Atomic bomb

The phenomenon is unmistakable (albeit largely unnoticed), and the contrast lends itself to all kinds of symbolic interpretations: Japan’s unending retreat from being a highly respected polity and economic powerhouse, widely expected to become the 21st century’s global ichiban, has entered troubled waters. As a result of that downward economic trend, whose beginning was signaled by the collapse of the Nikkei index in 1990, Japan’s GDP managed the real (inflation-adjusted) annual growth of just 1.1% between 1991 and 2006, while during the preceding 15 years the
country’s GDP had nearly doubled. [1] But this long-lasting economic and social malaise has been accompanied by a substantial (17%) increase in Japan’s primary energy consumption. This is remarkable because pre-1990 Japan was the world’s most consistently, and most admirably, energy-efficient economy that had always managed to do with relatively less energy.