Trading houses curb investment in coal power

Oh. Look at all these countries that have energy security telling Japan how it should get its energy. How cute.

I remember a time. Not THAT long ago,... when all the oil the UK was getting from Iran suddenly dried up. I remember when the coal miners went on strike and they needed Margaret Thatcher to bust some unions just so UK residents would not have to freeze in the dark. How soon North Sea Oil and fracking placate and pacify all the rapacious imperialist fossil fuel economies to the point that they can now point at Japan and tell it to eat cake.

Iran oil sanctions? OK. Japan toed the line on that and took huge losses in its investments in oil. Russian sanctions? OK. Japan toed the line on that too. It can't depend on natural gas from anywhere to keep its economy going. Nuclear problems? OK. Greenpeace and the Union of Concerned Scientists and their ilk will create enough hysteria to kill nuclear generation in Japan.

So where does the world's third largest economy turn for power? Solar? Sure. And that will take 50 years. What to do in the mean time?

Coal. Stable, reliable coal from Japan's ideological and economic allies: the US, Canada, Australia. You can't put a price on everything. When the power needs to come from somewhere and the world is a dangerous place, sometimes coal is not the best investment. It is the only investment. It is easy to criticize Japan. People do it a lot. But Japan keeps the lights on, and that is saying a lot for a country with basically no energy resources whatsoever.

Obviously Marubeni declined to comment as they have dislodged their Canada's asset of 40% Grande Cache Coal bought for US$1bil at the peak of coal prices, and sold to Up Energy of HK for US$1.00 in 2015. Brilliant investment ??