Role of biomass toward carbon neutral society in 2050

抄録

Prime Minister Suga announced that Japan should achieve carbon neutral society by 2050. To achieve this goal, it is important to have a concrete plan on renewable energy use. So far, biomass has been utilized mainly for electricity generation through the feed-in tariff system. Already more than 2.2 GW of power generation plant using biomass is in operation, but the power generation cost has not been decreased. This is mainly due to the high cost of biomass feedstock. On the other hand, price of solar panels and wind turbines are getting lower and proliferation of electric cars with battery is expected. Considering this situation, the role of biomass in the carbon neutral society in 2050 should not be power generation any more. Three utilization of biomass as carbon resource is proposed. The first one is coke in steel production. The second use is jet fuel. The third use is bioplastic. However, the availability and technology to achieve this goal has not been concretely discussed. In this study, present technology of biomass utilization for these uses as carbon resource is introduced and quantitative discussion is made.