 |
| Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries is taking the initiative in cultivating
a very organic contribution to the world's energy supplies.
This environmental initiative is a full-scale commitment
to commercializing technologies for generating energy
from biomass.
|
|
 |
|
This system developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
carbonizes and gasifies residual tree material. |
The
term biomass refers broadly to organic matter employed
as a source of energy. The two chief ways of obtaining
biomass are agricultural cultivation and organic waste
recovery. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is developing systems
for generating energy from biomass. Its efforts include
measures for raising efficiency in gathering biomass and
in converting it into energy.
One system under development at Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries ferments livestock manure to obtain methane
gas, which fuels an electrical generating unit. This system
helps curtail global warming by reducing the amount of
methane released into the atmosphere. The daily output
of 200 tons of manure, for example, would result in annual
methane emissions equivalent to 12,000 tons of carbon
dioxide. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' technology reduces
that figure to 900 tons.
Trees
into gas into volts
Another
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries system carbonizes and gasifies
residual tree material left after logging. That system
provides for separating the carbon content and the volatile
gas content of the wood and leaves. The carbonaceous material
recovered is useful as solid fuel and as a soil enhancer,
and the volatile gas recovered is useful fuel for generating
electricity.
Yet another biomass system under development
at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries converts rice stalks and
chaff and other plant material into combustible gas and
liquid fuel. It transforms nearly one-half of the biomass
into methanol, which can be converted into dimethyl ether
and other kinds of fuel.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
Where're Don Quixote and Sancho? |
Nippon
Oil has begun generating electrical power with a large
windmill installed at one of its oil depots in northern
Japan. The windmill, which has a rotor diameter of more
than 70 meters, is one of the largest in Japan. It epitomizes
the growing momentum of alternative energies.
With a generating capacity of 1,500 kilowatts,
the windmill can produce 3.5 million kilowatt-hours annually.
Windmills are sprouting in Japan, as in other nations.
But Nippon Oil is Japan's first private-sector company
to install a windmill of a capacity in excess of 1,000
kilowatts for meeting its own needs for electrical power.
The company installed the windmill under a government
program for promoting alternative energies.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, meanwhile, is
a leader in developing and installing wind power systems.
You will find a story about its windmills on this page
in the next issue of the Monitor.
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
Watch 'em grow. |
|
Kirin
Brewery, a Mitsubishi company, has begun a forestation
project in the watershed above its Tochigi Plant, north
of Tokyo. This project is the latest in a series of forestation
initiatives inaugurated by Kirin in 1999. It consists
of planting trees along the upper reaches of the Kinugawa
River in Tochigi Prefecture.
Breweries produce Kirin's beer at 11 sites
in Japan. Kirin's planting program provides for undertaking
a large forestation project in the watershed for one brewery
a year. The Kinugawa project is the fifth in the series.
It will consist of planting 4,000 saplings of cryptomeria,
cypress, zelkova, horse chestnut and other species on
1.4 hectares. Kirin will provide support for nurturing
the trees for more than a year after the planting.
|
|
|
|
