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  I doubt if wind energy is the answer. Japan has shown little interest in wind turbines to date, apart from building them for other countries. Possibly this is because very tall spindly structures would seem highly unlikely to survive in an earthquake. The best place for windfarms is out to sea where the wind flow is stronger and unrestricted. Had there been any windfarms out to sea off Sendai then I imagine that we would be looking at pictures of collapsed windfarms in addition to all the other horrors. They would also have to be capable of withstanding the periodic typhoons. Any wind turbines constructed ashore on the coastal plains would have been exposed to having their foundations undermined by the tsunami had they survived the earthquakes.
  
  Re the German protests. The government is a coalition whose Green constituent insisted that wind power be expanded immensely and nuclear power phased out. This is very difficult to achieve due to the inherent variability of wind power. There is a limit to the amount of wind energy that can be accommodated within a national grid as the fluctuations create instability. Also it cannot be depended upon to be there when you need it as we know from our big freeze this winter when there was almost zero output from the UK wind farms.
  
  Consequently any increase of the installed wind power input to the grid has to be duplicated by the construction of conventional back-up delivering a similar output ready to take over when the wind is not blowing at sufficient strength, which is the great majority of the time. This is normally done by the construction of gas turbine power stations which can be turned on and off at the press of a button. Nuclear and coal powered power stations take days to increase or decrease output and are used to supply the base load. In consequence, Germany will become ever more reliant on the supply of gas, which they obtain from Russia, not the most dependable of suppliers.
  
  Germany's transition to renewable power is an extremely expensive undertaking which will greatly increase energy costs to industry and the domestic sector alike. Angela Merkel was hoping to soften the blow by delaying the phasing out of nuclear power stations but the events in Japan are now causing a rethink.

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