Environment Promotion of building a biomass town (around 2007)

Environment Promotion of building a biomass town (around 2007)

Around 2007, as the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008-2012) approached, there was a growing movement to balance CO₂ emission reductions and regional development. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) rolled out the "Biomass Town Concept" nationwide, holding explanatory meetings at nine locations in Japan in about a month to directly communicate the policy direction to local governments, businesses, and residents. Behind this was the delay in global warming countermeasures, with CO₂ emissions from business and other sectors reaching 44.6% over the base year, and the need to hasten the transition to a recycling-oriented society.

The basis of a biomass town is a recycling model in which locally generated food waste, woody resources, waste cooking oil, and agricultural residues are converted into energy and materials, and locally produced for local consumption. Each municipality has combined a variety of technologies, including composting of food waste, biogas conversion through methane fermentation, fuel use of woody biomass, use of BDF refined from waste cooking oil, and ethanol demonstration using feed rice as feedstock. Small-scale ethanol conversion plant development also progressed, and the possibility of a decentralized energy supply system suitable for rural areas was examined.

Symbolic examples include Aisho Town, Shiga Prefecture; Shimokawa Town, Hokkaido; Ena City, Gifu Prefecture; and Minamata City, Kumamoto Prefecture. Aisho Town collects waste cooking oil with the cooperation of its residents and supplies BDF to town buses and agricultural machinery. Shimokawa Town has realized the revitalization of its forestry industry and secured employment through woody biomass district heating using forest resources. Ena City is promoting a demonstration project to convert feed rice and agricultural residues into ethanol, and Minamata City, based on its experience in overcoming pollution, has introduced a recycling project to convert food waste and organic resources into compost and energy. All of these efforts have attracted attention for their ability to both reduce environmental impact and revitalize local communities.

In Ehime Prefecture, the production of ethanol from 20,000 tons of squeezed lees of mandarin orange juice was estimated and the risk of competition with food and feedstuffs was discussed. These examples show that biomass towns are not merely an environmental measure, but also a foundation for rebuilding regional identity and social solidarity, and for simultaneously revitalizing agriculture and forestry and combating global warming. The national government presented institutional design and a menu of technologies, while local communities sought the best combination of local resources--this back-and-forth back-and-forth was what characterized the biomass towns around 2007.