This Paper presents a simulator which could calculate future Japanese economy and its CO₂ emission in 2040. This simulator consists of macro model, industry model and energy model. It is characterized by high-speed calculation, model integrality and easy handling. By using this simulator, we could get quantitative answer on the economic-environmental questions about future Japanese CO₂ emission.
By using Monte-Carlo type simulation, we find that the relation between GDP and CO₂ emission would be relaxing in future because of economic structural change.

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In this paper, CO₂ emissions from passenger cars for the period between 2010 and 2050 taking cases of Tokyo metropolitan area and Kagawa Prefecture are estimated and the impact factors were analyzed. As a result, CO₂ emissions from passenger cars in these two regions were estimated to be reduced for 65 to 70% in 2050 compare to 2010. This reduction was breakdown into following factors; Automobile technologies contribute 42~44% reduction, population change does 10% in Tokyo metropolitan area and 17% in Kagawa prefecture. Impact of urban compaction was estimated only about 4~6%. To achieve the target by Japanese government to reduce 80% of greenhouse gas by 2050, it is discussed that policy measures on urban structure and people’s behavior regarding location and travel have to be enhanced drastically, that will have impact not only on the CO₂ emissions but also on the sustainability of public finance of local government and transport infrastructure.

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In this paper, we collected nuclear power generating capacity projections provided by four institutions and analyzed them quantitatively, in the aim of extracting important factors behind them. From the analysis, we can derive the following conclusions: 1) The four outlooks present the same tendency in the changes in nuclear energy capacity projections. 2) Changes in nuclear energy projections exhibit different trends in three successive periods, roughly corresponding to the periods before, during, and after the “nuclear renaissance.” 3) Nuclear projections are susceptible to several factors, either global or region-specific. Two factors were found to be particularly significant: Time trend, which is the proxy for enhancing climate policies, and the economic competitiveness of nuclear power. Although nuclear accidents did affect nuclear projections, the influences seem to be limited from long-term perspectives, considering that the Chernobyl accident affected nuclear projections only for the Former Soviet Union during limited periods, and that the influence of the Fukushima accident seems to have been partially interchangeable with the influences of other factors, such as nuclear cost hikes and decline in fossil fuel prices.

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From the viewpoints of energy and environmental problems in the world, effective thermal energy utilization has been one of the most important issue in the world. Chemical Heat Pump (CHP) can be considered to contribute to the issues greatly. The CHP can store unutilized thermal energy such as industrial waste heat in the form of chemical energy, and release it at various temperature levels during the heat demand period. The authors have proposed and developed the CHP unit using calcium oxide/calcium hydroxide hydration/dehydration reversible reactions: CaO/H₂O/Ca(OH)₂ for heat storing and high/low-temperature heat generating. In this study, the authors performed experiments on the effects of sample purities, reaction repetitions, heat exchange flow rates, samples quantities for performance enhancement of the CHP unit.
As a result, the reaction conversions of low purity sample (Garou CaO) in repetition experiments are found to increase although the initial conversion is lower than those of high purity samples (Hiroshima CaO, Kawara CaO) reaction. The effects of heat exchange flow rates in heat storing/releasing step were shown for the reaction enhancement. Furthermore, the peak temperature of samples in heat releasing is upgraded at 35 K and the reaction rate is improve to almost twice by reducing the sample amount to sample tray level.

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This paper analyzes the productivity of shale oil (“tight oil”) extraction and the choice of ratios of completion to oil well drilling in US resource areas. As an index of productivity, new-well shale oil production per rig more than doubled between 2014 and 2018, owing mainly to an improvement in the third stage of oil extraction: crude oil recovery by hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”). In contrast, the second stage—the choice of ratios of completion to oil well drilling—has had negative effects on the productivity of shale oil extraction. When I assessed the data of shale oil extraction from five main US resource areas from January 2014 to August 2018, using panel data analysis, I found that the activities of oil firms in these areas, and the prospects of the differentials between oil prices, significantly affected the choice of ratios. However, it was not established that a decrease in the discovery rate of sweet spots caused productivity to decline via the choice of ratios.

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Japanese energy policy was shifted to natural gas use due to drastic situation domestic and international energy situation, such as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. Accordingly this study analyzes the structure of natural gas development project and trading between Japan and Russia, as Russia is increasingly becoming an important major supplier of natural gas, which is reflected on the bilateral trade. This study will analyze the “Yamal LNG project” as a representative case of multinational development project of natural gas from the perspective of energy security, economy, technology and politics. The method of this analysis is “cognitive map” and “text analysis” to quantify the qualitative data collected from four major Japanese newspapers during the period of 1991-2017. One of the findings of this study is that, the Russian government has strengthened exporting LNG to East Asia as a state project since the first Putin administration especially after the US Shale revolution and the Ukrainian crisis, while the Japanese side is driven by major private corporations such as the construction of infrastructure which is little affected from international politics.

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