What is the Japanese Government doing about it?
In light of the above situation, serious actions by the government are imperative n both in terms of diversifying sources of oil and also in terms of exploring other sources of energy. As a move towards this, the government of Japan adopted, in September 1998 the “ Long-term Outlook for Energy Supply and Demand which aimed at simultaneously achieving the three Es (Energy security, Environmental protection and Economic growth). In subsequent efforts, the government emphasized increased use of natural gas and other alternatives to oil while retaining nuclear energy as core energy (METI) plans to lower oil imports to 46 percent of total supply from the current 50 percent, by 2010. It plans to do so by increasing the use of other energy sources-although coals share will remain at 18 percent. In addition to these efforts, the government is also trying to develop a petroleum stockpile system, initiate an environment tax. and work toward importing oil from Russia and Iran as alternative sour