They would enable Japan to use a
resource it possesses in abundance: its coastline, which is longer than that of the United States. With an exclusive economic zone — an area up
to 200 miles from its shores where Japan has first dibs on any resources — that ranks it among the world’s top 10 largest maritime countries, Japan
has
millions of square miles to position windmills. The project is also a bid to seize the initiative in an
industry expected to double over the next five years to a global capacity of 536 gigawatts, according to the industry trade
group Global Wind Energy Council. The Japanese have lagged at wind turbine manufacturing, which is dominated by European
and Chinese makers. The Japanese government is paying the 22 billion yen, or $226 million, cost of building the first three wind turbines off Fukushima, part of
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push to make renewable energy a pillar of his economic growth program. After that, a consortium of 11 companies, including Hitachi,
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Shimizu and Marubeni, plan to commercialize the project. “It’s
Japan’s biggest hope,” said Hideo Imamura, a spokesman
“It’s an all-Japan effort, almost 100 percent Japan-made.”
What sets the project apart from other offshore wind farms around the world, consortium officials say, is that
its turbines, and even the substation and electrical transformer equipment, float on giant platforms anchored to the seabed.
That technology greatly expands potential locations for offshore wind farms, which have been fixed into the seabed,
for Shimizu, during a recent trip to the turbine ahead of its test run.
limiting their location to shallow waters. For this reason, there have been few great sites for offshore wind farming in Japan, which lies on a continental shelf that
quickly gives way to depths that make it unfeasible to build structures into the seabed. But floating wind farms could change the picture in a big way.
Harnessing wind in deeper waters off Japan could generate as much as 1,570 gigawatts of electricity,
roughly eight times the current capacity of all of Japan’s power companies combined, according to computer
simulations based on historical weather data by researchers at Tokyo University, one of the project’s main participants. If you get the scientists dreaming big, they
say the world’s wind power potential — the maximum power that can be extracted by a given number of wind turbines over increasingly larger areas — could yield
up to 7.5 terawatts of electricity. According to a study by researchers at the University of Delaware and Stanford University concluded last year, that is more than
enough to fuel half the world’s power demand in 2030. A gigawatt is equal to 1 billion watts, and a terawatt is 1 trillion watts. “We’re
opening a new
page in the history of offshore wind power,” said Takeshi Ishihara, a civil engineering expert at Tokyo University and the leader of the
project.
2NC Offshore Wind
Japan solves offshore wind—they have the ready tech and development
GWEC, 2013 (Global Wind Energy Council, “Japan’s offshore wind development speeding off”, GWEC, 09/13/2013,
http://www.gwec.net/japans-offshore-wind-development-speeding)
A lot is happening on the offshore wind power front in Japan. In June Japan unveiled its first commercial
floating turbine in Asia and the 2-megawatt turbine off the coast of Fukushima will start operation on 7 October. The first
project phase, which included the setting of the Hitachi downwind-type turbine with a rotor diameter of 80 meters on a structure
supported by a set of three 32-meter-hihg cylindrical iron floats, was completed this summer. The world’s first floating power
substation was installed two kilometres away from the floater. The turbine and substation were installed on the floater at the dockyard at
Tokyo Bay and then moved by a tugboat to the Pacific Ocean about 20 km offshore from Fukushima. The electricity generated will be
transferred through an undersea cable to the seashore, and then transmitted to Tokyo by the existing grid lines. The Fukushima FORWARD
project is carried out by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Two
further 7-megawatt floating offshore
turbines are planned to be constructed at the same location in 2014 and another 2 megawatt floating turbine is to be moored
at Goto Island in Nagasaki Prefecture this autumn. This project is conducted by Japan’s Ministry of Environment.
Additionally, developers and local governments have announced new commercial offshore wind projects
recently, including the following: The Kashima, Mutsuogawara and Omaezaki projects are all located at port areas, which have several
advantages for offshore development in Japan; ports are governed by only one office "Ports and Harbors Bureau" making permission procedure
much lighter; the fishing industry's rights are weaker at port areas, making developers freer from compensation; and industrial infrastructures
and grid lines already exist for port facilities. Currently, Japan
has a total of 45.6MW of offshore wind capacity spread
over 24 turbines at 5 locations.
Japan solves offshore wind—there program has been accelerating
Rose, 2013 (Chris Rose, “Floating offshore wind turbines could drive Japan’s green energy future”, European Wind Energy Association,
11/13/2013, http://www.ewea.org/blog/2013/11/floating-offshore-wind-turbines-drive-japans-green-energy-future/)
A number of news organisations reported that Yuhei Sato, governor of Fukushima, said that the
floating turbine could become a
symbol of the region’s desire to become a green energy centre. “Fukushima is making a stride toward
the future step by step,” Bloomberg quoted Sato saying at a ceremony marking the project’s initiation. “Floating offshore
wind is a symbol of such a future.” The experimental project is funded by the government and led by Marubeni Corp. It requires
approval from local fishermen before becoming a commercial operation. The 2-megawatt turbine from Hitachi Ltd. was nicknamed “Fukushima
Mirai,” the Bloomberg report said, adding a floating substation has also been set up and bears the name “Fukushima Kizuna.” Mirai means
future, while kizuna translates as ties. Two more
turbines by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., with 7 MW of capacity each, are
expected to also be installed. Bloomberg noted the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has said the
floating offshore capacity may be expanded to 1,000 MW.“For Japan, which is surrounded by deep oceans,
floating wind turbines hold the promise of opening up large areas to produce clean energy,” the Bloomberg
story added. “The technology involves attaching turbines to structures that float in areas too deep for traditional towers fixed to the seafloor.”
The Associated Press reported that Kazuyoshi Akaba, a vice minister of economy, trade and industry, said it is the government’s mission to
ensure the project is successful. “Many people were victimised and hurt by the accident at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant, so it
is
very meaningful to have a new source of energy — renewable energy — based here,” Akaba said. With continuing
problems facing the heavily-damaged nuclear power plant in Fukushima, there’s little doubt that some of the people gathering in Frankfurt next
week for EWEA’s Offshore 2013 conference will be discussing Japan’s new offshore wind solution to the nation’s energy conundrum.
2NC Model Internationally
Japan solves offshore wind and it gets modelled internationally
Campbell, 01/31/2014 (Shaun Campbell, Wind Power Monthly writer, “Japan plays the long game with floating technology”,
Wind Power Monthly, 01/31/2014, http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1228423/japan-plays-long-game-floating-technology/)
JAPAN: The solitary wind turbine floating in the Pacific Ocean, 20 kilometres from Japan's eastern coast,
has become
something of
a poster boy for the wind industry.
It stands in the shadow of the Fukushima nuclear power plant that
failed catastrophically on 11 March 2011 after being struck by a tsunami. Nearly three years on and Fukushima remains the dark centre of a 32-kilometre evacuation
zone, its teams still struggling to prevent contaminated water leaking into the sea. Radiation at the plant's boundaries has reached eight times government safety
guidelines. Fish caught close to shore are showing 124 times the level of radioactive cesium that would make them safe to eat. The clean-up and full
decommissioning process at Fukushima will run into decades rather than years, and at huge cost. In Japan they call it the disaster that never ends. The
2MW
floating turbine in the Pacific paints a different picture of the future of energy generation in Japan. Its
output is, of course, minuscule compared to the 4.4GW of the nuclear plant, but since 11 November 2013 it has been
quietly and cleanly providing electricity to the region. The Fukushima project is still at the infant stage, but windindustry supporters believe it could grow to become the world's first utility-scale offshore wind farm
on floating foundations or, failing that, pioneer the techniques and technology that will allow others to
generate wind power in deep waters . Wind power currently contributes less than 1% of Japan's total power capacity, with just 2.6GW
installed, virtually all of it onshore. According to Maine International Consulting, offshore wind capacity stands at only 45.6MW spread over 24 turbines at five
locations.
Japanese offshore wind jumpstarts international markets
Nagata, 02/26/2014 (Kazuaki Nagata, Japan Times staff writer, “Wind power on verge of taking off”, The Japan Times, 02/26/2014,
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/02/26/business/wind-power-on-verge-of-taking-off/#.U8Q40PldWSo/)
Japan hasn’t seen an appreciable increase in wind power in the past few years despite the start of the feed-in tariff system
designed to boost renewable energy, but it still has potential and the market will grow in the next several years. That
appears to be the consensus view of many people in the wind power industry participating in the Smart Energy Week 2014 exhibition that kicked off Wednesday at
Tokyo Big Sight. Tokyo-based Looop Inc., which has been selling solar panels, is planning to enter the wind power market by selling small-scale turbines. Yasuhiko
Watanabe, sales and public relations manager at Looop, said that although the solar panel sector has grown rapidly since the launch of the feed-in tariff in 2012,
that rise is expected to slow down because the government lowered the purchase price for solar power last year and it is planning to drop it further. Under the
feed-in tariff system, electric utilities are required to buy all electricity produced by companies and households via renewable energy sources at a rate that will
remain set for a specific number of years. The system attracted a massive amount of investment in solar panels as the rate was higher than many experts had
expected and solar panels are easier to set up than other renewable power facilities. The small-scale wind power price is set at ¥55 per kilowatt-hour for 20 years.
The small-scale wind generators are those whose windmill diameter is shorter than 7 meters with generation capacity of 20 kw or lower. Experts have said that
Japan’s potential in wind is big, so wind will be an important player in the nation’s efforts to increase
use of renewable energy. “Sooner or later, we are going to see an increase in wind power. It will be too late to enter the
market once it has already started to grow,” said Watanabe. Wind power has barely gotten off the ground,
Watanabe said, because installation costs for small-scale generators are still too high to be profitable. But he said Looop has built up the know-how to provide
quality and reasonable renewables through selling solar panels, which will help it develop profitable small-scale wind farm businesses. The firm said it aims to
provide wind turbines for investors to pay off the initial installation cost in about seven years. Mizue Yugawa, a spokeswoman at Tokyo-based Zephyr Corp., a seller
of small-scale wind farms, said it is true that investment in this sector is not yet profitable. But “we are getting a lot of inquiries. The price of solar power is going to
drop, so they are interested in the next energy (source to invest in),” she said. She said wind
turbine makers will be making more
efforts to lower the manufacturing cost and this will increase investment opportunities. The Japanese
wind power market is starting to attract attention from overseas.
Maurizio Colombo of Spanish company Ennera, which
sells small-scale wind farms, said the firm is thinking about entering the Japanese market because of the benefits of the feed-in tariff. “My feeling is that there is
large interest in the market . . . the beginning (of the spread of renewables in Spain) was similar to what I am now seeing here,” with a lot of interested people, he
said, adding that his firm is looking for distributors in Japan. Hopes
are high for large-scale wind farms as well. Keisuke Murakami, an
official at the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, said in a keynote speech that Japan will be cultivating offshore wind farms
whose power generation potential is said to be 10 times that of solar power, while General Electric Co. said it started
providing wind turbines Wednesday for Japan for the first time in about eight years. GE, which had supplied about 300 wind turbines in Japan as of 2006, resumed
the sales, since the demand for renewable energy sources is growing due to the feed-in tariff.
Tidal Wave Energy
1NC Tidal Wave Energy
Japan solves tidal energy—it has the tech
AP, 2012 (Asian Power, Asian energy news network, “Tidal energy added to Japan’s energy mix”, Asian Power,
03/27/2012, http://asian-power.com/environment/in-focus/tidal-energy-added-japan%E2%80%99s-energy-mix/)
Japan’s post-Fukushima search for new sources of electrical power has led it to tidal energy . The
country’s first tidal turbine will be delivered this October. The new turbine, made by Tocardo BV International of The
Netherlands, will serve as an important demonstrator of tidal technology in Japan. Tidal energy or tidal power is a form of hydropower
that converts the energy of tides into electricity using specially designed turbines that can be mounted on a floating
platform or attached to the ocean floor. Tocardo International recently signed a dealership contract with Spectol Power Design Co.,
Ltd of Japan to market its Tocardo Tidal Turbine Technology. Tocardo is targeting Japan as a highly promising market for
tidal and river energy generation. Both firms will focus on turbine supply deals of 18 MW over the coming three years. SPD President
& CEO Nobuhisa Hayashi said the deal with Tocardo will allow his company to offer clients a renewable, economic and reliable energy source.
Tocardo CEO Hans van Breugel, on the other hand, said they are thrilled to have entered into the agreement with SPD based on mutual trust
and a shared vision of the potential of Tocardo tidal technology. Tocardo free-flow in-stream hydro turbines can be compared to “underwater
wind turbines.” These
free-standing underwater units generate energy from sea currents and tidal and river
flows. Tocardo turbines have an output ranging from 100kW to 200 kW. Tocardo said its technology has been proven over
three years in currents as fast as 4.5 m/s. The company is also developing 500 kW and 1 MW offshore turbines.
2NC Tidal Wave Energy
Japan solves tidal energy—wide ranged technology
JFS, 2012 (Japan for Sustainability, a non-profit group that provides information from Japan about a sustainable future, “Japanese Firm
Begins Development of Tidal Power Generation System”, JFS, 01/03/2012, http://www.japanfs.org/en/news/archives/news_id031523.html/)
Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd., a leading Japanese heavy machinery manufacturer, announced on October 19, 2011, that it has started
developing a tidal power generation system, and was selected as one of the companies to conduct research into ocean
energy power generation systems subsidized by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). Practical
use of tidal energy is highly anticipated, because tidal currents are widely distributed worldwide, are
largely unaffected by weather and climate, and are capable of producing a stable supply of electricity .
Kawasaki will utilize its wide range of expertise on ocean vessels, marine engines, marine structures
and gas turbine power generation plants to develop the tidal power generation system. Kawasaki plans to speed up its
technological development efforts for the project before conducting a full-scale experiment at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in
Scotland, the world's leading site for ocean energy development.
It also intends to expand
its business
globally by
participating in large projects overseas, in addition to taking on domestic commercial power generation projects.
Japan has the tech to make tidal energy viable
Elliott, 2012 (Dave Elliott, Professor of Technology Policy at Open University Milton Keynes, United Kingdom & research associate
studying microbial communities and their interactions with the environment, “Greening Japan’s energy”, Environmental Research Web,
07/14/2012, http://blog.environmentalresearchweb.org/2012/07/14/greening-japans-energy/)
In addition, Japan
is following up other offshore options. The marine energy programme will be expanded in
2013 to include tidal and wave energy , along with OTEC ocean thermal gradient technologies. Tests are likely to be
carried out off the Tohoku & Kyushu regions, in co-operation with the private sector and universities. In parallel, the Ocean
Energy Association of Japan (OEAJ), is to set up a Japanese Marine Energy Centre (JMEC), with help from EMEC
in Scotland. It’s a two-way exercise: Kawasaki Heavy Industries is to test a newly developed tidal energy
system at EMEC on the Orkneys. Some of the more developed renewables are also being pushed hard. PV solar is already in quite widespread
use, and being mostly on rooftops, is not land-using. To accelerate consumer uptake, in June the government approved Feed-In Tariff (FiT) subsidies under which
utilities will pay 42yen (53 U.S. cents) per kWh for solar-generated electricity, double the tariff offered in Germany and more than three times that paid in China.
Despite the land use constraints, there is also some potential for on-land wind and wind power will get at least 23.1 yen/ kWh in the new FiT system, compared with
as low as 4.87 euro cents (6 U.S. cents) in Germany. The new wind tariff converts to about 18p/kWh, which compares to 5p/kWh (10p/kWh offshore) available for
wind projects under the Renewables Obligation in the UK. So they are really pushing it. Geothermal energy is also being backed. It is already widely used for heating.
So is solar thermal- there is over 3.7GW(th) installed on rooftops. We can expect to see much more. However
there is still a long way to go:
renewables, apart from large hydro, account for only 1% of power supply in Japan. But the government estimates that, on current plans, capacity from renewables
will rise to 22 GW by March 2013, up from 19.5 GW now, with 2GW of that from solar panels. And CLSA Asia-Pacific say solar capacity will jump to about 19GW by
2016 from about 5 GW or less now, while wind may reach 7.6 GW. See http://tinyurl.com/cbox2m7. Looking further ahead, the
Japan Renewable
Energy Foundation (JREF) and the German based Desertec Foundation have teamed up to promote an Asia Supergrid to
connect the national grids of Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia and Russia. This they say could open up opportunities for
renewable energy development, with the power produced being moved to where it’s needed most. So
Japan, with fewer areas on land in which to build renewable energy projects, could benefit from on-land wind power produced in places like Inner Mongolia, where
potential capacity far exceeds demand, and possibly also from CSP solar projects in the Gobi desert. See http://www.gobitec.org/. Supergrid links to other countries
in the region would clearly help Japan and will be necessary for grid balancing if it is to expand its indigenous renewables significantly. That is certainly what the
JREF wants. It says that ‘stronger renewable energy targets for Japan are essential. The current provisional target of a 10% share of energy by 2020 is not enough’.
The government is about to produce a new long-term energy plan. Offshore wind is an obvious option. There had already
been calls for 25 GW on shore and 25 GW offshore and the Japanese Wind Power Association has put the longer-term wind potential at over 200 GW, on and
offshore, even taking account of locational constraints. That is similar to Japans total present energy generating capacity. It will be interesting to see what the
government decides to do in it new plan. According to Reuters, an early draft said that the aim would be to create a 50 trillion yen ($628 billion) green energy
market by 2020 through deregulation and subsidies to promote development of renewable energy and low-emission cars.
Warming
1NC Warming
Japan can solve warming—JCM proves
Mizuno, 2013 (Yuji Mizuno, he director for international negotiations at the climate change policy division of the environment ministry
of Japan, “Made in Japan: the new tool to mitigate climate change”, The Guardian, 10/03/2013, http://www.theguardian.com/globaldevelopment-professionals-network/2013/oct/03/climate-change-tool-japan/)
The joint crediting mechanism will provide low-carbon technology to developing countries and help them to
evaluate and cut carbon emissions The government of Japan has developed the joint credit mechanism (JCM) to
mitigate climate change and help developing countries achieve low-carbon growth by mobilising
technology, markets and finance. Japan is also pushing for widespread use of advanced low-carbon technologies and products in
various fields. The JCM aims to facilitate diffusion of leading low-carbon technologies, products, systems, services,
and infrastructure as well as implementation of mitigation actions, and contribute to sustainable
development of developing countries. It also aims to evaluate reduction in greenhouse gas emission levels in a
quantitative manner, by applying measurement, reporting and verification methodologies, and using them to achieve Japan's emissions
reduction target. The
JCM will also contribute to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change objective by facilitating global actions for cutting emissions and complementing the clean
development mechanism under the Kyoto protocol. For example, a JCM project in Mongolia plans to replace conventional coal-based
boilers with new energy-efficient ones. Reducing coal use will not only contribute to mitigation of climate change but also improve economic
efficiency and air quality. Such efforts are being driven by Japan's financial and technological support through the JCM. Japan and a host
country establish a joint committee to govern and operate the JCM. The committee develops and adopts rules and guidelines, registers
projects, and issues JCM credits for greenhouse gas emission reductions or removals. The committee is also tasked to prevent JCM projects
from being registered under any other international climate mitigation mechanisms, to avoid double counting on emission reductions. Under
the JCM, emission reductions are defined as the difference between "reference emissions" and project emissions. The reference emissions are
calculated below business-as-usual emissions, which represent plausible emissions in providing the same outputs or service level of the
proposed JCM project in the host country. Together with applying default values for several parameters in calculating emission reductions,
these approaches ensure a net decrease and/or avoidance of emissions while reducing the burden of measurement, and increasing
transparency for calculating emission reductions. A
growing number of countries are joining the JCM, which this year
has entered into a new phase. After continuous efforts to develop the concept through several studies and discussions with partner
countries, the JCM is now ready for the implementation. In January, Mongolia signed a bilateral pact with Japan to implement JCM in capital
Ulan Bator. Since then Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, Maldives, Vietnam and Laos have also joined JCM. The government of Japan
is
strengthening its efforts to popularise JCM through demonstration of projects backed by financial
investments in advanced technologies, together with support for feasibility studies and capacity building in partner countries.
The country is expecting JCM to start reducing emissions as it transfers technology to developing countries.
AFF
AT: Japan CP
Permutation
Perm solves best—US-Japan cooperation is key
OPRF, 2009 (Ocean Policy Research Foundation, “United States-Japan Seapower Alliance for Stability and Prosperity on the Oceans”,
OPRF, 04/17/2009, http://www.sof.or.jp/en/report/pdf/200906_seapower.pdf/)
We offer the following proposal to the governments of the
United States and Japan so that both countries may work together
to create an accessible “new seapower” that will promote freedom of navigation and stabilize the security environment
of sea lanes, and will deter armed conflict over maritime interests while promoting sustainable
ocean development. As the
seas are interconnected and comprise one “world ocean”, solutions to ocean problems call for
comprehensive responses . For a Consortium of Seafaring Nations, cooperation on resource and environmental
protection issues and promoting science and technology, in addition to cooperation on military and security issues, is
more important than ever . Joint effort in these areas is now called for.
US-Japan ocean cooperation is key to effective implementation
OPRF, 2009 (Ocean Policy Research Foundation, “United States-Japan Seapower Alliance for Stability and Prosperity on the Oceans”,
OPRF, 04/17/2009, http://www.sof.or.jp/en/report/pdf/200906_seapower.pdf/)
b. Toward Sustainable Development of the Ocean b－1. Development of Marine Resources, Marine Technology, and Research Study ・To
provide against shortages of resources, energy, and food supplies likely to occur on a global scale, the
major seafaring nations of the United States and Japan should play leading roles in the development of
living and non-living resources in the seabed and continental shelves, as well as in the development of ocean energy resources
and seawater potential. Both countries can and should help battle the global economic crisis by
demonstrating their commitment to a “Blue New Deal” policy based on these precepts and by
promoting development of the oceans on the condition of sound environmental stewardship in the maritime domain as well as
increasing job creation. ・The United States and Japan need to cooperate with each other where possible in the
development of technologies and funding for the exploration and exploitation of seabed resources
and marine energy development in order to bring these industries into active production. ・Research
on the oceans, the accumulation of data, its use and sharing, and human resource exchanges are
important for the effective promotion and development of technology. To facilitate this, the establishment of a
joint data center and R&D center for research and development of marine resources, as well as joint construction and use of a marine scientific
survey ship and platform for exploration and exploitation, are desirable. Furthermore, opportunities
for the exchange and
publicizing of technologies between the two countries should be created in maritime industries, which
support such research and development. ・As new marine technologies are developed, transfer to
developing countries should be considered. The United States and Japan should play a leading role in
this area.
Japan Fails
Japanese ocean policy is inherently flawed and will fail to produce any meaningful
policy- compartmentalization, inefficiencies, delay, and no tech
Kuribayashi 2006 (Tadao Kuribayashi, professor Emeritus at Keio University, January 5, 2006. “Further Recommendations for a Japanese
Ocean Policy.” Ship and Ocean Newsletter No. 130, http://www.sof.or.jp/en/news/pdf/ssp8.pdf#page=24)//NR
Concerning the international ocean regime that has developed rapidly based on the U.N. Convention on the Law of" the Sea. which came into
force in 1994 (agreed upon in 1982 and ratified in Japan in 1996). each country has been responding with originality and ingenuity, and the
U.S. and many other countries have begun formulating and implementing their respective ocean policies. In
comparison, Japan has generally lagged behind in improving its legal system and other aspects in the
field of ocean policy, and it is believed that the delay has been due to the funda- mental lack of a national
system that can formulate a com- prehensive ocean policy. As a result, Japan does not have its own
comprehensive ocean policy. Ocean problems in today's Japanese society, as well as the world, are inter- linked in complicated
ways, so comprehensive efforts are increasingly needed. Though the overall comprehension of ocean problems, the awareness of their
interrelatedness. and the necessity for comprehensive ocean management have often been emphasized and recommended in international
writing and various international forums, the vertically compartmental- ized Japanese
administrative system has not
seriously responded to the world's shared awareness and needs. Even now. Japan remains unable to make a
sufficient response. At the time of publicizing the previous proposal. I made the following urgent statement in the Ship & Ocean
Newsletter. "People's consciousness of the order of the sea must be reexamined in the twenty-first century, the harmful results of bureaucratic
sectionalism must be remedied, and the framework for formulating and implementing ocean policy must be fundamentally reconsidered.
Japan will fall behind the international order on the ocean and find itself unable to make an
active contribution to international cooperation concerning the use of the ocean." ("Be the Country that Leads
the World in the International Order on the Ocean." Ship & Ocean Newsletter No. 41, April 20. 2002). However, these issues have not
been resolved; instead our concern grows more intense . Despite the fact that efforts have been made by certain ministries
Otherwise.
and agencies in response to the era of the two hundred-nautical-mile economic zone, and some actions been taken by communicating and
coordinating between related ministries and agencies in regard to specific ocean problems. Japan's
decision-making process for
ocean pol- icy has not basically changed since the end of World War II . The formulation and
implementation of a truly compre- hensive, systematic ocean policy has been hampered by vertically
compartmentalized administration, ministerial rivalries, inefficiencies such as delays and
redundancy in policy making. This has been partly due to the vertically compartmentalized systems of the governmental, industrial
and academic sectors, and partly due to the negative effects of the ambiguity of decision-making bodies and responsi- ble parties. In disclosing
information on ocean affairs, and by fulfilling our obligation to be accountable, we must set aside our usual practices, which are passive and
conserva- tive. For all the issues Japan
is facing, including the ocean environment, resources, traffic and security, there are numerous
international and domestic problems that Japan must urgently resolve. We must acknowledge that it is beyond the
capabilities of the current system to thoroughly comprehend and analyze Japan's position and
respond proactively to these problems within the current ocean regime, which is based on the shift from the
traditional "freedom of the seas" to the new "management of oceans" paradigm. We can no longer say. "We have been able to manage
somehow." Unless we change, we will be caught in our own system, and capable persons in the Held of admin- istrative practice that deal with
ocean problems will be unable to exercise their abilities.
Japan can’t develop the oceans- private companies can’t afford it and won’t
AS 2013 (The Asahi Shimbun is an Asia and Japan news source, December 28, 2013.“Japan seeks to make up for 'lost decade' in marine
development”, http://ajw.asahi.com/article/business/AJ201312280010)
Japan has long lagged behind other countries in oceanic development of minerals and resources, despite being one
of the world's largest maritime states. Today, however, it is aggressively exploring the seabed in search of natural riches. In early October, the
Hakurei, a state-of-the-art marine resources survey ship, set off from Shimonoseki Port in western Yamaguchi Prefecture for the Okinawa
Trough, located in waters northwest of the main island of Okinawa. The ship’s mission was to investigate oceanic resources that lie in the
waters, which are within Japan’s 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone (EEZ), where the nation is allowed to develop minerals and other
resources. Having a total area of 4.47 million square kilometers, Japan’s EEZ and territorial waters are the sixth largest in the world. Experts
believe a large amount of untouched natural resources rests beneath the seabed. Between January and February, Hakurei surveyed the
Okinawa Trough, a potential gold mine of offshore resources, at a depth of 1,600 meters. Drilling about 40 meters down into the seafloor, the
survey vessel discovered a large-scale submarine hydrothermal deposit that contains various minerals, such as zinc, lead, copper and gold. The
118-meter-long research vessel, which began operation in February 2012, is outfitted with 32-meter-high drilling equipment on its stern. The
equipment can submerge to a depth of up to 2,000 meters and drill a maximum of 400 meters down into the seabed--a major improvement
from the 20-meter limit of Hakurei’s predecessor, which started operation in 1980. The survey vessel is operated by Japan Oil, Gas and Metals
National Corp. (JOGMEC), a government-affiliated organization, which has been playing a leadership role in Japan’s marine resources
exploration. “We have many problems to solve, but hope to establish a new method in five years to mine seabed resources and raise them
from the ocean,” said Nobuyuki Okamoto, the chief of JOGMEC’s abyssal floor survey section. The Hakurei is just one sign that Japan is
increasing its presence in the area of oceanic development. In March, the deep-sea drilling vessel Chikyu successfully extracted natural gas from
offshore methane hydrate deposits for the first time in the world off Atsumi Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture. Known as "burning ice," methane
hydrate contains natural gas and is expected to serve as a new energy resource in the near future. Chikyu submerged to a depth of 1,000
meters and drilled 330 meters down into the seafloor to extract the gas from deposits of the sherbet-like methane-water combination. Despite
the recent activity, however, Japan experienced a “lost decade” for oceanic development. In the 1970s in the Pacific
Ocean, a number of companies from Japan, the United States, China, South Korea, France, Russia and elsewhere competed to mine manganese
nodules in waters southeast of Hawaii. Even after sluggish metal prices later killed their desire to explore the ocean floor, such countries
continued to consider how to make full use of resources far below the surface of the sea. They also since rushed to introduce new legislation to
prepare for future offshore development. In 1996, China drew up a national vision for its marine sector. The Asian power in 2003 also compiled
a large-scale plan that called on the government to carry out offshore resources surveys, as well as advance oceanic development more
aggressively. The proposal was intended to enable its marine industry to account for 5 percent of gross domestic product by 2010. South Korea
has also steadily proceeded with necessary preparations. Aiming to manage its oceanic policies in an integrated fashion, for example, Seoul
established the ministry of marine affairs and fisheries in 1996. Behind their enthusiastic efforts is the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea,
which went into effect in 1994. The pact admitted for the first time the right of respective coastal countries to develop offshore resources in
surrounding waters. But compared with those nations, Japan got a late start. It was not until 2007 that the world's sixth-largest
maritime state set up a new portfolio that centrally handles the nation’s oceanic policies, which had previously been developed separately by
eight ministries and agencies. Basic laws calling for the government to be more actively involved in marine development took effect that year as
well. In 2008, Japan drew up a basic five-year plan on ocean policy. It stipulated the government introduce a new survey vessel, later named the
Hakurei, at a cost of 29 billion yen ($290 million). The maritime nation now regards the Hakurei, which is playing a leading role in its exploration
of surrounding waters, as a trump card to reverse the disadvantageous situation. Hiroshi Terashima, a researcher who has been calling on the
government and the ruling parties to pave the way to develop offshore resources in earnest for more than 10 years, said there were many
factors behind the country’s late start. “Japan lacked interest in the sea,” said Terashima, an executive director of the Ocean Policy Research
Foundation. Declining prices of copper and other minerals led to the tendency of Japanese companies to purchase such resources from other
countries instead of mining minerals themselves. After the asset-inflated bubble economy collapsed in the early 1990s, Japanese
firms
could not afford to invest in oceanic development . “Japan fell far behind other nations in the world over the course of 10
years from the mid-1990s,” Terashima said. The turning point came in 2004, when Japan found China had began gas field development in the
East China Sea. In 2009, China shook the world by imposing restrictions on its rare earth exports. Then in March 2011, the Great East Japan
Earthquake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan, causing meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. As a result, securing cheaper
energy and mineral resources has become a top priority for Japan. Japan has since become serious about working on acquiring interests related
to the ocean. The Japanese government in April revised the basic plan on ocean policy, and stated in the amended scheme for the first time
that it will introduce new legislation to manage the EEZ in an integrated fashion. Based on the revised plan, the government is expected to
develop new comprehensive rules on fisheries and resources exploitation, so that domestic companies and other bodies can make adjustments
more easily when they hope to explore surrounding waters. At issue now is how the nation will procure the enormous funds necessary to
develop offshore resources. “We
have to compare market prices of resources with estimated costs before
mining them,” said Satoshi Abe, counselor of Cabinet Secretariat’s ocean policy division’s office. “We will not immediately
start developing everywhere and anywhere in surrounding waters indiscriminately. “What is important is that
we continue surveying possible development areas and maintaining necessary technology levels,” Abe said. Although the body of Japanese
pride, the Hakurei, was made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., 90 percent of all the seabed research devices mounted on the vessel,
including the drilling equipment installed on deck and a remote-controlled unmanned exploratory robot, were made by companies in Britain,
the United States and other countries. “Even
though Japan hopes to be involved in oceanic development more
aggressively, if it highly depends on foreign firms for the basis of its marine industry, Japan will lag
behind other states,” warned Tetsuo Yuhara, a researcher at the Canon Institute for Global Studies, who also serves as a member of the
councilors' conference of the Cabinet Secretariat’s ocean policy division. Japanese technology, however, has helped international efforts to
explore the seafloor. From 1985 to 2006, the Applied Geoscience and Technology Division of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SOPAC),
an international organization based in Fiji, conducted offshore resources surveys in the South Pacific. Michael Petterson, the body’s director,
said although Japan’s technologies contributed significantly to the success of the investigation, it was other nations that have harvested the
fruits of Japan’s endeavor. Yoshitaka Hosoi, a guest researcher of mineral resources at the Japan International Cooperation Agency, who was
involved in the international surveys, said Japan's success in oceanic
development hinges on whether private Japanese
firms have the courage to invest adequate funds in marine development. “We have large amounts of detailed
data,” Hosoi said. “The government’s support is actually necessary, but what's more important is whether companies
with a frontier spirit will appear.”
Perm K2 Japan Soft Power
Perm solves best- US-Japanese cooperation is k2 soft and smart power- Japan can’t
solve alone
Nye 2009 (Joseph Nye, Chairman of Pacific Forum CSIS on the Occasion of the Third U.S.-Japan Sea Power Dialogue with Japan, April 17,
2009. “An Alliance of Maritime Nations: The United States and Japan.” http://spfusa.org/pdfs/2009/4-17-09nye.pdf)//NR
Prime Minister Abe, Chairman Akiyama, distinguished participants in the Asian Voices Seminar, colleagues, and friends: I thank you for the kind
invitation to address the third U.S.-Japan Sea Power Dialogue. I am sorry that I am not able to join you in person, but I very much appreciate the
opportunity to share my thoughts about our bilateral relationship and the vital role that it can and does play in the maritime domain. As
Richard Armitage and I noted in the second Armitage-Nye report, "With half the world's population, one-third of the global economy, and
growing economic, financial, technological, and political weight in the international system, Asia is
key to a stable, prosperous
world order that best advances American interests." I have long believed, like all of you here today, that the future of the
U.S. "requires a robust, dynamic relationship with the new Asia of 2020, and the keystone of the United States' position in
Asia remains the U.S.-Japan alliance ." Indeed, important as our alliance has been throughout the last 60 years in bringing peace,
stability, and prosperity to the Asia Pacific region, this alliance will only become more important in the future. Today,
many of the most significant threats to peace and prosperity do not emanate from traditional sources; the risk of interstate conflict is small.
Rather, our chief
concerns include transnational threats posed by nonstate actors, or the prospect of
environmental degradation, or the diminished capacity to govern that results from corruption, or weak
and failing states. These new challenges require us to find and create new solutions. To do this most
effectively, we need "smart power."
By "smart power," I mean we need to better apply the full complement of the instruments
of national power – political, military, economic, diplomatic, and cultural tools; we need to use our hard and soft power together in a smart
way. The nature of the new challenges we collectively face obliges us to find cooperative approaches to problem solving.
Single nations
cannot tackle these issues on their own ; nor should they have to. These are shared concerns in which all nations have a stake.
Working together allows us to better utilize the resources we have, gives each nation a stake in positive outcomes, and begins the cooperation
and confidence building that can be stepping stones to future collaboration on even more pressing challenges. The
concept of smart
power is especially important for the maritime domain . Every nation benefits from freedom of navigation and the rights
of safe passage on the high seas, and enjoys the fruits of the seas themselves. It is critically important that each nation identify how it can
contribute to the protection of this public good. I applaud the efforts of the Ocean Policy Research Foundation and the Sea Power Dialogue to
better understand the importance of the seas and to work out ways that governments can help secure and protect the maritime domain. While
our two nations have a special role to play in dealing with such problems, the Sea Power Dialogue is on the right track as it pursues the creation
of a consortium of seafaring nations, a group bound by shared values such as freedom, democracy, good governance, and the rule of law. I
again thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts about this important and timely initiative and encourage you all to keep up the good
work.
Permutation Turns NB
Only the permutation allows strengthens the US-Japanese relationship that solve an
East china war—turns the impact to the net benefit
Giacomo, 04/20/2014 (Carol Giacomo, NYT writer, “Focusing America’s Attention on Asia”, The New York Times, 04/20/2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/opinion/focusing-americas-attention-onasia.html?_r=0&module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Opinion&action=keypress&region=FixedLeft&pgtype=article/)
With the slowdown in Pentagon spending, and dysfunction in Congress, will the United States really put 60 percent of its defense assets in the
Asia-Pacific region by 2020, as promised? Can Mr. Obama afford to invest more time in Asia when he is bogged down with crises in Ukraine and
Syria? Can
the United States be counted on to defend its allies if China becomes a real threat? What
does Mr. Obama’s idea to “rebalance” America’s Asia policy, announced in 2011, really mean? It’s important
that Mr. Obama’s trip to Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Malaysia this week clarify his plans for greater
engagement with Asia. The policy was initially oversold by the White House and, as a result, is often misunderstood in the region as a
zero-sum shift rather than a more nuanced calibration. The United States, a longstanding power in the Asia-Pacific region, cannot plausibly
abandon its interests in the Middle East, even after withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. And America could never disengage from
Europe even if Mr. Obama is sometimes accused of being neglectful of allies there. Still, focusing
more attention on Asia has
long made sense, given the region’s growing economic importance and the rise of a more assertive
China, which has propelled many Asian nations to seek closer cooperation with America. Mr. Obama’s
approach has been criticized by many experts, in Asia and at home, who see the rebalance as over-militarized. Examples include the promised
shift of more American defense assets to the region; a new base-sharing agreement with the Philippines; rotating deployments of United States
marines in Darwin, Australia; a reassertion of America’s alliance with Japan in the context of Japan’s maritime dispute with China; and
expanding arms purchases by the United States’ regional allies and partners. Security
among Asian nations is a top concern.
The Ukraine crisis — and Mr. Obama’s response to it — is being watched closely in Asia. The Japanese,
particularly, are nervous that the United States is under congressional pressure to slow military spending, and
have questioned whether America will deploy its forces should there be conflict with China. A
challenge for Mr. Obama is managing the deepening relationships with Asian allies to enhance stability
and freedom of the seas in their region without exacerbating tensions with China. For example, China’s defense
minister asserted “indisputable sovereignty” over disputed islands in the East China Sea , in an exchange with
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who was in China earlier this month. Yet there were also signs of cooperation when Mr. Hagel was invited to
tour the country’s lone aircraft carrier and the two sides agreed to hold regular high-level talks on regional security and their armies.
But
the rebalance has to be broader than defense , starting with a robust economic component. The one
recurring theme was the importance of achieving the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact being negotiated among the United States, Japan and
10 other nations. The Japanese and Americans have been working to resolve differences on agricultural issues so a breakthrough could be
announced when Mr. Obama is in Tokyo. Gaps are said to be narrowing, but the outcome is in doubt. Beyond that are other
steps that
the administration is pursuing to bind countries in ways that are intended to make conflict less likely
and improve economic growth. These include strengthening regional institutions like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and
the East Asian Summit meeting, which Mr. Obama will attend later this year;
and climate change
developing partnerships on energy, oceans
with nations like India and Vietnam; and being the host of the first ever meeting of Asean defense ministers earlier
this month in Hawaii to discuss humanitarian assistance and disaster relief procedures. The
administration has also been more
active in nudging Japan and South Korea, the two nations that are integral to Mr. Obama’s Asia policy, to ease their
corrosive animosity, including over Japan’s use of South Korean women as sex slaves for the Japanese Army during World War II. Asia is a
major engine of world economic growth, and rising tensions — between Japan and China, Japan and South Korea,
China and some of the smaller maritime countries — could put that at risk .
A volatile and chaotic world will continue to
demand America’s attention, but Asia is the future and warrants being a top priority
AT: Japan NB
Alt Causes to Soft Power
Japan can’t access soft power- territorial disputes and historical constraints
Thi Thu 2013 (Duong Thi Thu, Thesis submitted to the Victorian University of Wellington in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Master of International Relations, 2013. “Japan’s Public Diplomacy as an Effective Tool in Enhancing its Soft Power in Vietnam - A
Case-study of the Ship for Southeast Asian Youth Exchange Program.”
http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10063/3288/thesis.pdf?sequence=2)
However, Japan still faces
a number of obstacles in maintaining and enhancing its soft power. First of all,
because of constitutional restriction (as stated in Article 9 in Japan‟s constitution which prohibits Japan to wage war), Japan
has no other option than resorting to the expansion of its soft power. Therefore, as noted by Utpal Vyas, Japan is
experienced in using softer forms of power due to externally imposed constitutional restrictions on its use of military force in international
affairs89. Simply put, while hard power is restricted, soft power plays a crucial role in Japan‟s national power. However, according to Lam,
there are several limits of Japan‟s soft power including historical constraints, lack of CNN or BBC-like
institution or its unpopular language90. Historical constraints include historical issues during the previous war
(the well-known case is wartime comfort women mainly from the Philippines, Republic of Korea, China and Taiwan) and recent disputes
(for example, the visit of Prime Minister Koizumi to Yasukuni Shrine or the history textbook). Another limit of Japan‟s soft power
is that the country is still distrusted by many East Asian states and involved in territorial and resources
disputes with China and South Korea over the Senkaku (Diaoyu in Chinese) and Takeshima (Tok-do in Korean) islands respectively91.
Therefore, while the factors like the establishment of universal institutions or the popularization of Japanese language to the world take time or
seem to be difficult, there is an urgent need for Japan to settle historical issues with its neighboring countries; otherwise,
exert its soft power efficiently
in these countries.
Japan cannot
Not Zero-Sum
US-Japan cooperation is k2 US ocean leadership- working together is key
CSIS 2009 (Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 2009. “Relations at Sea: The U.S.-Japan Alliance on the Oceans”, Pacific
Forum CSIS, Issues & Insights Vol. 9-No. 9, http://csis.org/files/publication/issuesinsights_v09n09.pdf)
The
core components of the U.S.-Japan security alliance – power projection, control of the seas, and
deterrence – are intrinsically related to sea power . Yet even though maritime cooperation is part of a
larger framework of security collaboration, there is little spillover from the two countries’ joint efforts
on nontraditional security issues to conventional security concerns. This could change as two new traditionally landbased powers – China and Russia – begin to turn their attention to the seas. The prospect of a melting Arctic Ocean, creating
new sea routes, makes such efforts even more compelling. It is unclear how some countries, China in particular, will act
as they move to the maritime domain. For some, it is a hegemon in waiting, preparing to supplant the U.S. as the leading power in the western
Pacific. For others, China
is focused on development and will not risk upsetting the status quo. No matter what
is an important moment for Japan. Not only are new powers beginning to encroach on the seas,
historically Japan’s domain, but new maritime opportunities – such as the opening of Arctic trade routes – are
presenting themselves. Japan should reach out to other partners to help secure sea lanes. A critical
need is institutionalizing cooperation. Various forums for this exist, but these should be expanded and
strengthened. They are laying a foundation for cooperation that is key to regional and global security and prosperity. Coast guards will
Chinese intentions are, this
play a key role in protecting the oceans. This poses new challenges since coast guards are very different from navies, both in how they act and
how they are structured. Ensuring
cooperation between countries and between services requires ongoing
effort. A “whole of government” approach is needed. While multilateral cooperation is vital, U.S-Japan
maritime cooperation should remain the cornerstone of both countries’ efforts . It is an indispensable
element of U.S. national security strategies and has helped provide Japan with a platform for its own
international ambitions. Bilateral cooperation was much in need and very successful in the response to the December 2004 tsunami
that hit Indonesia. Considerably more can be done, however. Equally important are national strategies to ensure
safe and environmental smart exploitation of the oceans. All nations need a better grasp of the harmful
effects of environmental degradation on the seas and marine resources. Better protection against piracy is
needed. All governments need to be alert to and prepared to resolve tensions created by national
efforts to protect ocean resources and international rights of navigation and free passage. Japan and
the U.S. must establish a genuine partnership on the high seas, one that responds to new and
traditional security threats. The U.S. must have faith in and be ready to rely on Japanese maritime
assets . The Maritime Self-Defense Forces will be at the center of that effort, but this strategy will rely on all of Japan’s
maritime related agencies and assets. This strategy should “maintain and strengthen the existing
infrastructure of Japan-U.S. security cooperation in the western Pacific” and develop a “new
infrastructure for cooperation in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. Japanese experience and knowhow can be applied to future
SLOCs in the Arctic Ocean. Japan must assume key roles and missions in theaters to which Japan can
apply its capabilities, resources, and expertise.
AT: Proliferation
Prolif won’t happen
Hymans 2012 (Jacques, Associate Professor of International Relations – USC, North Korea's Lessons for (Not) Building an Atomic Bomb,
Foreign Affairs, 4-16, www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137408/jacques-e-c-hymans/north-koreas-lessons-for-not-building-an-atomicbomb?page=show)
Washington's miscalculation is not just a product of the difficulties of seeing inside the Hermit Kingdom. It is also a result of the
broader
tendency to overestimate the pace of global proliferation. For decades, Very Serious People have
predicted that strategic weapons are about to spread to every corner of the earth. Such warnings have
routinely proved wrong - for instance, the intelligence assessments that led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq - but they
continue to be issued. In reality, despite the diffusion of the relevant technology and the knowledge for building nuclear
weapons, the world has been experiencing a great proliferation slowdown. Nuclear weapons programs
around the world are taking much longer to get off the ground - and their failure rate is much higher than they did during the first 25 years of the nuclear age. As I explain in my article "Botching the Bomb" in the upcoming
issue of Foreign Affairs, the key reason for the great proliferation slowdown is the absence of strong cultures
of scientific professionalism in most of the recent crop of would-be nuclear states, which in turn is a consequence of
their poorly built political institutions. In such dysfunctional states, the quality of technical workmanship
is low, there is little coordination across different technical teams, and technical mistakes lead not to
productive learning but instead to finger-pointing and recrimination. These problems are debilitating , and they
cannot be fixed simply by bringing in more imported parts through illicit supply networks. In short, as a struggling proliferator, North
Korea has a lot of company.
Doesn’t cause war
Alagappa 2008 (Muthiah Alagappa, distinguished senior fellow at the East-West Center, The Long Shadow, p. 508-509)
although nuclear weapons could have destabilizing consequences in
certain situations, on net they have reinforced national security and regional stability in Asia. It is possible to
Another major conclusion of this study is that
argue that fledgling and small nuclear arsenals would be more vulnerable to preventive attacks; that the related strategic compulsion for early
use may lead to early launch postures and crisis situations; that limited war under nuclear conditions to alter or restore the political status quo
can intensify tensions and carry the risk of escalation to major war; that inadequate command, control, and safety measures could result in
accidents; and that nuclear facilities and material may be vulnerable to terrorist attacks. These are legitimate concerns, but thus far nuclear
weapons have not undermined national security and regional stability in Asia. Instead, they have
ameliorated national security concerns, strengthened the status quo, increased deterrence
dominance, prevented the outbreak of major wars, and reinforced the regional trend to reduce the
salience of force in international politics. Nor have nuclear weapons had the predicted domino effect. These consequences have
strengthened regional security and stability that rest on multiple pillars. The grim scenarios associated with nuclear weapons in Asia
frequently rely on worst-case political and military situations; often they are seen in isolation from the national priorities of
regional states that emphasize economic development and modernization through participation in
regional and global economies and the high priority accorded to stability in domestic and international affairs. The primary
goal of regional states is not aggrandizement through military aggression but preservation of national
integrity, state or regime survival, economic growth and prosperity, increase in national power and international
influence, preservation or incremental change in the status quo, and the construction of regional and global orders in which they are
subjects rather than objects. Seen in this broader perspective, nuclear weapons and more generally military force are of
greater relevance in the defense, deterrence, and assurance roles than offensive ones. This does not imply
that offensive use of force or military clashes will not occur; only that force is not the first option, that military clashes will be infrequent, and
that when they do occur they will be limited in scope and intensity. Security interaction in Asia increasingly approximates behavior associated
with defensive realism.
AT: Disease
No impact to disease
Brooks 2012 (Michael Brooks, Consultant for New Scientist, “Deep future: Why we'll still be here,” New Scientist, Volume 213, Issue 2854,
March, p. 36–37, Science Direct)//NR
We are also unlikely to be extinguished by a killer virus pandemic. The worst pandemics occur when a
new strain of flu virus spreads across the globe. In this scenario people have no immunity, leaving large
populations exposed. Four such events have occurred in the last 100 years – the worst, the 1918 flu
pandemic, killed less than 6 per cent of the world's population . More will come, but disease-led
extinctions of an entire species only occur when the population is confined to a small area, such as an
island. A severe outbreak will kill many millions but there is no compelling reason to think any future
virus mutations will trigger our total demise .
No extinction- disease would have to be extremely durable, stealthy, and contagiousthat doesn’t happen
Gladwell 1999 (Malcolm Gladwell, The New Republic, July 17 and 24, 1995, excerpted in “Epidemics: Opposing Viewpoints”, p. 31-32)//NR
Every infectious agent that has ever plagued humanity has had to adapt a specific strategy but every
strategy carries a corresponding
cost and this makes human counterattack possible. Malaria is vicious and deadly but it relies on mosquitoes to spread from one
human to the next, which means that draining swamps and putting up mosquito netting can all hut halt endemic malaria. Smallpox is
extraordinarily durable remaining infectious in the environment for years, but its very durability its essential rigidity is what makes it one of the
easiest microbes to create a vaccine against. AIDS is almost invariably lethal because it attacks the body at its point of great vulnerability, that
is, the immune system, but the fact that it targets blood cells is what makes it so relatively uninfectious. Viruses are not superhuman. I could go
on, but the point is obvious. Any microbe capable of wiping us all out would have to be everything at once: as contagious
as flue, as durable as the cold, as lethal as Ebola, as stealthy as HIV and so doggedly resistant to mutation that it
would stay deadly over the course of a long epidemic. But viruses are not, well, superhuman. They cannot do
everything at once. It is one of the ironies of the analysis of alarmists such as Preston that they are all too willing to point out the
limitations of human beings, but they neglect to point out the limitations of microscopic life forms.
No specie has ever died from disease
Regis 1997 (Ed Regis, author, 1997. “Pathogens of Glory”, New York Times, 5-18, Lexis)//NR
Despite such horrific effects, Dr. Peters is fairly anti-apocalyptic when it comes to the ultimate import of viruses. Challenging the
widespread perception that exotic viruses are doomsday agents bent on wiping out the human species,
he notes that "we have not documented that viruses have wiped out any species." As for the notion that
we're surrounded by "new" diseases that never before existed, he claims that "most new diseases turn
out to be old diseases"; one type of hantavirus infection, he suggests, goes back to A.D. 960. And in contrast to the popular belief that
viral epidemics result from mankind's destruction of the environment, Dr. Peters shows how the elimination of a viral host's habitat can
eradicate a killer virus and prevent future epidemics. This is what happened when the Aswan Dam, completed in 1971, destroyed the
floodwater habitat of the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, carriers of Rift Valley fever virus: "After the Aswan Dam was constructed, there was no
more alluvial flooding. . . . Without a floodwater mosquito, the virus can't maintain itself over the long haul. . . . By 1980, Rift Valley fever had
essentially disappeared in Egypt." Still, Dr. Peters isn't totally averse to doomsday thinking, and in his final chapter he lays out his own fictional
disease scenario, in which a mystery virus from Australia suddenly breaks out in a Bangkok slum. Throw in Malthus, chaos theory and the high
mutation rates of RNA viruses, and soon he's got the world teetering on the brink of viral holocaust in the finest Hollywood tradition. But he
doesn't know quite what to make of his own scenario. He offers "one valid, simplified equation to describe what we can expect from viruses in
the future": mutating viruses plus a changing ecology plus increasing human mobility add up to more and worse infectious diseases. Two pages
later, though, he says that "it is impossible to gauge how the actions of man will impact on emerging infectious diseases." If that is true, it
discredits the very equation he's given us. In the end, he presents no clear or consistent picture of the overall threat posed by the viruses he
discusses. The
empirical fact of the matter is that today's most glamorous viruses -- Marburg and Ebola -have killed minuscule numbers of people compared with the staggering death rates of pathogens that
go back to disease antiquity. Marburg virus, discovered in 1967, has been known to kill just 10 people in its 30-year history; Ebola has
killed approximately 800 in the 20 years since it appeared in 1976. By contrast, malaria, an ancient illness, still kills a worldwide average of one
million people annually -- more than 2,700 per day. More than
three times as many people die of malaria every day
than have been killed by Ebola virus in all of history. Yet it's Ebola that people find "scary"!
Humans will adapt
Gladwell 1995 (Malcolm Gladwell, The New Republic, July 17. “Excerpted in Epidemics: Opposing Viewpoints”, p. 29)//NR
In Plagues and Peoples, which appeared in 1977. William MeNeill pointed out that…while man’s efforts to “remodel” his environment are
sometimes a source of new disease. They are seldom a source of serious epidemic disease. Quite the opposite. As
humans and new
microorganisms interact, they begin to accommodate each other. Human populations slowly build up
resistance to circulating infections. What were once virulent infections, such as syphilis become attenuated.
Over time, diseases of adults, such as measles and chicken pox, become limited to children, whose immune
systems are still naïve.
AT: ASEAN
Asian war is unlikely - regional initiatives check
Bitzinger and Desker 2008 (Senior fellow and dean of S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies respectively (Richard A. Bitzinger,
Barry Desker, “Why East Asian War is Unlikely,” Survival, December 2008, http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/678328_731200556_906256449.pdf)
The Asia-Pacific region can be regarded as a zone of both relative insecurity and strategic stability. It
contains some of the world’s most significant flashpoints – the Korean peninsula, the Taiwan Strait, the Siachen Glacier – where
tensions between nations could escalate to the point of major war. It is replete with unresolved border issues; is a breeding ground for transnationa terrorism and
the site of many terrorist activities (the Bali bombings, the Manila superferry bombing); and
contains overlapping claims for maritime
territories (the Spratly Islands, the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands) with considerable actual or potential wealth in resources such
as oil, gas and fisheries. Finally, the Asia-Pacific is an area of strategic significance with many key sea
lines of communication and important chokepoints. Yet despite all these potential crucibles of conflict,
the Asia-Pacific, if not an area of serenity and calm, is certainly more stable than one might expect. To be
sure, there are separatist movements and internal struggles, particularly with insurgencies, as in Thailand, the Philippines and Tibet. Since the resolution of the East
Timor crisis, however, the region has been relatively free of open armed warfare. Separatism remains a challenge, but the break-up of states is unlikely. Terrorism is
a nuisance, but its impact is contained. The North Korean nuclear issue, while not fully resolved, is at least moving toward a conclusion with the likely
denuclearisation of the peninsula. Tensions between China and Taiwan, while always just beneath the surface, seem unlikely to erupt in open conflict any time
soon, especially given recent Kuomintang Party victories in Taiwan and efforts by Taiwan and China to re-open informal channels of consultation as well as
institutional relationships between organisations responsible for cross-strait relations. And while in Asia there is no strong supranational political entity like the
European Union, there are many multilateral organisations and international initiatives dedicated to enhancing peace and stability, including the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation. In Southeast Asia, countries are united in a
common eopolitical and economic organisation – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – which is dedicated to peaceful economic, social and cultural
development, and to the promotion of regional peace and stability. ASEAN has played a key role in conceiving and establishing broader regional institutions such as
the East Asian Summit, ASEAN+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) and the ASEAN Regional Forum.
All this suggests that war in Asia – while
not inconceivable – is unlikely.
ASEAN inevitable and resilient
Rajaratnam 1992 (S. Former Deputy Prime Minister – Singapore, “ASEAN: The Way Ahead”, 9-1, http://www.aseansec.org/13991.htm)
As a student of history, I believe that it is not common ideals but common fears that generally hold groups and nations together. The moment
the common fear disappears, the brotherhood becomes an arena for dissension, conflict and even bloodshed. Two world wars and what is
going on in Africa, Asia and Central Europe provide ample proof that we live in dangerous times today. However, I believe there
is evidence
suggesting that ASEAN is an exception to the rule. ASEAN was born on 8 August 1967 out of fear rather than
idealistic convictions about regionalism. As one of the two still surviving founder members of ASEAN (the other being Dr Thanat
Khoman) I can attest to the triumph of fear over ideals. The anticipated military withdrawal of the Americans from Vietnam in the eighties
raised the spectre of falling non-communist dominoes in Southeast Asia. It appeared then that both the East and West winds of communism
had joined forces to sweep over Southeast Asia. Fortunately, Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand carne to ASEAN’s rescue. The Sino-Soviet split
started. The East and West communist winds were suddenly blowing in contrary directions. The second outburst of ASEAN fear was in
December-January 1980 when Vietnam with the backing of the Soviet Union proclaimed the liberation of not only its Indochina Empire but also
of the whole of Southeast Asia. Fortunately for the first time in the history of an Asian regionalism, ASEAN, instead of trembling with fear, dug
its toes in and decided to stand up against a Vietnam that had never ceased to boast that it had defeated two great Western powers in Vietnam
- first the French and then the Americans. So in the case of Vietnam, it was not belief in regionalism but resolution, born out of common fear,
that eventually brought about the collapse of communist Vietnam. Today
a new fear haunts ASEAN and which, I believe, now
makes inevitable the emergence of ASEAN regional solidarity, and, no less important, the actualization of the ASEAN Free
Trade Area or AFTA. I also believe this solidarity will manifest itself politically and militarily so long as a common fear persists.
AT: Warming
Long timeframe and adaptation solves
Mendelsohn 2009 (Robert Mendelsohn, the Edwin Weyerhaeuser Davis Professor, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies,
Yale University, June 2009, “Climate Change and Economic Growth,” online:
http://www.growthcommission.org/storage/cgdev/documents/gcwp060web.pdf)
The heart of the debate about climate change comes from a number of warnings from scientists and others that give the
impression that human-induced climate change is an immediate threat to society (IPCC 2007a,b; Stern 2006). Millions of
people might be vulnerable to health effects (IPCC 2007b), crop production might fall in the low latitudes (IPCC 2007b), water supplies might
dwindle (IPCC 2007b), precipitation might fall in arid regions (IPCC 2007b), extreme events will grow exponentially (Stern 2006), and between
20–30 percent of species will risk extinction (IPCC 2007b). Even worse, there may be catastrophic events such as the melting of Greenland or
Antarctic ice sheets causing severe sea level rise, which would inundate hundreds of millions of people (Dasgupta et al. 2009). Proponents
argue there is no time to waste. Unless greenhouse gases are cut dramatically today, economic growth and well‐being may be at risk (Stern
2006). These statements are
largely alarmist and misleading . Although climate change is a serious problem
that deserves attention, society’s immediate behavior has an extremely low probability of leading to
catastrophic consequences . The science and economics of climate change is quite clear that emissions over
the next few decades will lead to only mild consequences . The severe impacts predicted by alarmists
require a century (or two in the case of Stern 2006) of no mitigation . Many of the predicted impacts
assume there will be no or little adaptation. The net economic impacts from climate change over the next
50 years will be small regardless. Most of the more severe impacts will take more than a century or even a
millennium to unfold and many of these “potential” impacts will never occur because people will adapt . It is
not at all apparent that immediate and dramatic policies need to be developed to thwart long‐range climate risks.
What is needed are long‐run balanced responses.