No. 117: Separating and collecting carbon dioxide from coal-fired thermal power by physical absorption (February 25, 2012)

Technology

J-Power is currently separating and collecting carbon dioxide by chemical absorption that uses amine solution for ion binding. Chemical absorption cannot be free from a certain limit because the amount of carbon dioxide increases with the absorbed amount. Physical absorption applies a high pressure to carbon dioxide and dissolves it in a special alcohol solution. That is, physical absorption is better than chemical absorption if the process grows higher in temperature and pressure. The company is constructing a test plant for physical absorption that is scheduled to be open shortly. Because the test plant is conducting tests of chemical absorption, it is the first test plant in the world that has test facilities both for chemical absorption and physical absorption. It plans to accumulate data and knowledge of physical absorption until 2013.

J-Power is working on the substantial experiments to generate electricity by driving a turbine using flammable gas collected from coal. At the same time, it is conducting experiments on the shift reaction of gases to separate carbon dioxide and hydrogen for effective collection of higly-pure carbon dioxide. Physical absorption will supposedly become widespread because increasing generation efficiency inevitably makes the process higher both in temperature and pressure. At the same time, physical absorption allows for desulfuration simultaneously because the degree of solubility of hydrogen sulfide is high in the alcohol solution.

No. 116: Growing industry-government collaboration for an energy saving society (February 24, 2012)

Business trend

Apartments featured by energy saving are selling well in the Tokyo metropolitan district. For example, an apartment complex that introduced an energy management system puts off lights in the common place automatically depending on the situation in summer, runs air-conditioners in the energy-saving mode, and has a large-scale photovoltaic generation on the roof. Each apartment is equipped with a terminal to know its power consumption. This apartment complex is part of the ongoing regional project under the initiative of Toshiba and Yokohama city to increase the efficiency of power consumption.

Saitama city is working with Honda to build an environment-conscious city. Honda will construct an experimental house before the front gate of Saitama University coming spring. In this experimental house, such Honda’s technology as photovoltaic generation, household gas generator, and collecting power form an EV in an emergency will be utilized fully. Tokyo metropolitan government and Mitsubishi Estate will start the experiment of smart grid and install smart meters in several buildings to monitor power consumption. Tokyo plans to ask real estate companies to introduce the model to be developed in the project in the future. In Chiba Prefecture, Tokyo University and Mitsui Fudosan are working together on a system to utilize photovoltaic generation, gas electric power generation, and bio generation using garbage. Power interchange between multiple facilities is also being planned.

The moves to create energy are also spreading. Tokyo will establish a fund of several tens of billion yen coming June to subsidize redevelopment companies that introduce the cogeneration system. Kanagawa Prefecture will build a large-scale photovoltaic generation plant to supply power to 518 households this fall.

According to a research firm, the infrastructure business to construct an energy saving society will grow 3.7 times over the level in 2010 to about 3,300 billion yen in 2020. With the background of this rapid growth, industry-government collaboration is expected become widespread.  

No. 115: Using carbon dioxide to grow vegetables in the plant factory (February 23, 2012)

Technology

Chiba University and Tokyo Gas are jointly working on the effective utilization of carbon dioxide. Hydrogen is the driving force of the fuel cell vehicle, and carbon dioxide is generated in the process to create hydrogen. Chiba University uses the generated carbon dioxide to grow vegetables in the plant factory it operates. The research team led by Associate Professor Toru Maruo tries to sweet vegetables, facilitate their growth, and increase their production by enhancing photosynthesis using carbon dioxide for the first time in the world. They liquefy carbon dioxide collected in the hydrogen station operated by Tokyo Gas and transport the liquefied carbon dioxide in cylinders to the plant factory. The research members supply 320 kg of carbon dioxide to tomatoes every month.

It is currently a widespread method to burn LPG and heating oil and send the generated carbon oxide into the greenhouse. Tokyo Gas buries the carbon dioxide in the ground. If the research members get successfully results, Tokyo Gas can reduce the disposal cost and Chiba University can reduce procurement cost. As proverb goes, it is like killing two birds with one stone. In the ongoing research, members try to increase the carbon dioxide concentration of the 1,000-square-meter greenhouse by 2.5 times to 1,000 ppm. The research is expected to increase tomato production by 20% and increase the sugar content by 0.5-1.0 degree. The cost to separate, collect, and transport carbon dioxide needs further study, according to the engineer of Tokyo Gas. The report of the joint research is scheduled to be published in March.    

No. 114: The scheduled largest environment city in the Tokyo metropolitan area (January 2, 2012)

Business trend

A plan to construct the largest environment city in a 170,000-square-meter land is in progress. This is a so-called smart city made up mainly of 1,500 apartments complete with commercial facilities and hospitals. It is based on such IT-based advanced technologies as photovoltaic generation equipment, a system to control power consumption of each household and street lighting, and car sharing. Nomura Real Estate Development and Mitsubishi Corp. will work together on this project. The 170,000-square-land is an old factory site of Asahi Glass. 

Each household will be equipped with the home energy management system (HEMS) that controls electric usage and warns about excessive usage. The city is divided into sections, each of which is connected through information network to manage and optimize power consumption. Each household will be able to purchase high-voltage power at a lower unit price as a package deal independently than the unit price it pays for low-voltage power. A photovoltaic generation system will be adopted to generate power for areas for community use. Mitsubishi Motors will help the project with the sharing system of electric vehicles. The East Japan Great Earthquake prompted companies involved in the energy business to draw plans for more efficient use of energy and formulate measures for emergency power demand.

No. 113: A more advanced energy-saving office building from Daiwa House (December 19, 2011)

Daiwa House will launch a more advanced energy-saving office building that utilizes as much outside light as possible. The company has already put the office building that conserves electricity by 50% from the level in 1990 by incorporating photovoltaic generation and heat insulation. The new office building can reduce electricity by more than 50%. It employs lighting blinds, light ducts, and double-sided light-emitting diodes based on the light guide plate of liquid crystal display. Light diffused by the lighting blind spreads to the four corners of a room, and light ducts to take in outside light are installed in the space that cannot get outside light. The light duct was developed by Sumitomo 3M.

The LED lighting was developed jointly by KoizumiLighting Technology and Sumitomo Chemical. It employs the edge light system that diffuses light using the light guide plate. It helps the light realize more natural feeling and make people feel brighter because it is double-sided illumination. It is automatically controlled by the illuminance sensor, and it can run without emitting light for four hours a day. Theoretically, it is possible to maintain the necessary level of luminance for 9.9 hours on average a day. On the rooftop, the new building has solar panels with a generation capacity of 10 kW to supply power enough to operate the lighting and air-conditioning.

No. 112: Applying TRON to the smart city in alliance with European research Institutes (December 10, 2011)

YRP Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory sponsored by Fujitsu, Hitachi, and Sony will play the central role in the research to apply the Real-Time Operating System Nucleus (TRON) that Dr. Takeshi Sakamura proposed in 1984 to the smart city. The laboratory will establish an organization with government-affiliated research institutes and companies in Europe including Siemens of Germany and ST Microelectronics of Switzerland to put TRON-based technologies into practical use. It has already reached an agreement with a Chinese city on the technological cooperation on TRON. It will help the Chinese city establish a TRON-based security system that covers the entire city including the historical management of pharmaceuticals and foods. Likewise, it will provide the know-how on incorporating TRON in various kinds of sensors to European organizations.

The smart meter (next-generation power meter) is used in the smart city to network various devices to exchange data in search of the optimal power supply. A sophisticated operating system is vital to know the city environment in real time, and TRON is regarded as the best operating system. According to a Japanese public research company, the world smart meter market will grow more than three times over the level in 2009 to 1,300 billion yen in 2020. TRON will have increasingly intensifying competition with Android of Google and Windows of Microsoft. TRON plans to differentiate it from other two operating systems by focusing on devices that do not need a large processing ability. At present, no clear winner in the world’s standard of the operating system for sophisticated sensors vital to the smart city.

No. 111: Building an environment-conscious sewage system in disaster-stricken districts (November 9, 2011)

The efforts to build an environment-conscious sewage system in collaboration with the local governments hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake are growing widespread. Sekisui Chemical will collaborate with Sendai city to build a system that creates hot water using the exhaust heat from the sewage pipe that is around 20 degrees centigrade all the year round. Using Sekisui’s technology on the production of resin sewage pipes, the system will take out heat using the resin sheets on the bottom of the pipes. It is possible to install the system without breaking the existing sewage pipes. Metawater and Kesennuma city will together build a system to utilize a large amount of fishery wastes from seafood processing plants. The system mixes the wastes with sewage sludge and generates electricity using heat and methane gas generated in the fermentation process. The generated power will be used in the plant.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has positioned these two projects as government-supported research projects. The two local governments and private companies involved will build equipment for substantiative experiments. After examining the results of these experiments, the government is scheduled to expand these efforts to other local governments. About 40% of the 150 sewage treatment plants were destroyed in the Fukushima disaster, and the damages are estimated to be several hundred billion yen.

In addition to these local governments and private companies, Japan IBM is studying the construction of an eco town with Sendai city, and Boston Consulting Group is working on building a seafood processing plant on the seacoast that uses renewable energy in collaboration with Iwate Prefecture. Hitachi submitted a proposal on an environment-conscious town to more than 10 local governments, while Fujitsu made the same kind of proposal to a prefecture on the coast of the Sea of Japan.