The Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies and Chiba University ranked again this year the nation’s prefectures by the self-sufficiency rate of natural energy and heating supply as of the end of March 2010. For the fourth year in a row, the national leader was Oita Prefecture at 27.7%, which has a large thermal power station. In addition, Kumamoto Prefecture finished at 5th and Kumamoto Prefecture finished at 8th. Also noteworthy was Miyazaki Prefecture, which finished in 16th due to its growing commitment to solar power generation.
Red rot, a condition in which bacteria attack nori growing on the nets and cause it to turn red and peel away, is spreading throughout the Ariake Sea. Tidal differentials that allow the nori to dry out while on the net kills the bacteria, but excessive drying also causes a decline in the quality of the product. The volume of the first sale of the year was roughly half that of the previous year, which is causing distress to the producers.
The city of Kitakyushu will convert all the road lighting it manages --- about 26,000 installations --- to low power consumption light emitting diodes over the next 15 years. The objective is to reduce CO2 emissions. This will also cut power consumption by 45%. They are the first local government in Kyushu to take this step.
The city of Saeki in Oita Prefecture announced that Tokyo-based Sumitomo Forestry Wood Products and Fukuoka Prefecture-based Nakayama Recycle Industries will build a plant in the city to process wood chips from trees felled to thin forests for use as fuel in power generation. Work will start this month on the plant, which is scheduled to begin operation in April 2012. After processing, the chips will be sold to Kyushu Electric Power and independent power providers as a supplementary fuel.
Fukuoka Prefecture Uses Earth Temperature Differentials for Heating and Air Conditioning
Jun 30, '11 EnvironmentFukuoka Prefecture has installed “earth heat pumps”, which use seasonal differentials in earth temperature for heating and air conditioning, in about 40 households in the city of Fukutsu as a trial. The objective is to conserve energy and reduce CO2. The Ministry of the Environment says they know of no other similar trials of this size conducted in Japan.
The Development Bank of Japan has a program of certifying so-called Green Buildings that uses 58 categories to examine their reduction of the environmental burden and designs that incorporate considerations of their surroundings. The bank certified as Green Buildings two buildings in Fukuoka City. These are the Higashihie Business Center and the Gofukumachi Business Center in Hakata Ward. They are the first buildings in Kyushu to receive certification.
A research team from Nagasaki University will place a hose on the bottom of Omura Bay in Nagasaki Prefecture to pump in air and ameliorate the bay’s severe oxygen deficiency, restoring the natural environment. That deficiency has resulted in a serious deterioration of water quality. Omura Bay is a relatively isolated body of water with poor water circulation. Water quality began worsening in the 1970s when the bay was used for the disposition of waste water. The university says it is unusual for water purification efforts to be applied to an entire bay.
The Fukuoka District Meteorological Observatory reported that 46 of its 130 observation sites in the seven Kyushu prefectures recorded the lowest amount of rainfall ever in April. Typical of the drought that has continued since April were the readings for Hyuga, Miyazaki Prefecture, where 12.0 millimeters of rain were recorded—5% of the normal amount. The observatory expects the dry spell to continue through the first half of May, but for precipitation levels to return to normal in June and July.
Chiba University and a Tokyo non-profit have released their rankings of prefectures nationwide for self-sufficiency in the use of natural energy to generate electricity and heat for the year ending March 2009. Oita Prefecture was at the top of the list for the third year in a row with a rate of 25.1%. Fukuoka Prefecture was in 39th place with a rate of 1.2%.
Local residents were concerned that a large amount of sedimentation caused by intense rains in the area would destroy the coral reefs off of Amami, Kagoshima Prefecture. Researchers from Kumamoto University used an unmanned probe to discover that the coral had grown back to close to its original state, however. They attribute the removal of the sedimentation to the passage of Typhoon #14 through the area eight days after the rains.
Kyushu Electric Power has begun trials with five parking lot management companies in Fukuoka City to provide facilities for recharging electric cars. Several municipalities are conducting similar trials, but this is the first private-sector trial to be held in Kyushu. All of the stations will be in place by mid-month, and the trial will continue until the end of March. No fees will be charged for the electricity or the service, but the parking space will still have to be paid for. The trials might continue after March if results warrant.
The hydrogen created as a byproduct at Nippon Steel Corp.’s Yahata Plant in Kitakyushu will be used in fuel cells that do not emit CO2. Those fuel cells will in turn be used by Shin Nippon Homes and an NPO in a business enterprise for power generation in a seven-unit apartment house currently under construction in the city. It is the first time in Japan for hydrogen from a factory to be reused to generate power in a residential unit. Occupancy of the apartments could begin as early as this year.
A total of 230 companies from Japan, China, and South Korea exhibited environmental products at Eco-Techno 2010, a Kitakyushu trade fair, on the 13th. About 50 of the corporate participants were from overseas. The fair has been held annually since 2001.
Yellow Sea Rim Economic and Technology and Exchange Council, which works to create sustainable economic exchange between Kyushu, China, and South Korea, will meet next month for the 10th time in Kitakyushu. They plan on issuing a joint declaration pledging to work together to solve common environmental problems. Plans also call for discussions of the role of government, and how to promote technology exchange in the software industry. The joint declaration will be their first.
Fukuoka City-based First Solution has developed a technique for rapidly cleaning water of mud and debris. The compact device, which is easily transportable with a small truck, uses the mesh cut method. It is expected to be used not only for quick cleanup of the waste water generated by road construction, but also for river cleanups.
Miyazaki Prefecture Gov. Hideo Higashikokubaru declared the hoof-and-mouth epidemic that ravaged his prefecture for more than four months had ended. The prefecture has just finished work converting the excreta of the slaughtered animals into compost. An estimated 290,000 pigs and cows were lost, or roughly 25% of the prefecture’s livestock.
Kyushu Electric Power subsidiary Kyuden Ecosol announced that it will install a solar power generating system at the Fukuoka Airport next year. They will also be responsible for the management and maintenance of the on-site system. The system will consist of panels on the terminal roof, and its annual output will be about 1% of the building’s power consumption. It will also reduce CO2 emissions by 73 tons.
The Kagoshima City Aquarium has received an award from the Japan Association of Zoos and Aquariums for its successful propagation of a type of coral known as a sea pen. The award is presented to any of the 156 member institutions that has been the first in the country to successfully propagate and keep alive a living creature for six months. It is the first time the Kagoshima City Aquarium has won this award, and the 13th time the award has been presented for a type of coral.
The tairagi fan shells are one of the special products of the Ariake Sea, and last year there was a bumper harvest, the first in 13 years. This year, however, the Saga Prefecture Ariake Maritime Promotion Center reports that many are dying in the Ariake Sea off the prefecture due to an extreme lack of oxygen in the sea water. The center confirmed they had been wiped out entirely in five primary production areas, and 92% of the population had died out in a sixth. The lack of oxygen is attributed to a combination of heavy rains, hot temperatures, and little wind.
The Kyushu Economic Research Center released the results of its study of CO2 Emissions in Kyushu’s seven prefectures. It found that with the exception of the emissions from individual households, about 55% of the 130.43 million tons of emissions are accounted for by small and medium-sized business enterprises. As a way to help ameliorate this situation, the center suggests that wood-based biomass be used as an energy source. The proposal is based on the idea that the wood culled from thinning forests could be used to make the fuel.
Two years of red tides caused by large quantities of plankton in the Yatsushiro Sea and the Ariake Sea has killed an estimated 2.44 million aquafarmed fish, primarily yellowtail amberjacks, according to a Nishinippon Shimbun report. This is the second-largest toll in history, after a red tide destroyed an estimated three million fish in the Yatsushiro Sea in 2000. The damage total rose because the tide appeared a month earlier than usual and lasted longer.
Suntech Power Japan, the Japanese subsidiary of the large Chinese solar power company Suntech Power, opened an office in Fukuoka City as a headquarters for its western Japan operations. The company sells the solar power systems it manufactures in Wuxi. The branch is starting with four sales personnel, and plans call for an expansion to 10 people to offer products with both residential and industrial applications.
Omuta Recycle Hatsuden, a public-private sector partnership in Omuta for producing refuse derived fuel, posted a profit of 105 million yen, it was announced. It was the first-ever profit for the enterprise, which began operation in 2002. It still has an aggregate debt of 1.39299 billion yen, which it expects to retire by 2014.
The Kyushu Recycle and Environmental Industry Plaza in Fukuoka City, an organization consisting of representatives of government, industry, and academia, signed a memorandum with Shandong Province, China, to promote exchange in the environmental and recycling sector. This is the second such agreement K-RIP has with a Chinese local government, after the one with the city of Dalian. Industrial and commercial growth in Shandong is boosting demand for technology in the environmental field.
The Fukuoka District Meteorological Observatory released the results of their survey of the heat island effect in northern Kyushu. They claim the increase in the minimum temperature per century in Fukuoka City based on their study from 1931 to 2009 is 5.2 degrees. They also say this increase is higher than the one in Tokyo. Regionally, this was followed by a 3.7 degree increase in Kumamoto City and a 3.3 degree increase in Oita City.
The Environmental Ministry and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry released the results of their nationwide survey of companies and their greenhouse gas emissions in FY 2008. The Kyushu company with the most emissions was Sumitomo Metals Kokura, the leader for the third consecutive year. Broken down by prefecture, Fukuoka was the leader in Kyushu and ranked ninth in the nation, followed by Oita in 10th place.
The Asia Low Carbon Center, popularly known as the Asia Green Camp, opened in Kitakyushu with the objective of contributing to lower CO2 emissions in Asian countries with rapid economic growth. The facility is one part of the city’s action plan in the national government’s environmental model city program. They hope to transfer advanced environmental technology to countries throughout Asia.
Tokyo-based Tostem Corp. signed an agreement with Kumamoto Prefecture and the Nagasu-machi municipality to build Kyushu’s largest solar power plant. Construction on the plant, which will have an output capacity of 3,759 kilowatts, is to begin in July. Plans call for operations to begin in February. Roughly 20,000 solar panels will be placed on aluminum platforms on about 119,000 square meters of land.
Kyushu University, working with the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI) of Hyogo Prefecture, announced the development of a new electrode catalyst for the reuse of CO2 and other gases, which could convert greenhouse gases into resources and improve the efficiency of fuel cells for autos. It is the first such catalyst of its type anywhere, and the story was featured in a website article in Nature Materials, a British scientific journal. The new catalyst has the capability of recovering 99% of the CO2 in the air.
Fukuoka Prefecture announced it had developed and put into operation the first device in the country for inexpensively recovering zinc from the waste water at plating plants for reuse. The recovered zinc will be sold to refining companies. The device was developed jointly by several government-affiliated bodies and universities, who have worked on the project since 2007.
To deal with recent emergence of foot-and-mouth disease in Miyazaki Prefecture, the government will slaughter more than 1,100 head of cattle in the hope of preventing the disease from spreading. This is the highest number of animals to be slaughtered as a result of the disease in Japanese history. Livestock auctions have been suspended at eight markets in the prefecture. It is also the first time that all the livestock markets in Miyazaki have been closed at the same time.
Temperatures fell below the freezing point in some parts of Kyushu in late March, which is having a detrimental effect on seasonal agricultural products. Tea and other early spring products have withered in the cold in the cities of Kurume, Yanagawa, and Yame in Fukuoka Prefecture. The Kurume branch of JA, the national agricultural cooperatives, say that harvests of all produce could be down by 10%-20% this year.
A committee to create an eco-zone park in the area around the artificial island Island City in Hakata Bay submitted its final report for the creation of that zone to Fukuoka City Mayor Hiroshi Yoshida. It calls for the establishment of spaces for feeding and rest for rare birds in the area. The zone will cover about 550 hectares on the north and northeastern sides of the island. The committee was formed in November 2006 and met eight times before disbanding at the end of March this year.
The Minamata Environmental Technocenter, a public-private partnership in Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, announced it will begin trials this year to distill the biofuel ethanol from bamboo. The center says that southern Kyushu, where Minamata is located, has some of the largest bamboo groves in the country, and they are continuing to expand. This growth is damaging cropland, and that was the inspiration for the company’s idea. They’ve been conducting basic research since 2007, and think the potential for success has increased.
Satoh Industries of Umi-machi, Fukuoka Prefecture, has developed a greenhouse that accumulates and retains heat from the sun. They used as a reference for their project a similar type of facility employed in China for decorative gardening, and reworked it for use in Japan. The company says it is much more ecologically sound than greenhouses that burn oil for heat, and it will also reduce fuel bills.
Fukuoka City-based Oaks Construction is offering for sale a home it calls the e-sola, which is largely self-sufficient in electric power. Techniques and materials enhancing insulation capabilities are used in its construction, and it is equipped with solar panels. The company is primarily engaged in the construction of rental condominiums, but as that market is slumping, they decided to enter the home building sector with this model.
With the problem of poor color plaguing the current crop of frozen net nori in the Ariake Sea, water from the Matsubara and Shimouke Dams in Hita, Oita Prefecture, was released as an emergency measure from January 29 to February 2. The step was taken at the request of maritime industry groups in Saga and Fukuoka prefectures. The discoloration, in which the nori turns a tan color, is the result of a lack of nutritional salt required for raising the seaweed. Some growers have had to remove nets for cultivation they already placed in the sea.
The Showa Shell oil company will enter the solar power generating business by building two plants in Miyazaki Prefecture with the large output capacity of 1,000 kW. The power from one of the two plants will be used at a factory of the company’s Miyazaki City subsidiary, while that from the other plant will be sold to a power utility. Showa Shell says that these will be the first mega-solar plants (1,000 kW output) in Japan. Both plants are scheduled to begin operation in FY 2010.
Earlier this month, Miyazaki Prefecture began accepting applications from homeowners to receive subsidies for solar power generating systems for the home. They had allocated 70 million yen for that purpose. They anticipated receiving about 700 requests overall. On the first day that applications were accepted, however, they received 365, and a week later had received 840 requests. As a result, the prefecture will add an additional 100 million yen to the subsidies they will provide, more than double the original amount.
DNA testing has revealed that the six live mongooses and remains of one dead mongoose recovered in Kagoshima City are the Indian mongoose. This is the first time the presence of the animal, which inhabits Amami Island in Kagoshima Prefecture and Okinawa Prefecture, has been confirmed on one of the four main Japanese islands. The animals have also been confirmed to have killed at least 20 free range chickens raised by farmers in the area.
