This book clarifies the challenges and outcomes of the Sunshine Project,
a national project in Japan for developing new energy that was launched
about 40 years ago at the time of the first oil crisis in the early
1970s and ended, as planned, in the early 2000s. The Sunshine Project
was the government's national project for developing new energy
technologies such as solar energy and other natural energy sources-what
we call renewable energy today.
The book considers why policies were successful in some areas but did
not have the intended effect in other areas. It explains how technology
innovation was employed to achieve energy policy goals and to tackle
environmental issues. If we can present suggestions for how to structure
national projects, it may also be possible to identify ways for
industry, government, and academia to come together to find solutions
not only to environmental energy problems, but also to other social
problems. Herein lies the goal of this book.
Although the development of new energy is the main subject of the book,
the author also scrutinizes the governmental decision-making process
involved in planning policy, the creative process, and the design of
systems of collaboration between industry, government, and academia as
well as cases where corporations have developed commercial versions of
new energy products.
The main part of the book consists of three case studies interspersed
with two reflective chapters. The first case study describes the
Sunshine Project from the perspective of project management based on the
perspective of government. The second case study is a detailed
examination of the routines in all organizations, whether industry,
government, or academia, and of the autonomy of the project
organization. The third case study increases the degree of detail to
focus on the smallest unit of analysis, the intentions and motivations
of key individuals participating in the project.
