Summary

Peter Zeihan uses Japan’s decision to restart the world’s largest nuclear power plant as a lens to explain why Japan is unusually resilient in a fragmented, unstable global energy system.

He begins by revisiting the Fukushima disaster about 15 years ago, when an earthquake and tsunami caused a nuclear meltdown and led Japan to shut down all of its nuclear reactors for safety reviews. Many plants failed initial inspections, so nuclear power—once about 30–35% of Japan’s electricity—was largely removed from the system for years. Now, reactors are gradually coming back online, including a major new restart.

Zeihan argues that Japan’s geography is the key to understanding its energy system. Japan’s cities are squeezed between the ocean and steep, mountainous terrain, making it extremely difficult to connect regions with shared power infrastructure. Unlike flatter countries, Japan can’t easily move electricity from one area to another. As a result, each major city or prefecture functions almost like its own self-contained energy system.

Because power cannot be reliably shared, Japan historically overbuilt generation capacity everywhere. Each region maintains multiple forms of power—nuclear, coal, natural gas, oil, and some renewables—so that if one source fails, others can immediately compensate. This redundancy is expensive but deliberate.

When nuclear power was shut down after Fukushima, Japan lost a major pillar of that system, but overall electricity demand remained fairly flat due to decades of economic stagnation. That left Japan with a heavily overbuilt energy network that was missing one key component—nuclear—which is now being restored.

Zeihan’s conclusion is geopolitical: in a future where global energy trade is less reliable and supply chains fragment, Japan is better positioned than most countries. While it still imports most of its fuel, it has exceptional flexibility in what energy it uses and where it sources it from. As long as some fuel is available somewhere, Japan’s redundant, locally self-sufficient power systems allow it to adapt. In a disorderly global energy environment, Japan will be “okay” in ways many other countries will not.