Enhancing renewable energy using regional resources such as biomass has become a top priority for the Japanese government following the Great East Japan Earthquake and nuclear power accident. In this regard, the government has compiled The Biomass Industrialization Strategy in order to develop a biomass industry and enhance renewable energy with the targeted biomass and related technologies, which include methane fermentation & composting, combustion and solid-fuel conversion as well as woody biomass, food waste, sewage sludge and animal waste.
The total amount of food waste accounts for about 18 million tons per annum, of which 80 % goes to landfill and incineration. Around 5-8 million tons of this is food that is still edible but has nonetheless been discarded as so-called “Food Loss.” This article outlines and reports on The Biomass Industrialization Strategy and the current status of ‘Food Waste’ in Japan.

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The Feed-in Tariff system has been established in Japan and expectations for power production using renewable energies are ever increasing. Our company has been promoting a business development model for biomass generation that uses the circulating fluidized bed boiler, gas engine, drayed sewage sludge fuel and methane fermentation. In addition, we have been maintaining photovoltaic, wind and geothermal generation technologies. This report introduces some examples from our business developments and lastly, recommends that more businesses take up biomass energy utilization.

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In Japan, most of the biomass currently being used or planned to be used in future, is classified as waste biomass. As it does not incur any environmental load for production, waste biomass holds the advantage not only for profits but also in the life cycle analysis (LCA). It is, however, necessary to take into consideration productivity and added value, including the use of high-energy efficiency (superior economically) and excessive environmental loads so that it does not suffer in the areas of processing and transportation. Regarding sustainability, indicators for biomass are being discussed globally in recent years. Although there are various problems including economics, gaining acceptance from local residents, and rearranging/establishment of regulations, use of waste biomass (including recycled oil and municipal waste) is expected to come into effect in order to make communities more sustainable. Its promotion will be vital in the future once the various bottlenecks are smoothed out.

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Nagoya and Sapporo are ordinance-designated cities. This paper presents a case study on the two Japanese cities that adopted the Biomass Town Plan in 2008. The recycling target for both cities was primarily based on food waste. This paper evaluates the plan set out by each city in order to fuel suggestions for food waste recycling policies at the municipal level, especially in major urban cities.
　Composting plants and eco-feed plants were built in the two cities using a grant given by the Biomass Town Plan. Food waste from places such as supermarkets, restaurants and hotels began to be recycled under the program. Recycling of domestic food waste, however, was given up by both cities.
　A questionnaire that circulated among citizens regarding this program made clear the following results : 75 % of citizens agreed to recycling of food waste ; 80 % of citizens voiced that they would separate their household food waste ; and only 4 % of the citizens surveyed knew the two cities had taken up the Biomass Town Plan.
　Even if the local government does not partner up with stakeholders in order to implement the food waste recycling policy, the established recycling loop businesses will continue to do so.

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To establish a model for sustainable integration of local agriculture and biomass industries in rural areas in Southeast Asia, e.g., Vietnam, we are developing both biomass conversion technologies and design/evaluation of the local community-oriented biomass utilization scenarios under an international and interdisciplinary collaboration. As one of the promising approaches, we are focusing on a small-scale regional biorefinery process, which is suitable for local production of bioenergy, biofuels and bio-based materials for local consumption. This is being done to meet the credentials of building a biomass town. This paper introduces our recent progress in the interdisciplinary research pilot demonstration we are conducting in Vietnam.

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Kawasaki Biomass Power Plant is the largest biomass power plant in Japan running strictly on wood. It is operated by Furuhashi EPO Corporation and is located in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture. This paper discusses recycling in an urban woody biomass system called FOREST in the City, which is our core business and a system for utilizing wood that gets thinned from forests in mountainous areas. An introduction to our company is also presented. The paper is a commentary on the string cascade utilization system, a solution to the decline in domestic use of forestry thinnings evaluation axis of LC-CO₂. Step 1 : by forestry thinning ; Step 2 : by lumber ; Step 3 : by wood pallet ; Step 4 : by wood chips from remaining lumber ; and Step 5: by wood chips from recycling of wood pallet. Finally, regarding conversion to energy, the paper introduces analytical case studies aimed not only at energy generation from municipal waste but also explains a small-scale biomass gasification system located in the mountainous region of East Mikawa in Aichi Prefecture as well as a large urban biomass power generator system, which our business believes can be replaced with a “forest plantations to energy” system.

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The anaerobic digestion tank of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) can treat wet biomass, such as garbage, due to the fact that low biodegradability of sewage sludge results in rather low organic loading. Biogas from garbage has twice the energy value when compared to incineration. Judging from maximum organic loading of the digestion tank, it is possible for a WWTP to handle garbage that has been collected and sorted from individual homes in a single-WWTP local authority. Examples of the kinds of regional biomass that are received include night soil, sludge from household wastewater treatment tanks and garbage. The paper shows the cost reduction effects of centralized treatment as well as the effects of reductions in fossil fuels like heavy oil (necessary for sludge drying process), due to the increase in digestion gasses. The paper also introduces the B-dash project, an innovative technology verification project by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transportation and Tourism in the field of sewage works. This project is currently operating based on co-treatment of sewage sludge and regional biomass.

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This paper introduces a sewage treatment plant in Toyohashi, Aichi called Toyogawa Biomass Park Vision. The project was launched by Toyohashi University of Technology in 2011. Systems operating under this project include : biogas production through anaerobic co-digestion of sewage sludge and other biomass waste such as food waste, phosphorus-rich fertilizer production from fermented slurry, seaweed factory operation utilizing the CO₂ contained in biogas along with greenhouse operation using heat and CO₂ from biogas power generation. This paper also discusses the importance of collaboration among industry-academia-government-citizenship and agriculture-commerce-industry-tourism to support this project. Moreover, future works and bottlenecks of current regulations are also described.

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