In order to achieve a hydrogen society, it is essential to reduce the cost of hydrogen, which represents the most significant challenge to its widespread use. As a solution to this issue, increasing the supply of hydrogen, stimulating of demand, and developing a hydrogen supply system, among other strategies, are required. In this study, potential regional ripple effects and environmental impacts of installing hydrogen production facility were estimated using the Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field (FH2R) as a model. The result of the economic and environmental analysis indicate that the estimated induced production is 1.22 billion yen as a result of the installation of the hydrogen production facility. The CO₂ emissions are estimated at 345 t-CO₂, with the largest amount of CO₂ emissions due to the electric power sector. When the net impact of the project was evaluated, taking into account the use of hydrogen, the economic ripple effect was estimated to be 1.19 billion yen, resulting in a net CO₂ emission reduction of 350 t-CO₂. These results indicate that a hydrogen production facility using electricity from renewable energy sources will have a positive economic ripple effect on other industries in the region and will reduce CO₂ emissions.

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Due to the significant environmental impacts of clothing consumption, including greenhouse gas emissions and water usage, “sustainable fashion” behavior is required. This paper estimates the quantity of clothing purchased and the amount of unused clothing through a consumer survey and analyzes the relationship between environmental awareness and fashion consciousness. The results revealed that the total number of purchases for the five main types of clothing (excluding underwear, innerwear, and sleepwear) was 6.4 items per person per year, with 1.5 items per person per year remaining unused. This indicates that approximately 23% of the purchased clothing items are scarcely utilized. It was also found that consumers who are aware of the environmental burden caused by clothing tend to consider the necessity of their purchases more carefully. Additionally, through an information presentation experiment, it was revealed that increasing consumers' knowledge about the environmental impacts of clothing consumption can enhance their awareness towards reducing overconsumption.

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e-methane, which is produced from CO₂ and hydrogen using renewable energy, etc., can be utilized in city gas facilities for import/export, pipeline network and equipment for use, and other hydrogen carriers such as liquefied hydrogen and LOHC do not have these features. In this analysis, we analyzed the carbon intensity of the e-methane supply chains which are (I) overseas methanation, (I’) overseas methanation with CO₂ transport chains, and (II) domestic methanation. It was found that CI of the e-methane supply chains is about half the reference value in the REDII, if the value of the raw material hydrogen is set at 3.4 kg-CO₂/kg-H₂. As a result of the sensitivity analysis, the most sensitive assumption was CI of hydrogen. Toward more contribution to carbon neutrality, CI of e-methane supply chain can be reduced by applying the reduction measures though some of them may accompany additional facilities and costs. Therefore, these measures will be applied considering the trade-off the CI criteria required from standards or legislation in the production and utilization regions and countries and cost competition to other alternative technologies.

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The uranium spot price is an important indicator for policy decisions on mine development, etc. Since the commoditization of uranium on the New York Mercantile Exchange, there has been an increase in the price associated with speculative trading and other factors. In terms of the relationship between uranium spot prices and financial variables, it has been suggested that there is little impact of financial variables on the uranium spot price. However, the relationship may exist after the commoditization. In addition, geopolitical risk may have contributed to the uranium spot price as an exogenous variable. To assess the impact of the geopolitical risk index and financial variables on the uranium spot price, impulse response and variance decomposition analyses were performed using a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model with time series data. The results showed that the uranium spot price was sensitive to the federal funds rate.

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