is the Japanese official and the former Executive Director of the

International Energy Agency The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organisation, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the entire global energy sector, with a recent focus on curbing carb ...

. He was born on 3 March 1950 in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. He graduated from the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

in the field of economics in 1972, and has an MBA from

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

(1979). In 1973 he began his career with the

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan (METI) The or METI, is a ministry of the Government of Japan. It was created by the 2001 Central Government Reform when the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) merged with agencies from other ministries related to economic activities, ...

. In 1989 he joined the

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries ...

(OECD) as the Deputy-Director for Science, Technology and Industry, and served in 1991–1995 as the Director for Science, Technology and Industry. In 1995 he returned to METI where he served as Director for Industrial Finance Division and as Director for Policy Planning and Coordination Division. In 1998–2000 he was posted at the Embassy of Japan in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, as Minister for Energy, Trade and Industry. After returning to Japan in 2000 he took a post of the Executive Vice President for the Research Institute of Economy Trade and Industry, and in 2002–2004 the post of the Director-General for the Multilateral Trade System Department of METI. From 16 August 2004 to 31 August 2007 Nobuo Tanaka was the Director for Science, Technology and Industry at the OECD, and head of the internal OECD Steering Group for the Centre for Entrepreneurship. On 1 September 2007 he succeeded Claude Mandil as the Executive Director of the IEA. On 1 September 2011, he was succeeded in this role by the Former Minister of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands,

Maria van der Hoeven Maria Josephina Arnoldina van der Hoeven (born 13 September 1949) is a retired Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party and nonprofit director. Van der Hoeven attended a Lyceum in Maastricht from April 1966 until May 1969 ...

. Since September 2011 he is Global Associate for Energy Security and Sustainability at the Institute for Energy Economics, Japan ("Eneken") in Tokyo. He is also a professor at the

Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo The Graduate School of Public Policy (GraSPP) at the University of Tokyo was founded in 2004 and is one of the premier public policy schools in Asia. It is located on the University's Hongo campus in Bunkyo-ku, and consists of approximately 2 ...

. He is also a fellow at the

Center on Global Energy Policy The Center on Global Energy Policy is a research center located within the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. The center's director is Jason Bordoff, and it features senior research scholars such as Richard Nephew a ...

at Columbia University in New York where he has given lectures on subjects like Post Fukushima energy policy, the Shale revolution and energy security, China energy and sustainability, and the Integral Fast Reactor during frequent weekly visits to the Columbia Morningside campus each academic semester. He is a vocal advocate for advanced nuclear energy for Japan and international cooperation between Japan and the Republic of Korea to build the first commercial Integral Fast Reactor in the world. On May 28, 2014 he hosted the ''Global Leader Program for Social Design and Management'' (GSDM) 15th Platform Seminar, The 79th Public Policy Seminar at the University of Tokyo (title: "Peaceful and Safer Use of Nuclear Power: Role of Integral Fast Reactor"). His research paper on the role of the

Integral Fast Reactor The integral fast reactor (IFR, originally advanced liquid-metal reactor) is a design for a nuclear reactor using fast neutrons and no neutron moderator (a "fast" reactor). IFR would breed more fuel and is distinguished by a nuclear fuel cycle ...

was published in January 2017.researchgate.net
''Technical Feasibility of an Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) as a Future Option for Fast Reactor Cycles''
DOI:10.3327/jaesjb.59.6_314 Nobuo Tanaka is married and has two children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanaka, Nobuo 1950 births International Energy Agency officials Japanese diplomats Japanese economists Non-profit executives Living people University of Tokyo alumni People from Kanagawa Prefecture