Achieving Sustainable Long-term Energy Demand and Supply in the Tokyo Metropolis

This paper discusses sustainable long-term energy demand and supply in the Tokyo Metropolis. The current demand and supply for energy in Japan does not fulfill the conditions for continuous sustainability, whereby the entire primary energy supply is covered by renewable energy, due to high dependency on oil imports during and after the period of rapid economic growth from the 1950s to the 1970s. Consequently, Japan's energy policy since 1990 has sought transitional sustainability, which improves energy efficiency at the demand side and diversifies energy sources and promotes renewable energy at the supply side to achieve continuous sustainability in the future. However, in the Tokyo Metropolis, where population density and integration of commercial and service sectors is high, it is difficult to achieve even transitional sustainability compared to other prefectures. Therefore, possible ways to achieve transitional sustainability in the Tokyo metropolis are discussed using long-term and regional energy statistics.