IFI Seminar “Geopolitics, diplomacy & future energy security of hydrogen economy: Implications for Japan”

The onset of hydrogen economy is part of the transition towards close to 100% electrified energy systems largely based on renewable and other low-carbon generation. In this transition, some of the expanding renewable or other low carbon electricity generation will be used to produce hydrogen that can be used as energy storage, fuel in various sectors as well as in industry to substitute fossil fuels. The transition will witness many fossil fuel producers losing their former power and influence. Some of them will convert or reorient their production while several new actors, value chains and trade patterns will emerge globally and regionally based on hydrogen, derivative fuels such as e-methanol and e-ammonia along with other chemical products. This presentation will scope the patterns of energy geopolitics and diplomacy that hydrogen economy will bring with it and also elaborates the implications for the pioneering actors, Japan.

【Invited Speaker】
Pami AALTO
Jean Monnet Professor, Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University (Finland)

【Discussant】
Hisashi YOSHIKAWA
Project Professor, Graduate School of Public Policy (GraSPP) and Institute for Future Initiative (IFI), The University of Tokyo

【Organizer】
Prof. Yuya KAJIKAWA
Professor, Institute for Future Initiative (IFI), The University of Tokyo

Pami Aalto is Jean Monnet Professor in International Relations in the Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, Finland, where he also coordinates the research platform ‘Climate Neutral Energy Systems and Society’ (CNESS). He has worked on all major sources of energy and components of the energy system and has interests in interdisciplinary studies of energy transitions and international environmental governance alongside energy geopolitics and great power relations. The bulk of the work has revolved on the European, Nordic, Baltic, Arctic, Eurasian and East Asian regions.

Hisashi Yoshikawa is a Project Professor, Graduate School of Public Policy (GraSPP) and Institute for Future Initiative (IFI), the University of Tokyo. He is also a Research Director at the Canon Institute for Global Studies. He has worked as a policy maker in the energy sector in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). He was a Head of the Country Studies Division and a Senior Advisor for Long-term Policy at the International Energy Agency (IEA). He was also a Deputy Director at Directorate for Science Technology and Industry in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Green Transformation and Innovation Research Unit,
Institute for Future Initiatives, The University of Tokyo

E-mail: kajikawa[at]ifi.u-tokyo.ac.jp (replace [at] with @)