English
2019 Vol.14 2019 2019 Vo l.14
2019 Vol.14 2019 Vol.14
Foreword
Achievements and Expected Role of RITE for Mitigating Climate Change Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Deputy Director General/CEO, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) 03
Feature
Perspectives on IPCC Special Report “Global Warming of 1.5℃” Mitsutsune Yamaguchi, Special Advisor, RITE 04
Industrialization of RITE Bioprocess 10
R&D Activities
Research & Coordination Group●Outline of Research Activity in Research & Coordination Group 12
Systems Analysis Group●Research Activities in Systems Analysis Group 18
Molecular Microbiology and ⃝Development of Green Bioprocesses to Realize a Sustainable Society 24 Biotechnology Group
Chemical Research Group●Challenges Associated with the Advanced Industrialization of CO2 Capture Technologies 30
CO2 Storage Research Group⃝Research and Development on Geological CO2 Storage for Safe CCS Operation 36
Inorganic Membranes Research and Development of Innovative Environmental and Energy Technologies that ● 42 Research Center Use Inorganic Membranes and Efforts toward Practical Use and Industrialization
Topics 48
Outreach Activities 56
2018 Paper, Presentation and Publication 58 Foreword ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Achievements and Expected Role of RITE for Mitigating Climate Change
Nebojsa Nakicenovic Deputy Director General/CEO, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
I often think of the wonderful and productive time I spent at RITE back in 1993. My privilege was to be one of the first scientists at RITE. The science centre was still a greenfield, but RITE stood there with very in- novative architecture and technology for keeping the earth cool. This included the lake around and below the building, the natural-gas fuel cell and many photovoltaic arrays. What remains in my memory were the CO2 measurement meters in every meeting room. The research portfolio matched the innovative working environ- ment and ranged from carbon dioxide separation from flue gases by membranes to modelling of techno-eco- nomic systems and possible response strategies to climate change. The close collaboration between RITE and IIASA started with my stay and was followed by many col- leagues from RITE working and visiting IIASA as well as IIASA colleagues spending extended periods at RITE. In the meantime, RITE developed into one of the leading research institutes worldwide working on tech- nological solutions and strategies for averting global climate change, undoubtfully a major challenge facing humanity twenty-five years ago and today. RITE has developed a large-scale integrated modelling approach for assessing global, regional and Japanese options and policies for mitigating and adapting to climate change. This work is highly valued in Japan and internationally. RITE is one of the key modelling teams to produce stabilization scenarios used by IPCC in its assessments. The high recognition is also reflected in seminal contributions to IPCC, Integrated Assessment Modelling Consortium and many other national and in- ternational activities. I am proud to have been a part of the establishment of RITE and devoted follower of its contributions and achievements. There are too many achievements to list them all here. However, I do want to specially highlight two close to my own work. A land mark in RITE contributions is the famous Kaya-Identity, which is the key for understanding emis- sions and it main component drivers including population, economic development and energy. ALPS is another very important initiative to which my colleagues from IIASA have also contributed over the years since its inception. I was very privileged to be able to participate in all ALPS International Symposia organized by RITE to present findings. I am writing these words as the COP24 in Katowice just started. The hope many have for the outcome is that the Paris Agreement can be reaffirmed with clear commitments. This is very difficult given that the global emissions are still increasing, at estimated 2.7% last year, while they need to be halved every decade to ap- proach net-zero mid-century if the stabilization well below 2℃ is to be achieved. This means from about 40 billion tons of CO2 in 2020, down to 20 in 2030, 10 in 2040 and so on. This means nothing less than a truly transformational change and would require a Herculean effort in diffusion of new carbon saving technologies, infrastructures, institutions and human behaviours. Consequently, world needs research institutes like RITE that can rise to this unprecedented challenge with new solutions and ways forward to avert climate change while securing further development.
3 Feature⃝Perspectives on IPCC Special Report “Global Warming of 1.5℃ ” ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Perspectives on IPCC Special Report “Global Warming of 1.5℃”
Mitsutsune Yamaguchi Special Advisor
1. Origin of the Special Report 1.5℃ tion and Reducing Inequalities On October 8, 2018, IPCC (The Intergovernmen- tal Panel on Climate Change) released its Special Re- 2.2. Outline of SPM port “Global Warming of 1.5℃” (SR1.5) as a response The SPM consists of 4 sections. Sections A, B, C to the invitation for IPCC “... to provide a Special Re- and D each corresponding to a summary of chapters 1, port in 2018 on the impacts of global warming of 1.5℃ 3, 2, and 4-5. above pre-industrial levels and related global green- house gas emission pathways” contained in the Deci- Section A. Understanding Global Warming of 1.5℃ sion of the 21st Conference of Parties of the United This section mainly deals with climate science. Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change The main messages are that the temperature has in- (COP) held in Paris in 2015. The IPCC accepted this creased by around 1.0℃ since 1850-1900 period and invitation in April the next year, and its first lead au- that without further mitigation measures, temperature thors’ meeting was held in March 2017. SR1.5 was will likely to increase by 1.5℃ between 2030 and 2052. completed within 2 years. First of all, the author of this So far the base year of temperature increase was short paper truly appreciates all coordinating lead au- set at the pre-industrialization era without any clear thors, lead authors, reviewers and all the persons in- definition of what year it is. In SR1.5, the base year is volved in writing process for their devoted efforts in defined as 1850-1900 period. Also, GMST (Global completing the report in such a short period. Mean Surface Temperature) is defined as the estimat- ed global average of near-surface air temperature over 2. Summary of SR1.5 land and the surface temperature over ice-free ocean 2.1. Structure of SR1.5 regions. When estimating changes in GMST, however, SR1.5 consists of a Summary for Policymakers near-surface air temperature over both land and (SPM) and 5 chapters. Here the author focuses on the oceans (Surface Air Temperature, SAT) are also used. SPM, while touching upon 5 chapters as necessary. The titles of 5 chapters are as follows; Section B. Projected Climate Change, Potential Im- Chapter 1 Framing and Context pacts and Associated Risks Chapter 2 Mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5℃ in This section addresses “the impacts of global the context of sustainable development warming of 1.5℃ above the pre-industrial levels” as Chapter 3 Impacts of 1.5℃ global warming on natural requested by the COP decision. The conclusion is and human systems quite simple, i.e. impacts and risks are smaller in a Chapter 4 Strengthening and implementing the global 1.5℃ increase case than in a 2℃ increase case. For response example, the rise in sea level the year 2100 (since Chapter 5 Sustainable Development, Poverty Eradica- 1986-2005) in a 1.5℃ case will be 26-77 cm, and 10
4 Feature⃝Perspectives on IPCC Special Report “Global Warming of 1.5℃ ” ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Figure 1 : Five Reasons For Concern (RFC) Source: IPCC SR1.5 Figure SPM.2 Due to space limitations, only RFC Figure in SR1.5 has been shown here. cm lower than in a 2℃ case, ice-free ocean in the Arc- information should be included in the SPM. tic sea during summer will occur once in every 100 years in a 1.5℃ case whereas it will occur once every Section C. Emission Pathways and System Transitions 10 years in a 2℃ warmer world, and 70-90% of the Consistent with 1.5℃ Global Warming coral reefs will disappear in a 1.5℃ case but more than This section includes responses to the request by 99% in a 2℃ case. the COP to provide global greenhouse gas emission Besides, there is another important point that pathways consistent with a 1.5℃ warmer world. There should not be ignored. In SR1.5, Reasons for Con- are 2 key observations that are discussed. Figure 2 cerns (RFCs), that was shown in 5th Assessment Re- represents the emission pathways modeled to main- port (AR5), is also presented (Refer to Figure 1 above). tain the temperature increase at 1.5℃ or less by the
When we compare the above figure with that in year 2100. Please focus on the global total net CO2 AR5 (not shown due to space constraint), there is an emissions (the main panel). Two scenarios are shown: important difference especially in RFC5, namely large- one pathway has no or limited overshoot (less than scale singular events. In chapter 3 of SR1.5, there is a 0.1℃), while the other pathway has a higher over- description that “moderate risk is now located at 1℃ of shoot. At the bottom of the figure, timing of net zero global warming and high risk is located at 2.5℃ of CO2 line is illustrated. It implies that to achieve 1.5℃ global warming, as opposed to at 1.6℃ (moderate risk) goal, the net CO2 emissions should be reduced by and around 4℃ (high risk) in AR5, because of new ob- about 45% from 2010 levels by year 2030 and become servations and models of the West Antarctic ice sheet”. zero around 2045-2060 and thereafter emissions As RCF5 is considered as imposing large scale and should be negative. Just think of current pledges to- irreversible global impact, and as an increase in the wards 2030 (NDCs) under which the global 2030 emis- global sea level by 6-9 m is expected if either the sions are expected to increase (not decrease) from Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheet collapses, such 2010, it is rather clear that 1.5℃ will be extremely hard
5 Feature⃝Perspectives on IPCC Special Report “Global Warming of 1.5℃ ” ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
to achieve. from fossil fuel use and industrial processes. The
Figure 3 (below) shows 4 different socio-economic brown area represents CO2 absorption by AFOLU (Ag- development models (P1-P4) and emission pathways riculture, Forestry and Other Land Use) while the yel- toward achieving the 1.5℃ goal. P1 illustrates a low low area represents BECCS (bio-energy with carbon emission demand society (LED), P2; a sustainable de- capture and storage). BECCS is considered to be a velopment society, P3; middle of the road, P4; fossil-fu- negative emission technology, whereas AFOLU could eled development society. Business as usual, emis- be negative or positive. As illustrated in Figure 3, if we sions become larger from P1 to P4. The green lines for follow the P4 model, we have to rely upon massive
P1-P4 illustrate the net CO2 emission pathways to negative emissions by BECCS to achieve the 1.5℃ achieve the 1.5℃ goal in the respective socio-econom- goal. On the other hand, if we follow the P1 model, it ic society. The grey area represents the CO2 emissions may be possible to achieve the goal with small nega-
Figure 2 : Global emissions pathways consistent with 1.5℃ warmer world Source: IPCC SR1.5 Figure SPM.3a
Figure 3 : Breakdown of contributions to global net CO2 emissions in four illustrative model pathways Source: IPCC SR1.5 Figure SPM.3b
6 Feature⃝Perspectives on IPCC Special Report “Global Warming of 1.5℃ ” ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
tive emissions by AFOLU. Thus, what kind of so- ments on these issues. cio-economic society we should aim at is the key in our choice of a development model. 3.1. Lack of information of economic cost The SR1.5 report analyzed and showed in detail Section D. Strengthening the Global Response in the on how negative impacts and losses could be mini- Context of Sustainable Development and Efforts to mized if we were to succeed in limiting temperature Eradicate Poverty increase at 1.5℃ instead of 2℃. From the report, it is The most important message here is that current evident that we should aim at 1.5℃, assuming all other pledges, even if fully implemented, are never enough factors are the same. For policymakers, it is impossible to keep temperature increase below 1.5℃. In other to make decision, however, without knowing economic words, it is almost impossible to achieve the 1.5℃ goal cost (GDP loss or consumption loss). The report is si- unless each party drastically strengthen their pledges lent on this critical point. If differences of mitigation toward 2030. costs were included, the report would be more policy This section summarizes chapters 4 and 5, which relevant. contain several statements with major implications for Remember that cost information was not included the implementation of climate policies, such as “what- in COP’s request to IPCC. Negotiators at COP in Paris ever its potential long-term benefits, a transition to a may not have thought of the critical importance of cost 1.5℃ world may suffer from a lack of broad political information. Even in that case, however, SR1.5 should and public support, if it exacerbates existing short-term have included the cost information. SR1.5 cites the economic and social tensions, including unemploy- reason as “the literature on total mitigation cost of ment, … competitiveness issues …”. Regrettably, this 1.5℃ mitigation pathways is limited and was not as- sentence does not appear in the SPM. sessed”. Even if the literature was limited, the cost in- SR1.5 is the first IPCC report that has directly ad- formation (more concretely, how many models calcu- dressed the relationships between climate change and lated mitigation cost per GDP and the range of them) other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Since could have been included in the SPM. This may benefit literatures are quite limited and the scope is broad, the the policymakers. In chapter 2 of SR1.5, there are 90 report was short of success at this point. Though SDGs pathways for 1.5℃ (Table 2.1 of SR1.5). Readers may have no priority among 17 goals, it is impossible for wonder how many among them have mitigation costs policymakers to pursue all those goals to the same ex- figures. In fact, several governments insisted in vain on tent. Policymakers may be indecisive to what extent the importance of including total mitigation costs in the they should put limited resources to climate change report at the last-minute Governments Review meeting. mitigation. In this regard, the author would like to draw read- ers’ attention to the fact that total mitigation costs are 3. Evaluation of SR1.5 clearly mentioned in both the IPCC AR5 Synthesis and The efforts of the authors in completing the as- SPM of Working Group 3 reports. For example, the mit- sessment report through extensive literature review igation cost (reduction in consumption relative to base- within a short period in response to the COP invitation line) in 2100 for 2℃ is estimated to be 4.8% (2.9- are commendable. SR1.5 surely would be referred to 11.4%) of consumption, and reduction in the annual in future as one of the most reliable reports on climate consumption growth rate is estimated to be 0.06%. change policy-makings. However, there are a few is- This is based on the assumption that all parties adopt sues that lack in the report (such as mitigation cost) or mitigation measures immediately and a global uniform that should be stressed a little bit more (such as uncer- carbon tax would be introduced, i.e. an idealistic as- tainty). The following are the author’s personal com- sumption. In the AR5, additional costs in a non-idealis-
7 Feature⃝Perspectives on IPCC Special Report “Global Warming of 1.5℃ ” ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
tic assumption are also shown. One example is the and social scientists need to develop the research case of lack of technologies. If CCS technology is not base for climate science and economics substantially commercially available, then the mitigation cost will in- to refine our estimates of the SCC”1. Here SCC (social crease by 2.4 times as compared to a situation when cost of carbon) is similar to the monetary value of this technology becomes available. All these descrip- avoided climate damages. The author of this short arti- tions indicate that the IPCC lead authors have consid- cle shares the same view. ered the economic cost as one of the critical pieces of CBA is not only a useful tool to decide the extent information for the IPCC report to be policy relevant. of introducing the mitigation measures, but also useful SR1.5 SPM illustrates without showing numerical to allocate scarce resources efficiently among import- figures that marginal abatement cost (MAC) for 1.5℃ ant global issues such as SDGs. Numerous urgent will be 3-4 times higher than that for 2℃. For policy- global and domestic issues exist in the world but re- makers, this information is meaningless. The MAC is sources to cope with them are scarce and limited. In the cost of abating an additional ton of CO2 to reach the some countries people suffer from poverty, inequality, goals and is completely different from the concept of and in other countries, budget deficit and unemploy- the total economic cost. The MAC for 1.5℃ is equiva- ment will be the major concern in addition to climate lent to the global carbon tax to achieve the 1.5℃ goal. change. For policymakers of all countries, CBA could In this sense, the MAC is a useful information for poli- be the most useful tool for the efficient allocation of cymakers for their decision. Chapter 2 describes the global and domestic resources. CBA has many short- MAC for 1.5℃. The MAC ranges for achieving the goal comings as described above but receives too little at- without overshoot are $135-6050 in 2030 and $690- tention. In view of the fact that climate change is not 30100 in 2100 (before discounting). While the ranges the sole issue in the world, we should pay a little bit seem wide, including such information in the SPM may more attention to the CBA and try to overcome the be useful for policymakers as opposed to having no shortcomings of this tool. numerical basis at all. 3.3. Uncertainty (carbon budget etc.) and Risk 3.2. Efficient allocation of scarce resources and Management cost benefit analysis Given the near linear relationship between cumu-
SR1.5 SPM simply explains that cost-benefit anal- lative CO2 emissions and temperature increase, the ysis (CBA) for the 1.5℃ goal has not been conducted concept of carbon budget was introduced. Carbon due to knowledge gaps. From chapters 1 and 2, how- budget is defined as the cumulative CO2 emissions to ever, it is evident that the lead authors are rather neg- limit the temperature at a certain level. In the AR5, the ative to apply CBA to climate change issues. The main remaining carbon budget since 2011 to limit the tem- reasons are as follows. First, it is difficult to estimate perature increase at 1.5℃ (66% probability) was esti- the non-market loss such as a monetary value of hu- mated at 400 GtCO2 (Table 2.2 in the synthesis report). man life. Second, even if the total benefits exceed the Since emissions during the 2011-2017 period was esti- total cost, these would not necessarily be the same in mated at 290 GtCO2, the remaining budget should all the regions or countries. Third, we tend to rely on have been 110 GtCO2. According to the SPM of the value judgement when applying the discount rates to SR1.5, the remaining carbon budget is estimated at calculate the current value of avoided damages (bene- 420 GtCO2 (SAT) and 570 GtCO2 (GMST), respective- fits). All of these are reasonable criticisms against ly. Carbon budget in the AR5 was estimated using the CBA. William Nordhaus, the 2018 Nobel laureate in SAT method in climate modeling. This implies an in- economics, while fully acknowledging those challeng- crease in the SR1.5 carbon budget (SAT) by 310 (dif- es, argues that rather than abandoning CBA, “natural ference between 420 and 110) Gt, and an increase in
8 Feature⃝Perspectives on IPCC Special Report “Global Warming of 1.5℃ ” ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
the remaining 150 (difference between 570 and 420)
GtCO2 is due to the difference in methodology (SAT vs. 1 Nordhaus, W.D., 2017: Revisiting the social cost of carbon. Pro- GMST). ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(7), 1518-1523, doi:10.1073/pnas.1609244114. The fact that the carbon budget has rapidly in- creased in a short period between AR5 (2013) and SR1.5 (2018) signals another change likely in IPCC AR6 report to be published in 2021. Also, the carbon budget in SR1.5 does not include the effect of possible feedback from the earth system, such as the CO2 and
CH4 release from permafrost thawing. These events could contribute to reductions in the budget. In addition to the carbon budget, there are other uncertainties in climate science. Equilibrium climate sensitivity (temperature increase following a doubling of the atmospheric CO2) has remained unchanged since AR5 and has been assessed to be in the 1.5℃ to 4.5℃ range, with a three-times spread. It is impossible, therefore, to predict the extent of temperature increase for the same CO2 concentration. Furthermore, CO2 emissions and mitigation pathways are expected to dif- fer substantially depending on the type of socio-eco- nomic developments occurring in future as described earlier. Technology development and availability is also one of critical uncertainties. In view of these uncertain- ties, the author believes that coping with climate change is a risk management issue under uncertain- ties and that we should be flexible to respond to new scientific findings. Fixing our goal and making a head- long rush to attain certain temperature target will not be effective in a long run.
4. Concluding remarks Based on the current situation, one point is quite clear. Continuous emission of CO2 certainly contrib- utes to the increase in the surface temperature of the earth due to long life time of CO2, and temperature continues to increase and never stabilizes. It is vital that we avoid such a situation. We must aim for zero
CO2 emissions in the long run, a paradigm shift from temperature target. All efforts should be focused on this purpose, including zero emission technology de- velopments in all sectors of our economy.
9 Feature⃝Industrialization of RITE Bioprocess ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Industrialization of RITE Bioprocess
Each research group at RITE is addressing the re- 2. Green Chemicals Co., Ltd. (GCC) search and development of new technologies for re- (Headquarters & Kyoto Site: Kizugawa-shi, KYOTO, ducing greenhouse gas emissions. As COE on the mit- Shizuoka Site: Fujieda-shi, SHIZUOKA) igation of global warming, it is an important mission for RITE and Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. founded the RITE to industrialize our technologies in collaboration Green Phenol Technology Research Association (GP with industry, government, and academic institutions Association) on February 15, 2010. The GP Associa- around the world, through government and other pub- tion succeeded in developing a fundamental technolo- licly funded projects, by collaborative research with in- gy to produce “green” phenol from sugars, which was stitutions and private companies around the world, and previously considered impossible, for the first time in through activities with technology research associa- the world. On May 27, 2014, the GP Association al- tions. In this section, two examples of the industrializa- tered the structure of its organization to become a tion of RITE’s technologies in the field of biotechnology stock company, Green Phenol Development Co., Ltd. will be introduced. (GPD), to accelerate the industrialization of the bio- mass-based phenol-producing technology. With the 1. Green Earth Institute Co., Ltd. (GEI) aid of a NEDO grant, GPD completed an integrated (Headquarters: Bunkyo-ku, TOKYO, Laboratory: production process, i.e., both the bioprocessing pilot Kisarazu-shi, CHIBA) plant and the facilities for the purification and concen- The Green Earth Institute Co., Ltd. was established tration processes. Since phenol itself is extremely cyto- on September 1, 2011, for the early industrialization of toxic, phenol bioproduction was thought to be impossi- RITE’s biorefinery technology using a highly efficient ble. GP Association overcame this problem by process called the RITE Bioprocess, which was devel- developing a “Two-Step Bioprocess”. The modulus of oped by RITE. GEI has developed technologies for elasticity, bending strength, and tensile strength of scaling up, using strains developed by RITE, that en- “green” phenol molding parts are almost the same as able the highly efficient production of biofuels, such as for petroleum-derived products. ethanol and butanol, as well as other useful substanc- 【Plant for bioconversion process】 【Plant for purification process】 es, such as amino acids. GEI scaled up cultivation and bioconversion processes from lab scale (1 L) to bench scale (90 L) in May 2014, to pilot scale (2 kL) in August 2014, and succeeded in the production of amino acids using a large-scale reactor of commercial size in March 2016. Now, through licensing agreements with compa- nies both in Japan and overseas, production of amino acids has advanced to the commercial stage. 【Green phenol resin】 【Molding parts made from green phenol】 Biojet fuel made from non-food biomass as a raw material is expected to contribute to solving the global
Since the technology developed by GPD could also produce many other useful chemical compounds, GPD changed its trade name to Green Chemicals Co., Ltd. (GCC) on April 1, 2018. The targets of GCC are warming problem without causing food shortages. GEI aromatic compounds, whose microbial production has participates in the Japan Airlines Co., Ltd. (JAL) project been considered difficult due to their high cytotoxic ef- “Let’s fly with 100,000 used clothes!” In this project, fects on microbial host cells. GCC is making efforts to GEI is responsible for the production of isobutanol from commercialize the production of the chemicals, which cotton fibers in used clothes using the RITE Biopro- are in high demand in the market, such as functional cess, and for producing biojet fuel conforming to inter- resins, aromatic chemicals, and raw materials for med- national standard ASTM D7566 Annex5. icines.
10 Feature⃝Industrialization of RITE Bioprocess ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Green Earth Institute Co., Ltd. lenges together with a researcher from RITE. I also Expanding a biorefinery business with domestic visited the commercial plant over several days. I was and foreign partner companies. very impressed when I saw the white crystallized prod- uct. Thus, it was proven that the RITE Bioprocess® is Green Earth Institute Co., an innovative biorefinery process, and that it is a com- Ltd. (GEI) was established on petitive technology on the market. In this sense, the September 1, 2011 as a spin-off achievement was very important for the RITE Biopro- company from RITE (Research cess® as well as for GEI. Now, on the basis of this Institute of Innovative Technology achievement, we are licensing this amino acid produc- for the Earth). We are continually tion technology not only in Japan but also in China and working to commercialize the the U.S., and the amino acids produced by the RITE RITE Bioprocess®, a bio-refining Bioprocess® have already been selling on the market. Chief Executive Officer process that was developed by Currently we develop not only amino acids but Tomohito Ihara RITE more than 20 years ago. In also biofuels and green chemicals, such as cosmetics March 2016, in collaboration with materials with RITE. Through this development we RITE, we succeeded in producing the amino acid L-al- have set out to transform petrorefinery into biorefinery. anine on a commercial scale. Prior to that GEI had To achieve this goal, a commercially viable and sus- scaled up from lab scale to bench scale to pilot scale, tainable business is very important. GEI, as a spin-off while RITE improved the bacterial strains. The com- company from RITE, will endeavor to contribute to the mercial-scale production presented some challenges development of the biorefinery business, to help real- we had not anticipated because it was the first trial of ize a society that does not rely on fossil resources. its kind in China. The GEI team overcame these chal-
Green Chemicals Co., Ltd. This was the first case in Japan where a technolo- gy research association had altered the structure of its RITE and Sumitomo Bakelite organization to become a stock company. Co., Ltd. jointly set up the Green Since the technology developed by GPD can pro- Phenol Technology Research duce value-added chemical compounds other than Association (GP Association) in phenol, selectively and with high efficiency, GPD 2010, with the ambitious goal of changed its trade name to the Green Chemicals Co., substituting petroleum-based Ltd. (GCC) on April 1, 2018, to expand the business to phenol with green phenol, which include other chemical compounds. We are currently is produced from non-food bio- pursuing market development. Representative Director mass using bioprocesses. Today, working toward achieving the Sustainable Shigeru Hayashi Initially, because of its high Development Goals (SGDs) is part of corporate social (Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. cytotoxicity, it was thought to be responsibility initiatives. Accelerating the commercial- Representative Director Chairman) extremely difficult to produce phe- ization of aromatic compounds using bioprocesses, nol from non-food biomass in a which was previously considered impossible, in order microbial bioprocess. However, the “RITE bioprocess,” to contribute to a sustainable society is a challenging which is a growth-arrested bioprocess, has helped assignment, and one which for us is a big dream. To achieve this challenging goal. Furthermore, with the that end, microbial genetic engineering technology, aid of grants from the New Energy and Industrial Tech- highly efficient cultivation, and collective technology nology Development Organization (NEDO) and the are key, and the combination of these features is Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, Sumitomo Ba- GCC’s unique competitive strength. kelite Co., Ltd. constructed facilities for purification and My mission as Representative Director of Green concentration processes. In order to speed up the Chemicals Co., Ltd. is to deliver this world-class tech- commercialization process, the GP Association nology to customers for its practical application. I will changed its name to the Green Phenol Development therefore strive to accelerate the commercialization of Co., Ltd. (GPD) in 2014. products that satisfy our customers’ needs.
11 R&D Activities⃝Research & Coordination Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Research & Coordination Group
[Key Members] Makoto Nomura, Deputy Group Leader・ Taizo Uchimura, Associate Chief Chief Researcher Researcher Satoshi Nakamura, Deputy Group Leader Haruo Kanaboshi, Planning Manager Masato Takagi, Chief Researcher Jun-ichi Shimizu, Vice Manager Takayuki Higashii, Chief Researcher Daisuke Omoya, Vice Manager Yasuaki Minoura, Manager Sou Kuranaka, Vice Manager Yoshinori Aoki, Manager・Associate Chief Researcher Tetsuya Deguchi, Associate Chief Hiroyasu Horio Researcher Group Leader, Chief Researcher
Outline of Research Activity in Research & Coordination Group
1. Global environment and the economy 2. Economic development and the global environ- The Research and Coordination Group aims to i) ment searching for new research topics that enhance the re- In 2016, the Paris Agreement came into force. It is search potential of RITE, proposing and implementing necessary to limit the average temperature rise of the new research themes, ii) government support for the earth (global average temperature rise) to less than 2 relation with international organizations such as IPCC ℃ compared to the level before the industrial revolu- (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), ISO tion. Before 2100 at the end of this century, it is re- (International Standard Organization), iv) practical ap- quired to balance the emissions and absorption of plication of technology through industrial collaborative greenhouse gases. It is an urgent task to promote sub- R&D, together with the research groups/center. These stantial reductions in greenhouse gases throughout efforts lead to a creation of new policy implementation, the world, including emerging countries and develop- R&D and innovation aiming at the global environment ing countries. and the economy.
The mission of RITE In 2018, important events related to global envi- ronmental issues were carried out. The 47th General Assembly of the IPCC (Paris ・ Mar.) and the 48th General Meeting (Incheon ・ Oct.) were held. Under the international discussions, the recognition of “bal- ance between the global environment and the econo- my” as a common goal for both industrialized and de- veloping countries is increasing. In 1990, RITE was established under this mission and aims to realize in- novation that promotes sustainable growth by sup- pressing cost burden and inefficiency through innova- Fig. 1 : The Role of RITE (Toward Economic Development and tive environmental technology development (Fig. 1). Global Environment)
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2.1. Quarter-century economic development and ther expand. It is pointed out that part of the energy greenhouse gas demand of industrialized countries has also been In 1990, the Japanese government started Global transferred to emerging countries and developing Warming Prevention Plan. In the following quarter cen- countries due to international trade transactions, ex- tury (1990-2015), the world population expanded from pansion of information processing across national bor- 5.3 billion to 7.3 billion (1.4 times) and the total world ders, alternative production, etc. GDP expanded from 27 trillion dollars1 to 116 trillion There is a difference in the economic situation and dollars1 (4.3 times). The center of these changes is the social priority issues of each country. Among these, it is Southeast Asian region such as China, India, Indone- necessary to cooperate with international cooperation sia, developing countries and emerging countries of on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, pursue a com- Africa region such as Nigeria. Meanwhile, international mon goal of richness = to prevent global warming at trade increased rapidly due to the increase in global the same time without hampering economic develop- trade (exports) from 3.6 trillion dollars2 to 19.0 trillion ment. dollars2 (5.3 times). Looking at the worldwide green- house gas emissions, annual CO2 emissions from 2.2. Creation of innovation combustion have expanded from 20.5 billion tons to The new technology changes the supply and de- 32.3 billion tons (1.6 times). mand for energy and affects greenhouse gas emis- sions. It is necessary to constantly forecast how new Industrialized countries have pursued the path of society, economy, and life will change. About this inno- mass consumption of fossil resources based on mass vation by innovative technology, the next section ex- production and mass consumption. As emerging and plains our group activities in various fields such as inter- developing countries advance the same road, the national collaboration, human resource development, problems of energy security and global warming fur- intellectual property, industry-university collaboration.
100 100
50 50
20 20
10 10
5 5
2 2
1 1
0.5 0.5
0.2 0.2
0 0 per person (GDP/capita, PPP$ inflation-adjusted) per person (GDP/capita, PPP$ inflation-adjusted) 500 1000 2000 4000 8000 16k 32k 64k 128k 500 1000 2000 4000 8000 16k 32k 64k 128k
Fig 2 : Income and CO2 emissions (1990-2014)
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3. A quest for zero-emissions technology 3.2. Example: Zero-emission of steel sector To quest for new technical countermeasures, The main materials in steel production are iron ore
RITE established a “CO2 Zero Emission Study Team” and coal. By sending hot air from the bottom of the and conducted research on sector-specific counter- blast furnace, CO (monoacid carbonate gas), iron ore measures such as electricity, transportation, and in- is reduced at a high temperature of 2,000 ℃ and taken dustry. This section illustrates the results of the exam- out as hot metal (Fig. 3 left). Those reduction process ination using energy-CO2 intensive steel manufacturing can be replaced by carbon-free hydrogen / electric which is one of the core industry as a sector-specific power obtained from renewable energy. Those tech- approach. nology and Electrolytic Reduction Method (right in Fig. 3, right) was developed by governments and steel in- 3.1. Sector-specific approach dustry. However, since the electricity from renewable
The world’s artificial CO2 emissions account for energy is used, the production cost is about 1.5 to 1.6 86% of the total in three divisions, 41% of power gen- times expensive (Fig. 4). eration, 25% of transportation and 20% of industries The amount of electricity required for the new (steel, cement, chemistry etc.). Regarding the produc- manufacturing method is 17,270 TWh, which is equiv- tion method without using fossil resources, i) Electric alent to about 70% of the worldwide electricity demand power sector: renewable energy (solar / wind power), (Fig. 5). ii) transport sector: electrification and zero emission electric power, biofuel, iii) industrial sector: zero-emis- sions hydrogen utilization in steel were analyzed. Fur- thermore, the possibility of CCS (CO2 geological stor- age) / CCU (CO2 capture and utilization) were examined with the examples from the latest technology develop- ment trends.
Fig. 4 : Cost of Industrial zero emissions technology (steel)
Fig. 3 : Industrial zero emissions technology (steel)
Fig. 5 : Carbon-free hydrogen for zero emissions (steel)
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4. Promotion of international partnership 4.2. ISO 4.1. IPCC ISO (International Standard Organization) is an The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate organization composed of 162 standardization bodies Change) has established in 1988 with a view to con- of various countries. Carbon dioxide capture and stor- ducting a comprehensive assessment from a scientific, age (CCS) is one of the important options for global technical and socioeconomic standpoint on climate warming countermeasures because it has a great ef- change, impact, adaptation and mitigation measures fect of reducing CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. In by anthropogenic sources, the United Nations Environ- the world, a number of CCS verification projects on a ment Program (UNEP), and the United Nations Envi- commercial scale are also implemented, and interna- ronment Program (UNEP), and by the World Meteoro- tional collaboration is under way. The international logical Organization (WMO). standard plays an important role, contributing to the IPCC examines scientific knowledge on global widespread use of safe and appropriate CCS technol- warming with three WGs, a global warming prediction ogy. (WG1), influence and adaptation (WG2), mitigation RITE is a domestic deliberation organization on measures (WG3). RITE plays a role in linking R & D, ISO / TC 265 (collection, transportation, and storage of survey and policies, playing the role of domestic sup- CO2) and is in charge of a secretariat of WG 1 (collec- port secretariat of mitigation measures (WG 3) (Fig. 6). tion). Through these activities, we are conducting inter- This outcome is to have a high influence on interna- national standardization on design, construction, oper- tional negotiations because the scientific basis is also ation, environmental planning and management, risk given to the policies of each country. IPCC started the management, quantification, monitoring and verifica- next sixth evaluation cycle (AR 6) for 2022, and in 2018 tion, and related activities in the CCS field through in- the author was selected. RITE also provides support ternational standardization (Fig. 7). In 2018, RITE pub- through information gathering, analysis, and reporting. lished an international standard on measurement,
evaluation and reporting method of CO2 recovery per- formance at combustion process at power plants (ISO 27919-1).
Fig. 6 : Committee Structure and RITE Fig. 7 : ISO/TC265 Structure
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5. Human development and industry collaboration 5.2. Intellectual property and industry collabora- 5.1. Human development tion
Research Tutor Knowledge Leader
Study Cycle Research Trainee Student Action Under- standing
Fig. 8 : RITE and Environment Education (Primary, Middle and Higher Education)
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Fig. 9 : Strategic IP management and Industrial collaboration
6. Conclusion Reference
The concern of the world is gathering up as mea- 1) RITE, “The Role of RITE”(http://www.rite.or.jp/about/). sures against global warming by innovation. In IPCC 2) OECD, “Air and climate:Greenhouse gas emissions by source”, OECD Environment Statistics (database https://doi.org/10.1787/ 6th Evaluation Cycle (AR 6), where work has already data-00594-en.)(2019). begun, a new chapter called “Innovation, Technology 3) Gapminder Tools (https://www.gapminder.org). 4) IEA, “CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion”, IEA data service sub- Development, and Transfer” was established. i) Sus- scriptions (2018). tainable growth through innovation and achievement of 5) IPCC, “AR5 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2014” (2014). 6) IPCC, “Summary for Policymakers of IPCC Special Report on the Paris Agreement, ii) Systems and policies to create Global Warming of 1.5℃ approved by governments” (2018). innovation, iii) International partnership, iv) Environ- 7) IPCC, “” (2018). 8) Grubler A, Wilson C, Bento N, Boza-Kiss B, Krey V, McCollum D, ments to promote change and innovation, v) New de- Rao N, Riahi K, et al. (2018). A low energy demand scenario for structive technologies, etc. RITE is to deepen the veri- meeting the 1.5℃ target and sustainable development goals with- out negative emission technologies. Nature Energy 3: 517-525. fication of this issue. This means that new perspectives 9) Copeland, B and Taylor, S Trade and Environment: Theory and such as compatibility of the wealth and the global envi- Evidence, Princeton University Press(2003). ronment are added by realizing a new society and life, 10) Pearson, C Economics and the Global Environment, Cambridge University Press (2000). rather than a accumulation of partial improvement by 11) Ishikawa Shota, Okuno Masahiro, Seino Kiyono “Environmental replacing old technology with new technology. The policy under international interdependence” “Institutional design for protection of the global environment” The University of Tokyo RITE mission is to conduct research on innovative Press (2005). technologies, as well as to promote international col- 12) Koichi Ogawa “Open & Close Strategy (Enhanced Ver.)” Shoei- sha (2014). laboration, address issues necessary for innovation 13) Science and Technology Policy Bureau, Ministry of Education, such as human development, intellectual property de- Culture, Sports, Science and Technology “Industry-Aca- demia-Government Collaboration - Present State of Intellectual velopment, industry collaboration contributing to the Property Policy (Science and Technology, Science Council)” achievement of “a balance between the global environ- (2013). “ ment and the economy”. 14) Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry Annual Report on Ener- gy in FY2004 (Energy White Paper 2018)” (2018). 15) Ministry of the Environment “Environment White Paper in FY2018” (2018).
1 GDP, current prices (Purchasing power parity; billions of internation- al dollars) 2 Merchandise exports (annual, Million US dollar)
17 R&D Activities⃝Systems Analysis Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Systems Analysis Group
[Key Members] Toshimasa Tomoda, Chief Researcher Ayami Hayashi, Senior Researcher Takahiro Nagata, Associate Chief Yosuke Arino, Researcher Researcher Keii Gi, Researcher Kenichi Wada, Senior Researcher Nan Wang, Researcher Miyuki Nagashima, Senior Researcher Shuning Chen, Researcher Takashi Homma, Senior Researcher Fuminori Sano, Senior Researcher Junichiro Oda, Senior Researcher Hironobu Yamakawa, Senior Researcher Keigo Akimoto Haruo Kanaboshi, Senior Researcher Group Leader, (concurrent) Chief Researcher
Research Activities in Systems Analysis Group
The Systems Analysis Group aims to provide valu- and since then the leveling for 2013-2016 can be re- able information about response measures to global garded as short-term adjustments returning to the long warming and energy issues through systemic ap- term trend for the emissions. In addition, in some de- proaches and analyses. We present here three re- veloped countries, decouplings were observed. In or- search topics out of our recent research activities; 1) der to examine why those emission trends were ob- analyses on decoupling between GDP and CO2 emis- served, we analyzed consumption-based emissions sions, 2) evaluations on contribution of environmental- and evaluated the relevant potential factors. ly friendly products diffusions to global emission reduc- tions, and 3) Evaluation of global warming mitigation measures under different socioeconomic scenarios considering developments of sharing economy. Our group has been contributing to the planning of better climate change policies and measures through such analyses and evaluations.
Figure 1 : Relationship between global GDP and energy-related 1. Analysis on decoupling between GDP and CO2 CO2 emissions emission
1.1. Introduction 1.2. Estimations of consumption-based CO2 emis-
Relationships between GDP growths and CO2 sions emission increases showed strong positive correla- We estimated consumption-based CO2 emissions tions until recently. However, for the recent several for the years 2000-2014 which include temporarily years, the correlations were not always observed, and sluggish emissions at a global level. Evaluating contri- it is pointed out that decoupling between GDP growth butions to global decoupling requires considerations and CO2 emission increase may start to take place. on international allocation of productions, trades and
Figure 1 shows global GDP and CO2 emissions. For national consumption structures. Importantly, these are 2013-2016, global emissions remained mostly leveled reflected in consumption-based emissions evaluation. and for the limited short-terms the decoupling was ob- Production-based CO2 emissions are emissions served, whereas in 2017 global emissions increased from combustions of fossil fuels generated inside the again. Based on the long-term trend, emissions for territory of the country. These are equivalent to com-
2009-2013 increased greatly above the historical trend mon CO2 emissions statistics. On the other hand, con-
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sumption-based emissions are direct and indirect dependencies did not largely expand during the years. emissions generated to meet the domestic demand of In the U.S., difference between consumption- and the country, regardless of production sites. National production-based CO2 emissions increased substan- consumption-based emissions include emissions em- tially towards 2006, which were similar to EU. Howev- bodied in imports and exclude emissions embodied in er, the difference turned to decrease due to expansion exports. of domestic production of shale gas launched around IEA statistics and international input-output tables 2006, possibly inducing reshoring of manufacturing in- (WIOD) were used. The results indicate that major de- dustry because of the availability of cheaper energy. veloped countries have constantly higher consump- The difference became almost flat after 2009. tion-based emission than production-based. However CO2 intensities of GDP (CO2 divided by GDP) for the time-series trends are different among countries. major developed countries were compared. By using Figure 2 shows production- and consumption- production-based emissions, Japan has lower growth based CO2 emissions for EU28. Growth of consump- rates of CO2 intensity improvements compared to other tion-based CO2 was larger until 2008 than that of pro- regions (Fig.4(a)). However, when comparing by using duction-based, expanding difference between consumption-based CO2 intensity, the intensity of Ja- consumption- and production-based CO2. Those are pan was almost the same level as that in EU28 aver- because of increases in emissions embodied in im- age or UK after 2011 (Fig.4(b)). The increase of Japan ports (mainly of machinery from China). While produc- was caused by shutdown of nuclear power plants after tion-based emissions for EU decreased, imports in- 2011. creased and then the embodied emissions in imports increased. As a result, the contributions to global emis- sions reduction were not large. But, after the financial crisis, the differences were shrinking. Although amounts of imports increased continuously, sectoral
CO2 intensities of imports in the production sites de- creased considerably after late 2000s.
Figure 3 : Production-based and consumption-based CO2 emissions for Japan
Figure 2 : Production-based and consumption-based CO2 emissions for EU28
On the other hand, in Japan, changes in con- Figure 4 : CO 2 emissions per real GDP for major countries Note: GDP is based on constant US$ at 2010 in market exchange rate. sumption-based CO2 emissions were similar to those in production-based, and the differences were gradual- 1.3. Summary ly shrinking (Fig.3). Those results indicate that manu- Decoupling between GDP and CO2 emissions in- facturing industries having relatively higher emission creases is important for sustainable climate change intensities maintained at relatively high levels in Japan, mitigation. This study estimating consumption-based and then carbon leakage due to increases in import CO2 emissions indicates that decouplings observed in
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regions like EU were caused by increases in import 2.3. Evaluations on global GHG emission reduction dependencies rather than changes in consumption measures structures, and then the emissions were transferred to Figure 5 shows the global GHG emission reduc- other regions. Fundamental changes in consumption tions by sector and measure in 2050 estimated with structures, that is innovation of final goods and ser- DNE21+ model. Under the baseline scenario, the vices, leading to globally harmonized measures, are emission will reach 80 GtCO2eq./yr in 2050. For emis- necessary to achieve deep decoupling globally. sion reductions of 40%-70% compared to 2010, vari- ous kinds of measures including efficiency improve- 2. Evaluations of contribution of diffusions and de- ment and fuel switching of fossil fuel power, large ployments of environmentally friendly products deployments of nuclear power and renewables, and
to global CO2 emission reductions CCS in power sector are necessary. In end-use sec- 2.1. Introduction tors, all sectors also need to reduce their emissions
METI delivered a “Long-term Climate Change including non-CO2 GHG emissions. Platform” report in April 2017. The report recommends to enhance three pillars: “international contribution”, “global value chain”, and “innovations” for achieving deep emission reductions. In November 2018, Keidan- ren, a Japanese business association, delivered a re- port including some examples for “Emission reduction contributions through global value chain” in which sev- eral kinds of environmentally friendly products and ser- vices are deployed broadly in several sectors. On the other hand, RITE has been estimating Figure 5 : Global GHG emission reductions by sector and emission reduction contributions and economic im- measures in 2050 (estimated by DNE21+) pacts for 2050 through environmentally friendly prod- ucts by using a global energy systems model DNE21+ 2.4. Methodology for estimating contributions to and economic model DEARS for systematic evalua- global emission reductions in the whole of GVC tions on the global contributions in the whole of “global Emission reduction contributions in the whole of value chain (GVC)”. GVC can be attributed to emission reductions of prod- ucts in end-use of final energy and embodied energies 2.2. Assumptions on emission reduction scenarios in production processes. For the treatment in DNE21+, According to the IPCC, the GHG emission path- the contributions are estimated for the final energy ways for achieving the concentration levels at 430-480 consumptions in end-use of products, e.g., electric ppm CO2eq. in 2100 will be able to achieve below 2 ℃ products and automobiles, and the energy consump- compared to the preindustrial level with over 66% tions in production process, e.g., power generation and probability. As for emission reductions, the global GHG steel making (Figure 6). This treatment covers all emis- emissions in 2050 are required to be from 40 to 70% reductions compared to the 2010 level. This study esti- mated the emission reduction contributions and GDP impacts for the above two global levels, and three emission levels for Japan: 50%, 65%, and 80% reduc- tions as compared to 2013.
Figure 6 : System boundary image for estimating emission reduction contributions in supply-chain
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sions in GVC without double counting of energy and tributions of Japanese firms. Impacts of investment in- emissions. crease for oversea deployment of environmentally The following assumptions were employed for es- friendly products on Japanese GDP are estimated for timating contributions of Japan to the global emission the different levels of global and Japan’s emission re- reductions considering the limits of data availabilities. ductions. - The recent historical share of the amount of produc- Table 2 shows the GDP impacts in Japan. There tions by Japanese firms were basically adopted for can be possibility to achieve compatibility of both envi- estimating the contribution by final products. ronment and economy under 50% emission reductions - For the sectors and technologies whose shares can- in Japan if the investment increase of Japan which will not be obtained easily, the share of value added in be accompanied with the oversea deployment of envi- machinery sector (7% for Japan) were adopted. ronmentally friendly products of Japan are considered. The assumed contribution shares for each sector On the other hand, under the case of 80% reduc- and technology were adopted as shown in Table 1. tion in Japan, the oversea contributions will become small due to constraints of productions in Japan and Table 1 : The assumed share in contribution of Japan by sector and technology for GVC the contribution will not be able to offset the negative Sector Technologies Share of Japan impacts on GDP due to domestic emission reductions Nuclear 19% Wind (onshore) 0% in Japan. Then, totally negative GDP impacts were es- Wind (offshore) 6% timated. Photovoltaics 4% Figure 7 shows the emission reduction effects in Solar thermal 0% Power Hydro 0% 2050 including the contributions to GVC considering Geothermal 55% the domestic impacts on productions which will be con- High-efficiency fossil fuel 21% strained by domestic emission reductions. The domes- Other 7% Fuel switching among fossil fuels 0% tic emission reductions of 80% in Japan is larger but in Other energy conversion sector 7% global scale total reductions can be smaller than those Industry 7% of 50%, because the domestic productions for environ- Transportation (automobiles) 28% Transportation (other) 7% mentally friendly products should become small under Building 13% 80% reductions. Land-use change (afforestation etc.) 0%
Industrial process CO2 and non-CO2 GHG 7% Table 2 : GDP impacts of Japan in 2050 compared to the baseline World: -40% World: -70% w/o with w/o with oversea oversea oversea oversea 2.5. Global GHG emission reduction contributions and contribution contribution contribution contribution GDP positive impacts through GVC measures Japan: -50% -0.9% +0.8% -1.0% +1.6% Japan: -65% -2.0% -0.3% -2.7% -0.4% The contributions of Japan in amounts of invest- Japan: -80% -7.2% -6.5% -7.1% -6.1% ment of environmentally friendly products by sector in the world were estimated from the global investment for 2 ℃ scenarios (corresponding to Fig. 5) and the assumed shares of contribution of Japan (Table 1). The amounts of investments estimated by DNE21+ include the construction costs which will be invested mainly by oversea firms. The share of machinery in total invest- ments was 53% according to the report by Japan Ma- chinery Center for Trade and Investment. But this num- ber also includes general machineries which can be provided by domestic firms, and therefore 26% which Figure 7 : The emission reduction of Japan including the contributions to GVC in 2050 is a half of the number was simply adopted for the con-
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2.6. Summary of the evaluations for GVC mous car. However, there might be potentials of in- The emission reduction potentials in Japan are crease in transportation demand caused by its conve- limited mainly because high energy efficiency levels nience and affordability, as well as competition against are already achieved. Under these situation, it will be public transportation. Besides, users have various very important to focus on reductions of global emis- preference which might not be considered well in Table sions in energy end-use stage by oversea deployments 3. These are future works. of environmentally friendly products as well as produc- Table 3 : Assumptions in shared autonomous car tion processes. This is an approach with LCA thinking. Items Assumptions Business-based competitions for larger diffusions and Additional cost of 10000$ in 2030, 5000$ in 2050, 2800$ in autonomous car per 2100, assuming cost reduction with technolo- deployments of such products among firms will achieve vehicle gy development 3 times more than conventional private car a compatibility of environment and economy in a sus- Utilization rate (ref. 30,000km per vehicle in Japan) tainable manner. This study tried to analyze the effects 7 to 12 years, depending on the region quantitatively and consistently. Lifetime (conventional private car is assumed as 13 to 20 years) Assumed to increase with ride-sharing. 1.75 persons in 2050, 2 persons in 2100, irrespec- 3. Evaluation of global warming mitigation mea- Number of passen- tive of the region gers per 1 car sures under different socioeconomic scenarios (1.1 to 1.5 in 2050, 1.1 to 1.3 in 2100 for con- ventional private car assumption) considering developments of sharing economy Fuel economy Same as conventional private car 3.1. Introduction In recent years sharing economy is drawing atten- tion. Although it covers various sectors widely, there 3.3. Assumed scenario of crude steel production are two kinds of services currently offered in mobility, Under the above assumptions, our evaluation i.e. car-sharing and ridesharing. These services have a shows that prevalence of shared autonomous car will potential to be made more efficient by the technology suppress passenger car fleet and new car sales 25% development like IT or AI. As for cars themselves, au- and 41% in 2050, respectively, compared with the tonomous driving technology is under development baseline. As a result, steel sheet demand for automo- utilizing these technologies. These technology devel- bile is estimated to be 58% of the baseline, and total opment may realize a society that shares autonomous crude steel demand is to be 96% of the baseline. cars as one of possible futures. This study evaluates global warming countermea- This study evaluated global warming countermea- sures in consideration of this decrease. sures under a socioeconomic scenario in consideration of car-sharing and ridesharing induced by fully autono- 3.4. Results of model analysis mous vehicles, by enhancing the DNE21+ model. Impacts of shared autonomous car on 2 climate policies, the baseline scenario and the 2℃ scenario 3.2. Assumed shared autonomous car (emission pathways equivalent to NDCs until 2030, When fully autonomous driving will be realized is and -40% emissions in 2050 compared to 2010 with uncertain because there exist a lot of issues not only >50% chance to achieve 2℃), are evaluated under 3 technological ones but also legal ones. In this study, socioeconomic scenarios described in Table 4. As- the autonomous vehicle is assumed to be available in sumed socioeconomic scenarios are SSP2, a medium 2030 and thereafter, and the analysis is for passenger scenario in SSPs (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways) cars only. Other assumptions are described in table 3. Among passenger transportation demand within Table 4 : Analyzed scenarios the road transportation sector, the DNE21+ model dis- Scenarios Description SSP2 Medium (Middle of the Road) tinguishes passenger cars and buses. In this study, the SSP1 Higher technology development (Sustainability) demand by transportation mode is assumed to be the SSP1+shared Higher tech. development + shared autonomous autonomous car car + decrease in crude steel production same, irrespective of the realization of shared autono-
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that are studied among international research commu- price is necessary to compensate for the increased ve- nities on climate change, and SSP1 which assumes hicle cost within 3 years of assumed payback period. sustainable future. SSP1 assumes a higher level of Marginal abatement costs (MAC) of CO2 in 2050 technology development and thus more cost reduction are estimated to be 171$/tCO2 in SSP2, 125$/tCO2 in of EV or FCV than SSP2. SSP1+shared autonomous SSP1, and 94$/tCO2 in SSP1+shared autonomous car. car is our original scenario that assumes more preva- Large decline in energy consumption in transportation lence of shared autonomous car. sector may occur in SSP1+shared autonomous car Figure 8 and 9 show passenger car fleet by tech- with lower MAC, so this may induce lower emission nology and energy consumption in transportation sec- reduction levels required for other sectors to achieve tor under each scenario. Compared with SSP2 which -40% compared with 2010, as well as a small amount mainly adopts conventional ICE, SSP1 achieves of introduction of coal power plants without CCS which broader prevalence of EV or FCV and lower energy cannot be allowed under stringent emission reduc- consumption in transportation sector even in the base- tions. line. SSP1+shared autonomous car estimates much larger decrease in passenger car fleet caused by 3.5. Summary car-sharing and ridesharing, as well as substantial de- This analysis quantitatively estimates global crease in energy consumption due to the suppression warming countermeasures under different socioeco- of vehicle kilometers traveled while satisfying transpor- nomic scenarios using the DNE21+ model, considering tation demand(p-km) by ridesharing. Results show that car-sharing and ridesharing that might be accelerated socioeconomic scenarios (technology development or by fully autonomous car, as well as decrease in crude existence of shared autonomous car) cause larger dif- steel production caused by less car sales. Although ference in estimates than the climate policy scenario there remain important issues such as assumptions re- does between the baseline and the 2℃ target, be- garding shared autonomous cars or consistency with cause the passenger vehicle cost is relatively higher other sectors, the result shows a potential of than the energy cost, and substantially higher carbon SSP1+shared autonomous car scenario to decrease energy demand toward 2℃ target by social innovation like massive prevalence of car-sharing and ridesharing induced by IT or AI without unrealistically high MAC.
Reference
1) L. Fulton et al.; Three Revolutions in Urban Transportation (2017)
Figure 8 : Global passenger car fleet by technology in 2050
Figure 9 : Global energy consumption in transportation sector in 2050
23 R&D Activities⃝Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group
[Key Members] Akemi Sasaki, Deputy Group Leader, Satoshi Hasegawa, Senior Researcher Associate Chief Researcher Akira Watanabe, Senior Researcher Ken-ichi Inatomi, Associate Chief Takahisa Kogure, Senior Researcher Researcher Takeshi Kubota, Senior Researcher , Associate Chief Haruhiko Teramoto Toshihiro Oshima, Senior Researcher Researcher Shinichi Oide, Researcher Kazumi Hiraga, Associate Chief Researcher Ryoma Hashimoto, Researcher Yuya Tanaka, Senior Researcher Tetsu Shimizu, Researcher Masako Suda, Senior Researcher Masayoshi Hashizume, Researcher Yukihiro Kitade, Senior Researcher Masayuki Inui Tomoaki Hara, Researcher Group Leader, Koichi Toyoda, Senior Researcher Akiyoshi Higo, Researcher Chief Researcher Naoto Kato, Senior Researcher Natalia Maria Theresia, Researcher
Development of Green Bioprocesses to Realize a Sustainable Society
1. Introduction the “bioeconomy,” to produce biofuels and “green” Biotechnology, which involves the use of biological chemicals from renewable sources (biomass). In this processes, organisms, or systems, widely contributes section, we provide an overview of global biofuel and to the fields of agriculture, industry, environment, med- green chemical production. ical treatment, etc. Recently the concept of “bioecono- Bioethanol, a major biofuel, is produced from raw my” has emerged, which maintains economic develop- materials that include corn (in the U.S.) and sugarcane ment while solving global environmental problems by (in Brazil), and mixed with 10%-25% gasoline for use in using biotechnology and renewable resources. It origi- automobile engines. The highest production and con- nated in Europe and the U.S. and is now gaining sumption of bioethanol is in the U.S., where corn is a ground in countries across Asia. According to the Or- major crop, with 15.9 billion gallons (60.1 million kL) of ganization for Economic Cooperation and Develop- bioethanol produced in 2018, according to estimates ment (OECD), it is predicted that biotechnology could provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administra- contribute 2.7% (ca. $1,600 billion) to the GDP of tion. The obligation of renewable fuels of 19.3 billion OECD countries by 2030. The greatest potential eco- gallons in 2018 was covered to ca. 75% by corn-based nomic contribution is predicted for industrial applica- bioethanol, based on the U.S. Renewable Fuel Stan- tions, with 39% of the total output of biotechnology ex- dard (RFS) proposed by Environmental Protection pected in this sector (Fig. 1). Agency (EPA).
Fig. 1 : Economic contribution of biotechnology
Fig. 2 : Biofuels outlook 2018-2027 Our group is advancing the research and develop- ment of biorefinery technologies, core technologies of According to the report Agricultural Outlook 2018-
24 R&D Activities⃝Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
2027, by OECD-FAO, 122 million kL of bioethanol were According to European Bioplastics, global bioplas- produced worldwide in 2018, with the U.S. accounting tics production will reach 2.14 million tons in 2019, and for approximately half of this production. This propor- is expanding year by year. Legislation for the prohibi- tion does not change in these years. tion of sales of disposable plastic bottles at parks, and Another major biofuel, biodiesel, is produced from obligations to collect and recycle them have been ap- raw materials that include rape seed (in Europe) and proved in parts of Europe and the U.S. According to the soybeans (in the U.S.), with 37 million kL of biodiesel Japan BioPlastics Association, the shipment volume of produced worldwide (Fig. 2). In Europe, France and bioplastics in Japan is predicted to be 40,000 tons in Germany are the highest biodiesel-consuming coun- 2019. The Ministry of the Environment is planning to tries, where about half of all automobiles have diesel start new projects from 2019 to reduce plastic waste, engines. In recent years, the export of raw materials for such as the development of products made of biode- biodiesel production has been increasing from coun- gradable plastics. tries like Argentina and Indonesia. However, the British and French governments intend to end sale of fossil 2. Features of RITE Bioprocess fuel-powered vehicles by 2040, and the judgment by In RITE Bioprocess, cells of a Corynebacterium which city driving of automobiles having diesel engines glutamicum strain engineered to have an optimal met- is prohibited was approved in Germany. Therefore, the abolic pathway for a target chemical are grown on a use of conventional internal combustion engines is large scale, packed to very high densities in a reactor, predicted to decline in the future, particularly in Eu- and allowed to produce the target metabolite (Fig. 3). rope. The key to our process is a unique property of C. glu- Second generation cellulosic biofuels are pro- tamicum. The bioconversion of feedstock to target duced from agricultural wastes such as corn stover, product proceeds without microbial cell growth, achiev- therefore their production does not affect food supply, ing higher efficiency and productivity compared with which is expected to reduce large CO2 emission. conventional fermentative processes, in which the for- Large-scale commercial cellulosic ethanol production mation of products and biomass inevitably occurs in plants are in operation in the U.S. and Brazil, and a parallel. Metabolic engineering enabled our microbial new plant was reported to have opened in Europe in catalyst to simultaneously utilize C5 & C6 sugars, and 2018 (each company website). The EPA target for the we also found that C. glutamicum is highly tolerant to production of cellulosic biofuel in 2019 is 418 million fermentation inhibitors contained in cellulosic hydroly- gallons (1.6 million kL), based on RFS rules. sates such as furans, demonstrating that the RITE Bi- Biojet fuels, which are a trump card for the reduc- oprocess is compatible with cellulosic non-food bio- tion of CO2 emission from aircraft, have become widely mass (see RITE Today 2013-2018). Using the RITE popular among global commercial airlines. Biojet fuels Bioprocess, we have achieved production of ethanol, are produced from raw materials such as used cooking lactic acid, and various amino acids, with remarkably oil. Since 2018 RITE has also provided technical assis- high yields. We are currently applying this technology tance to a new private project to produce biojet fuel, to the microbial production of butanol, biojet fuels, and using bio-isobutanol as an intermediate material (see aromatic compounds belonging to high-functional Topics). chemical compounds. In the following sections, we de-
Green chemicals Environmental pollution by single-use throwaway containers, disposable plastic bottles, and similar items has gained prominence and received attention as a global problem. In addition, the prohibition of the im- portation of waste plastic in China and southeast Asia has had a big impact on plastic recycling systems in Japan. Given this background, the use of bioplastics and biodegradable plastics made from renewable re- sources, such as biomass, is expected to increase. Fig. 3 : Features of RITE Bioprocess
25 R&D Activities⃝Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
scribe recent progress we have made in our research chemical oligomerization of biobutanol. This was into the production of biofuels and green chemicals. based on a new idea that if acetic acid is included in mixed sugars from pretreated biomass, it can be con- 3. Biofuel production research and development verted to ethanol by engineered C. glutamicum by in- 3.1. Biobutanol troducing new genes. Therefore, the mixtures are uti- Butanol is more suitable as a gasoline additive lized for bioproduction of butanol and ethanol, which than ethanol due to its physicochemical properties, in- can then be subjected to chemical oligomerization for cluding higher energy content, lower vapor pressure, jet fuels. and lower water solubility. It can also be used as a The distillation of biobutanol solution requires a starting material for the production of biojet fuel using large amount of energy. To reduce the amount of ener- conventional chemical reactions. Biojet fuel synthe- gy needed, we developed an energy-saving biobuta- sized from biobutanol can be used in airplanes. Airlines nol-recovery process using a combination of distillation and aircraft manufacturers have paid great attention to and pervaporation (PV), which achieved up to 90% biojet fuel, since it has been recognized as being of key energy savings. We achieved the highest biobutanol importance for reductions in CO2 emissions. Biojet fuel productivity in the world. We then attempted to further synthesized from butanol is often referred to as “alco- enhance this fast and highly efficient process for the hol-to-jet” (ATJ) fuel. ATJ fuel has been approved by production of biobutanol by improving butanol resis- the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) tance, optimizing metabolic pathways, and developing and is ready for use in commercial aircraft (http://www. energy-saving butanol purification techniques. gevo.com/). We have developed a genetically engineered C. 3.2. Green jet fuel glutamicum that exhibits highly efficient production of Petroleum-based jet fuels are mixtures of hydro- butanol. We have been conducting a research project carbons that consist of n-paraffins, isoparaffins, cyclo- to investigate cellulosic butanol production since 2015 paraffins, and aromatic compounds with 9-15 carbon (see Topics in RITE Today, 2016), funded by the Minis- atoms. The proportion of each type of hydrocarbon in try of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). The advan- jet fuels varies, reflecting the type and geographical tages of our production process include the following: origin of the crude oils from which they are derived. (i) cellulosic biomass can be used as feedstock, and (ii) Jet fuel must meet strict standards with regard to production is fast and gives a high yield (Fig. 4). its physical properties, such as a specified freezing point and density. Biojet fuels that have already been certified by ASTM mainly consist of isoparaffins, and are permitted for use when blended with petro- leum-based jet fuels at a proportion of up to 50%. How- ever, it is not always possible to meet the required den- sity standard using a 50/50 blend. Isoparaffins have lower densities than cycloparaf- Fig. 4 : Production of biobutanol and biojet fuel by RITE Bioprocess fins and aromatics, and thus the density of petro- leum-based jet fuels varies by production area, reflect- Since butanol is highly toxic, we have developed a ing the proportion of each type of hydrocarbon (Fig. 5). genetically engineered Corynebacterium strain that The density of isoparaffin-based biojet fuels is not up to has high tolerant against the toxicity of butanol. The jet fuel standards because of the absence of cyclopar- strain exhibited very high productivity in the RITE Bio- affins and aromatics (Fig. 5). If these biojet fuels were process. We accelerated the research and develop- blended in a 50/50 mix with low-density jet fuels de- ment of biobutanol production from non-edible bio- rived from crude oil from Africa or the Middle East, the mass by collaborating with the U.S. National Renewable resulting fuel would not be permissible as jet fuel be- Energy Laboratory (NREL). cause its density would not be up to jet fuel standard. We have also been collaborating with the U.S. Pa- Thus, we are developing a novel green jet fuel that cific Northwest National Laboratories since 2017, re- contains cycloparaffins and aromatics as well isoparaf- searching and developing the production of jet fuels by fins, so that it can meet ASTM density standards on its
26 R&D Activities⃝Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
own. Our new green jet fuel can be blended with any developed a biohydrogen production process. The hy- jet fuels up to the limit full; furthermore, it can be used drogen production rate our process has achieved is as 100% green jet fuel with carbon number distribution two orders of magnitude higher than that of conven- similar to that of petroleum-based jet fuels. tional fermentation processes. Based on this achieve- Our core strategy is to produce jet fuel range- ment, our group is now conducting an international branched and cyclic precursor compounds from various collaborative research project, supported by METI. The types of non-food biomass using an energy-saving bio- purpose of this project is to bring about major improve- process, and then convert them to isoparaffins, cyclopar- ments in hydrogen yield by integrating dark fermenta- affins, and aromatics using a simple chemical reaction. tive and photo-fermentative hydrogen production pro- We have almost established these base technology, and cesses. The latter process harnesses light energy, successfully produced branched and cyclic precursors whereas the former does not (Fig. 6). with various carbon numbers, some of which have been For this project we are collaborating with Kyoto chemically converted to jet fuel components. Now we are University, Japan, and the Center National de la Re- improving their production yields toward next phase of cherche Scientifique in France to develop expression establishment of a continuous process. As part of the de- systems for hydrogen-producing enzymes for dark fer- velopment of our new green jet fuel, we also conducted mentation. We are also metabolically engineering the a research project into novel versatile bioprocesses (see acetate metabolism pathway used by a photosynthetic Topics in RITE Today, 2018), which was funded by METI. bacterium for photo-fermentation, to improve hydrogen yield from acetate, a by-product of dark fermentation. Furthermore, we are examining the conditions neces- sary for hydrogen production from corn stover, in col- laboration with NREL.
Fig. 5 : Comparison of the density of petroleum-based jet fuels and biojet fuels
Fig. 6 : Research and development to investigate highly efficient 3.3. Biohydrogen biohydrogen production from cellulosic biomass Hydrogen is considered to be the ultimate clean en- ergy source, because its combustion generates only wa- 4. Development of technologies for the production ter. Although residential fuel cells and fuel cell vehicles of bio-based chemicals have been already put on the market, CO2 emission 4.1. NEDO Smart Cell project during currently used hydrogen production processes is a Innovations in biotechnology have made it possi- problematic issue, because fossil resources are used as ble to expand the potential of biological functions. In feedstock. This issue should be addressed by a medium- response to current trends, METI has developed and or long-term research and development project to inves- defined the concept of the “Smart Cell”, a finely de- tigate hydrogen production technologies that use renew- signed and expression-controlled cell. METI also pre- able and sustainable resources. In this context, METI has sented a strategy to create a new industry (a “Smart set a goal to establish a CO2-free hydrogen supply chain Cell” industry), based on the cells. by 2040, in a long-term technology roadmap. To create this industry, the New Energy and Indus- Although bioprocesses have significant potential trial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) for CO2-free hydrogen production, innovative improve- launched a project named “Development of Production ments in technology are necessary to establish a Techniques for Highly Functional Biomaterials Using cost-effective biohydrogen production process. In col- Smart Cells of Plants and Other Organisms” (Smart laboration with the Sharp Corporation, our group has Cell Project). RITE has participated in this project since
27 R&D Activities⃝Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
it began. ids (phenylalanine, tyrosine, tryptophan), folate (vita- The project is composed of two teams, the funda- min B9), and coenzyme Q. All of these compounds are mental technology team and the validation team; RITE derived from the shikimate pathway (Fig. 8). By em- belongs to the latter. The members of the fundamental ploying the metabolically engineered C. glutamicum, technology team predict and suggest effective meta- we have successfully established a highly efficient bio- bolic modifications for better productivity, using analyt- process to produce the following aromatic compounds ical tools such as computer-assisted simulation tech- from non-food ligno-cellulosic feedstock: shikimate, a nology (Smart Cell design system). RITE engineers C. key building block of the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu; glutamicum strains following their suggestions and ac- 4-aminobenzoate, which is used as a building block of quires experimental data. The fundamental technology a potentially useful functional polymer; and aromatic team improves the tools based on the data fed back to hydroxy acids, which have potential applications in the them. This development cycle is repeated to enhance polymer, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and food indus- predictability of the Smart Cell design system and pro- tries. Now we are seeking to develop new strains by ductivity for obtaining target compounds (Fig.7). introducing genes derived from versatile biological re- We contributed to the improvement of the Smart sources for the production of useful aromatic com- Cell design system by providing a large amount of pounds, which wild-type C. glutamicum is unable to feedback data. We also achieved high productivity that produce. The techniques developed in the Smart Cell went beyond our intermediate goal. We are continuing project, as described above, will help to accelerate the development cycle to create hyperproducers suit- strain development and improve strain productivity. able for practical uses.
Fig. 7 : Overview of the Smart Cell Project Fig. 8 : Biosynthetic pathway for various aromatic compounds
4.2. Expanding production technologies for vari- 5. Toward the industrialization of our technologies ous aromatic chemicals 5.1. Phenol / Aromatic compounds Aromatic compounds are important industrial Currently, commercial phenol can only be derived chemicals used for polymer synthesis and also a di- from petroleum. We took on the challenge to develop verse group of value-added chemicals, which find ap- the world’s first manufacturing bioprocess for bio- plications in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, flavor, mass-derived phenol, which is considered to be diffi- cosmetics, and food industries. While they are current- cult, to aid global environmental conservation and ly derived from petroleum or natural plant resources, greenhouse gas reduction. their environmentally-friendly biotechnological produc- In May 2014, Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. and tion from renewable feedstocks is desirable from the RITE established Green Phenol Development Co., Ltd. viewpoint of creating a sustainable society that is no (GPD) to accelerate the industrialization of our bio- longer dependent on petroleum resources and that has mass-derived phenol-producing technology called the efficient production processes. Bacterial cells synthe- “Two-Step Bioprocess” (Fig. 9). In April 2018, GPD size various aromatic compounds, including amino ac- changed its name to Green Chemicals Co., Ltd. (GCC)
28 R&D Activities⃝Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
(see Topics). our group members also participated in the first opera- Since GCC’s phenol-producing technology and tion and worked with local employees to lead the proj- knowledge are applicable to the production of various ect to a successful conclusion. As the result of an eval- other aromatic compounds, the establishment of each uation by the Food Safety Committee in August 2017, bioprocess for higher value-added chemicals and the the safety of L-alanine produced by our strain for use commercialization of products matched with custom- as a food additive was confirmed, and it was made ers’ needs are in progress. commercially available as a food additive, in addition to its industrial applications. The L-alanine production business was developed in conjunction with both a do- mestic and a foreign partner enterprise. In addition, we are now working on a joint research project with GEI for L-valine production, making a sample production process by improving the strain and scaling up to begin
Fig. 9 : Biomass-derived phenol production by the Two-Step commercial production. Bioprocess 6.Closing remarks 5.2. Amino acids METI announced 50,000 kL target of annual import Normally, amino acid fermentation is carried out volumes of foreign bioethanol for 5 years from 2018. Re- under aerobic conditions. This requires aeration and duction standards for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions agitation to be properly controlled to attain high pro- in Japan were also revised, and diversification of suppli- ductivity, but this is often difficult to achieve in large- ers has been made possible, so bioethanol produced in scale fermenters because the oxygen concentration the U.S. may become available. In the green chemical inside them is not homogeneous. To overcome this sector, a new project in which biotechnologies are fused problem, we have developed a new, genetically modi- with digital technologies, such as the internet of things or fied Corynebacterium strain for amino acid production artificial intelligence, was started by the Japanese gov- in the RITE Bioprocess, allowing the production of ami- ernment in 2018, and RITE has joined this project (see no acids to be carried out under anaerobic conditions. Topics). In this project, it is expected that biotechnology The technological hurdle for amino acid production un- using Smart Cells, as described above, will perform a der anaerobic conditions is to balance the redox reac- role as a core technology and create a wide range of tion without oxygen as an electron acceptor. To this spin-off effects for manufacturing technology in the in- end, we introduced an artificial pathway for amino acid dustrial sector as well as the energy sector (Fig. 10). biosynthesis in microbial cells. Our group has solved this technological hurdle and we published our re- search accomplishments in an international journal in 2010 (Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 87: 159-165). The Green Earth Institute Co., Ltd. (GEI) was es- tablished in 2011 for the industrialization of RITE Bio- process. In 2011, RITE and GEI began collaborative research into amino acid production using the RITE Bioprocess, and have developed technologies for scal- ing up, growth of efficient production strains, and cost reduction. Our first target was an amino acid, L-ala- Fig. 10 : Fusion of industry and energy based on digital and nine, normally synthesized from a petrochemical prod- biotechnologies uct, but our goal was to produce this amino acid from renewable resources, to reduce the life cycle carbon Our group continues to put efforts into technology footprint. In 2016, we succeeded in demonstrating the development to achieve innovative green processes, feasibility of this production technique using the com- using Smart Cells as a core technology, and through this mercial-scale facilities of our partner company, which research and development we hope to contribute to the was an important milestone for industrialization. One of formation of low carbon and sustainable societies.
29 R&D Activities⃝Chemical Research Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Chemical Research Group
[Key Members] Keisuke Sugita, Deputy Group Leader, Fuminori Ito, Researcher Chief Researcher Tomohiro Kinoshita, Researcher Koji Baba, Associate Chief Researcher Nobuyuki Takayama, Researcher Katsunori Yogo, Associate Chief Researcher Shuhong Duan, Researcher Kenjiro Ishiguro, Senior Researcher Teruhiko Kai, Senior Researcher Kazuya Goto, Senior Researcher Firoz Alam Chowdhury, Senior Researcher Hidetaka Yamada, Senior Researcher Shin-ichi Nakao Shin Yamamoto, Senior Researcher Group Leader, Makoto Ryoji, Senior Researcher Chief Researcher
Challenges Associated with the Advanced Industrialization of CO2 Capture Technologies
1. Technologies for CO2 capture ture regenerable solid sorbent that we developed is
CO2 capture and storage (CCS) involves the trap- being evaluated for practical use. In lab-scale cyclic ping of CO2 (a greenhouse gas) from the emissions tests, our novel solid sorbent is capable of achieving generated during fossil fuel combustion from such 1.5 GJ/t-CO2 in separation and capture energy. And, sources as electric power plants and factories and in- we have established a large-scale synthesis technolo- cludes the subsequent sequestration of the captured gy that can produce the solid sorbent at a scale of 10
3 CO2 in geological formations. At present, the costs as- m . Research on the practical application is now under- sociated with capturing CO2 from emission sources way in collaboration with a private company. In the account for approximately 60% of overall CCS expen- near future, we will install a test facility to capture 40 ditures. Therefore, it is important to reduce the capture t-CO2/day at a coal power plant for practical applica- costs to allow the practical application of CCS. tion. The Chemical Research Group studies the differ- Membrane separation is expected as an effective ent CO2 capture technologies with a special focus on means of separating CO2 from high-pressure gas mix- chemical absorption, adsorption, and membrane sepa- tures at low cost and with low energy requirements. As ration methods. This work involved the development of a member of the Molecular Gate Membrane module new materials and processing methods, as well as in- Technology Research Association, RITE has been de- vestigations of capture systems. The Group studies veloping membranes and membrane elements using a have thus far generated significant outcomes and as- novel dendrimer/polymer hybrid membrane called the sisted in the progress of research in this particular field. molecular gate membrane to selectively capture CO2
Specifically, we developed high performance from pressurized gas mixtures containing H2, such as chemical absorbents, and one such chemical absor- those generated in the integrated coal gasification bent with particular promise was selected for applica- combined cycle (IGCC) at low cost and with low energy tion in a commercial CO2 capture plant owned by a use. We are also developing membranes with large private Japanese company and the second commer- membrane areas using the continuous mem- cial plant started to work in July 2018. brane-forming method and developing membrane ele- On solid sorbent technology, we have also been ments for the mass production of membranes and developing sorbents for CO2 capture to efficiently re- membrane elements in the future. In addition, we have duce energy consumption. Currently, the low-tempera- evaluated the separation performance and process
30 R&D Activities⃝Chemical Research Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
compatibility of our membranes and membrane ele- tion at less than 100℃. This result represents an im- ments using coal gasification gas at the University of provement over the current desorption temperature of Kentucky - Center for Applied Energy Research (UK- 120℃. Beginning in FY 2013, the Phase I Step 2 was CAER) in order to identify and then solve the technical initiated and ran until FY 2017. During this work, RITE problems of membranes and membrane elements. In and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation con- addition, RITE joins the International Test Center Net- tinued to develop new absorbents that had the poten- work (ITCN) and actively uses overseas networks to- tial to deliver high performance, and we clarified the wards the commercialization of CO2 separation and mechanism of performance development and related recovery technology. factors of a high-performance solvent. The latest R&D phase (Phase II Step 1) started in
2. Development of CO2 capture technology based 2018. Based on the previous milestones, we are pro- on chemical absorption systems ceeding to develop advanced technologies in order to
CO2 capture by chemical absorption is a prospec- attain further innovative solvents (Fig. 2). tive technology for the separation of CO2 from gas mix- tures. This technique consists of the thermal desorp- tion of CO2 following chemical absorption using an amine-based solution. Since the Cost-saving CO2 Capture System (COCS) project (funded by the Minis- try of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)), RITE con- ducts research and development on CO2 capture from blast furnace effluent gas in the steel industry (Fig. 1).
Fig. 2 : Challenge for higher performance solvents
Regarding practical technology development, one of the outstanding new absorbents was adopted for use in commercial CCS plants (ESCAP) constructed by Nippon Steel & Sumikin Engineering Co., Ltd. The first such CCS plant began operation in 2014; the sec- Fig. 1 : Timeline of CO2 capture technology developments ond CCS plant in 2018 (Fig. 3). The research results of (absorption)
RITE contribute to the practical application of CO2 cap- In the COURSE 50 project (entrusted by the Na- ture technology to different emission sources in the in- tional Energy Research Institute for New Energy and dustry. Industrial Technology Development [NEDO]), which Additionally, we have advanced the development began in 2008, developing CO2 capture technology is of chemical absorbents for high-pressure gas mixtures responsible for two-thirds of the overall CO2 reduction containing CO2 to obtain excellent CO2 absorption and target. That means new results from RITE are highly desorption performance. The purpose of these studies anticipated. has been the research of highly efficient absorbents
In the Phase I Step 1 of COURSE 50 (FY 2008- that enable CO2 desorption while maintaining the high
2012), RITE achieved the target CO2 capture energy CO2 partial pressure of the initial gas mixture. These consumption value of 2.0 GJ/t-CO2. In addition, signifi- are termed high-pressure regenerable absorbents. Us- cant new absorbents were developed for CO2 desorp- ing these novel absorbents, the energy consumption
31 R&D Activities⃝Chemical Research Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
bents are composed of amine absorbents for chemical absorption and porous materials (Fig. 5). They have
similar CO2 adsorption characteristics with liquid amine absorbents. Furthermore, they make it possible to sig- nificantly reduce the energy consumed as sensible heat and evaporative latent heat in the regeneration process. Novel amines synthesized by RITE have been employed for our developed solid sorbents (Fig. 6). We had introduced a functional group of specific configura-
Fig. 3 : Snapshot of the second commercial plant for supplying tion to a commercially available amine compound, and CO2 as industrial gas then RITE successfully fabricated innovative high-per- *The construction site is Sumitomo Joint Electric Power Co. Ltd. The photo is provided by Nippon Steel & Sumikin Engineering formance solid sorbents capable of low-temperature Co., Ltd.. regeneration with high adsorption capacities. We have during the CO2 compression process following capture obtained U.S. and Japanese patents for these solid is significantly reduced owing to the high pressure of sorbents. the captured CO2. Several new solvent systems designed previously have demonstrated high CO2 recovery levels in con- junction with superior CO2 absorption and desorption rates. These capabilities are in addition to a relatively low heat of reaction under high-pressure conditions above 1 MPa (Fig. 4). The total energy consumption rate for CO2 separation and capture when using this process, including the energy required for compres- sion, has been estimated to be less than 1.1 GJ/t-CO2. Fig. 5 : Liquid absorbent and solid sorbent
(Absorption: 1.6 MPa-CO2, desorption: 4.0 MPa-CO2).
Fig. 6 : RITE Amine
The result of the process simulation based on the performance of our developed solid sorbents showed
the potential of 1.5 GJ/t-CO2 for the separation and
capture energy. When this CO2 capture technology is applied to the coal-fired power generation, the reduc- Fig. 4 : CO 2 pressure-solubility relationships for high-pressure regenerable absorbents tion of power generation efficiency is expected to im- prove by about 2% compared to conventional chemical
3. Solid sorbent technology absorption technology (2.5 GJ/t-CO2).
RITE has developed solid sorbents during a proj- Under a project aimed at the advancement of CO2 ect aimed at the advancement of CO2 capture technol- capture technologies (R&D of Advanced Solid Sor- ogies funded by METI from 2010 to 2014. Solid sor- bents for Commercialization) funded by METI since FY
32 R&D Activities⃝Chemical Research Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
2015 (since FY 2018, transferred to NEDO), we are are being evaluated. We also are improving equipment conducting the optimization of materials for practical for high CO2 purity, selecting suitable measuring devic- use, the optimization and the efficiency promoting of es for water in the gas, and extracting problems for the solid solvent processes, and the construction of actual gas testing. Thus far, we have achieved 5.5 simulation technology for the system, additionally, t-CO2/day as the scale of CO2 capture (Fig. 8). working with Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI), Ltd., to develop a moving-bed system of bench-scale for coal combustion exhaust gas. So far, we have selected solid support with proper- ties suitable to the moving-bed system. In addition, we have developed the synthesis method for materials on a larger scale. As a result, the midterm goal, which is the establishment of solid sorbent synthesis on a scale of 10 m3, has been achieved. The solid sorbents prepared by the established Fig. 8 : Result on bench-scale test for example
3 method (10 m scale) were evaluated by using a lab- We plan to build a pilot-scale plant of 40 tons-CO2/ scale fixed-bed test apparatus (Fig. 7). These tests day in a coal-fired power station, and a practical ex- were conducted by using the steam-aided vacuum haust gas test will be carried out (announced Septem- swing adsorption (SA-VSA) process in which steam ber 2017). We are working on the R&D roadmap to was supplied in a desorption process. The optimized establish a solid sorbents system that has much higher operation process has shown that RITE solid sorbents performance in the capture of CO2 from coal fired pow- are able to capture high-purity (> 99%) CO2 from a sim- er generation (Fig. 9). ulated flue gas (12% CO2) at high yields (> 90%) under 60℃. In this case, the energy consumption for regen- eration steam at 60℃ was extremely low (< 1.2 GJ/t-
CO2), demonstrating that RITE solid sorbents had su- perior performance for CO2 capture.
Fig. 9 : Project roadmap
4. CO2 and H2 separation using polymeric mem- branes The Japanese government announced the Cool Earth 50 project in May 2007 with the aim of reducing
the country’s CO2 emissions to half the current amount Fig. 7 : Lab-scale apparatus for CO2 capture test by 2050. One promising means of lowering CO2 emis- Currently, the bench-scale combustion exhaust sions is the development of Integrated coal Gasifica- gas test is underway by the moving-bed system in- tion Combined Cycle with CO2 Capture and Storage stalled at KHI using RITE solid sorbents prepared by (IGCC-CCS) using CO2 selective membranes (Fig. the established method: the movement characteristic 10). For this reason, we are currently developing novel and the CO2 capture performance of the solid sorbent CO2 selective membrane modules that effectively sep-
33 R&D Activities⃝Chemical Research Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
arate CO2 during the IGCC process. We found that novel polymeric membranes com- posed of dendrimer / polymer hybrid materials (termed molecular gate membranes) exhibit excellent CO2/H2 separation performance. Fig. 11 presents a schematic that summarizes the working principles of a molecular gate membrane. Under humidified conditions, CO2 re- acts with the amino groups in the membrane to form either carbamate or bicarbonate, which then blocks the passage of H2. Consequently, the amount of H2 diffus- ing to the other side of the membrane is greatly re- duced, and high concentrations of CO2 can be ob- Fig. 12 : CO 2 selective membrane, membrane element, and membrane module. tained. Membrane element: The structure with large membrane area composed of the membrane, support, and spacer, etc. Membrane module: The structure in which the membrane element is placed.
pan, CO2 Separation Membrane Module Research and
Development Project (FY 2011-2014) and CO2 Sepa- ration Membrane Module Practical Research and De- velopment Project (FY 2015-2018) in the current
NEDO project, CO2 Separation Membrane Module Practical Research and Development (FY 2018- ), we Fig. 10 : Schematic of the IGCC process with CO2 capture by CO2 are developing membranes with large membrane ar- selective membrane modules. eas by a continuous membrane-forming method and developing the membrane elements. We started to
conduct pre-combustion CO2 capture tests using real gas from the coal gasifier of the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research (UK-CAER) in the U.S. to examine the separation performance and ro- bustness of membranes and membrane elements.
To improve the CO2 separation performance of the membranes by the continuous membrane-forming Fig. 11 : Schematic illustration of the working principles of the method, membrane preparation conditions were opti- molecular gate membrane. mized to reduce membrane thickness, and the mem- We developed new types of dendrimer/polymer branes were produced by the continuous mem- hybrid membranes that provide superior separation of brane-forming method under optimized conditions. The
CO2/H2 gas mixtures. relationship between relative thickness and CO2 per-
Based on this work, the Molecular Gate Mem- meance and CO2/He selectivity is shown in Fig. 13. brane module Technology Research Association (MG- It was found that CO2 permeance was improved
MTRA; consists of Research Institute of Innovative without decreasing CO2/He selectivity.
Technology for the Earth [RITE] and a private compa- A long-term CO2 separation test of the membrane ny) is researching new membranes, membrane ele- was conducted at 2.4 MPa to evaluate the durability of ments (Fig. 12), and membrane separation systems. the membrane under high pressure. The result is
Based on the achievements of the project by the shown in Fig. 14. CO2 separation was stable for at Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Ja- least 600 h.
34 R&D Activities⃝Chemical Research Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
5. Conclusion In December 2015, the Paris Agreement was ad- opted at COP 21.* To meet the conditions of the agree- ment, it is essential to promote innovative ways to dra- matically reduce emissions on a worldwide basis. In April 2016, Japan released the National Energy and Environmental Strategy for Technological Innovation toward 2050. In addition, in September 2017, a techni- cal roadmap for 2050 was formulated. The capture and
effective use of CO2 were identified as promising tech-
nologies. Innovative CO2 separation and recovery Fig. 13 : Relationship between relative thickness and CO2 permeance and CO2/He selectivity. technologies contain medium- and long-term targets Operating conditions: Temperature: 85°C, feed gas composition: CO2/He = 40%/60%, feed gas pressure: 2.4 MPa, relative humidity related to technological improvements that will reduce in feed: 60% RH, permeate gas pressure: atmospheric pressure. the energy used in separation and recovery by half
(<1.5 GJ/t-CO2) . In the technical roadmap, CO2 sepa- ration and recovery technologies plan to be demon- strated at the system level around 2030, and then be- come popular around 2050. Furthermore, at the Round Table for Studying Energy Situations in April 2018, it is reportedly important to continue to tackle the issues for practical application of CCS both in the industrial sec- tor and the electric power sector. In general, it is crucial to promote the practical ap- plication of CCS by proposing optimized separation
and recovery technologies for various CO2 emission sources. It is also vital to establish new or improved technologies through scale-up studies and actual gas separation trials that closely mimic desired real-world applications. Furthermore, it is important to promote innovative technological development and to continu- ally develop new energy-efficient, low-cost approaches to CCS. Fig. 14 : CO 2 separation performance of the membrane as a function of time * COP 21: 2015 United Nations Climate Change Con- Operating conditions: Temperature: 85°C, feed gas composition: ference CO2/He = 40%/60%, feed gas pressure: 2.4 MPa, relative humidity in feed: 60% RH, permeate gas pressure: atmospheric pressure.
The development of CO2 molecular gate mem- brane modules is recognized by the Carbon Seques- tration Leadership Forum (CSLF), a ministerial-level international climate change initiative focused on the development of improved, cost-effective technologies for the separation and capture of CO2 for transport and long-term safe storage.
35 R&D Activities⃝CO2 Storage Research Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
CO2 Storage Research Group
[Key Members] Nakaba Matsuda, Deputy Leader, Chief Yuji Watanabe, Senior Researcher Researcher Kazutoshi Hiwaki, Senior Researcher Makoto Nomura, Chief Researcher Tsutomu Hashimoto, Senior Researcher Nobuo Takasu, Associate Chief Researcher Atsushi Ibusuki, Senior Researcher Takahiro Nakajima, Associate Chief Nobutoshi Shimizu, Senior Researcher Researcher Osamu Takano, Senior Researcher Takeshi Myoi, Associate Chief Researcher Yasuhiro Okabayashi, Senior Researcher Keisuke Uchimoto, Senior Researcher Hyuck Park, Researcher , Senior Researcher Ryozo Tanaka Takuma Ito, Researcher Saeko Mito, Senior Researcher Ziqiu Xue Luchen Wang, Researcher Yi Zhang, Senior Researcher Group Leader, Takayuki Miyoshi, Researcher Tetsuma Toshioka, Senior Researcher Chief Researcher Yankun Sun, Researcher Makoto Nishimura, Senior Researcher Hongyu Zhai, Researcher , Senior Researcher Hironobu Komaki Masafumi Kotani, Researcher
Research and Development on Geological CO2 Storage for Safe CCS Operation
1. Introduction attentions domestically and internationally. With the The GHGT-14 Conference was held in Melbourne background, we concluded an agreement on licensing Australia in October 2018 and had more than 800 pre- its microbubble technology with Junlun Petroleum sentations on CCS. The event reiterated the impor- Company in November 2018. We expect microbubble tance of CCS as a countermeasure against global technology to have more and more opportunities to be warming. Among global CCS news in 2018, it is note- employed in real projects such as CO2-EOR operation worthy the USA, where the Trump Administration had in low-permeability oilfields in future. decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, re- The CO2 Storage Research Group, as a member newed the Section 45Q in a way that incentives for of the Geological Carbon Dioxide Storage Technology CCS is strengthen by increasing tax credits for geolog- Research Association (GCS), works on various R&D ical CO2 storage. In Europe, CCS-related activities are under the NEDO-funded project titled “the Research moving forward slowly. But the UK has taken a firm and Development of on Geological CO2 Storage Tech- step toward CCS deployment, publicizing an action nology for Safe CCS Operation”. In the project, we put plan to enable the first CCUS facility to be operational the focus on R&D on improvement not only in opera- by the mid-2020s. In developing countries, in particu- tionability but also in safety. The most challenging lar, in China, where large-scale CCS project is making themes include how to set out appropriate criteria to progress, efforts against climate change are anticipat- judge whether offshore CO2 leakage occurs because it ed to become more active. is difficult to differentiate the phenomenon from natural
In China, CCS projects are driven mainly by CO2- variation in water. In order to identify such optimal cri- EOR but the nation has a lot of oilfields where it is diffi- teria by acquiring and analyzing field data, we are cur- cult to produce additional oil by conventional CO2-EOR rently monitoring CO2 concentration in seawater con- techniques due to low permeability. To improve the ef- tinuously in an offshore field. ficiency of CO2 injection, the CO2 Storage Research The CO2 Storage Research Group also engages Group in collaboration with Tokyo Gas has been con- in international collaboration and the survey of CCS ducting R&D on microbubble technology, which draws development in the globe. We hosted an international
36 R&D Activities⃝CO2 Storage Research Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
CCUS roundtable in collaboration with C2ES in Wash- the wells, and the well-log data with the narrower data ington DC, USA, in February 2019. In addition, we intervals are smoothed in order to equalize the data work closely with the Tomakomai CCS demonstration frequencies and to maximize the accuracy of learning project in pursuit of earlier CCS commercialization. process. In ML, learning processes proceed in a way of re- 2. Major Research Themes and Outcomes ducing training errors, which are differences between 2.1. Development of Geological Modeling Tech- estimated properties and observed ones. Data not
niques for Geological CO2 Storage used for training can be used for validation, which has Reducing geological uncertainties is a key factor the potential of improving in the quality of estimation for to make large-scale CO2 geological storage technically targeted properties. In the ML approach for porosity available. The effective ways to achieve this include distribution along the wells at the Nagaoka site, we, further data acquisitions and appropriate data integra- therefore, used 75 percent of the input data for training, tion. Drilling new wells is, however, not an option suit- and the remaining 25 percent for validation. The Fig. able for the purpose due to financial constraints and 1(b) shows the mean-absolute errors between the esti- associated risks of CO2 leakage. Well data available to mated data and the observed ones for training (blue) estimate the spatial distribution of reservoir parame- and validation (orange) data. The two sets of the errors ters such as porosity and permeability is generally lim- have a similar trend, which indicates that the devel- ited. To estimate these geological properties, tech- oped neural-network model has an appropriate capa- niques to utilize 2D/3D seismic data have been bility to estimate the property. investigated in these decades. The approaches include We applied the developed porosity distribution attribute analysis such as the spectral decomposition. along the wells to the estimation of the spatial distribu- In 2018, as a technique for mapping one-dimensional tion of porosity for the Nagaoka site. A three-dimen- well-log data into a three-dimensional space, we ex- sional view of the reservoir and a two-dimensional sec- amined the machine-learning (ML) approach. tion including the observation and injection wells are ML consists of sequential processes of (i) me- depicted in Fig. 2. In the two-dimensional section, the chanically learning or identifying a relationship be- porosity data acquired at the wells are superimposed tween existing data of a targeted property and those of on the well locations. In the estimated distribution of a different kind of data, and (ii) estimating unknown porosity, there is a high porosity area (red and warm data of the targeted property, corresponding to new data of the different kind, based on the relationship identified. In our study for the CO2-injection demonstra- tion site in Nagaoka, we used its seismic data as input data and its porosity profiles measured along wells as a target property to create seismic attribute volumes . Once developing a machine learning-based model of porosity along the wells, we attempted to estimate po- Fig. 1 : (a) The schematic diagram of the fully-connected neural- network model, (b) MAE for training and validation data. rosity distribution in an area away from the wells. The ML model used in this feasibility study was a fully-con- nected neural-network model, shown in Fig. 1(a). Ac- curacy of the model depends on the number of deeper hidden layers. Due to the mismatch of data intervals between seismic data and well-log data, the seismic data with wider data intervals are interpolated along Fig. 2 : Estimated porosity model for CO2 reservoir layers
37 R&D Activities⃝CO2 Storage Research Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
color) in a thin layer at a middle depth of the reservoir between 2002 and 2010. and also a relatively high porosity area in the shallow Dissolved CO2 exists in natural seawater any time part of the reservoir (the CO2 injection intervals) in the and its indicator pCO2 fluctuates in a certain range. In northwest direction of the wells. methods to detect CO2 leakage based on values of
The ML is composed of the relatively simple steps pCO2, false-positives (misjudging data elevated due to and its processing time is short. The approach is, natural variability as anomalies) and false-negatives therefore, an effective technique to develop geological (overlooking CO2 leakage) are almost inevitable. High models for evaluating storage capacity and/or analyz- threshold values make false-positives decreased but ing CO2 injection scenarios in a site-screening/selec- false-negatives increased, whereas low threshold val- tion period. To build more accurate geological models, ues make false-negatives decreased but false-posi- we plan to use deep-learning techniques including a tives increased. Thus, we should estimate the rates of 2D/3D convolutional neural network model, which have false-positives and false-negatives. In this study, the been remarkably advanced in recent years. The CO2 upper limit of the 95 % prediction interval of the linear storage research group is investigating further opti- regression of pCO2 on DO(%) is set out as the thresh- mum processes to build more appropriate geological old, the false-positive rate of which is theoretically 2.5 models. %.
CO2 leakage data are not included in the analyzed
2.2. Development of a Comprehensive System for data as no CO2 has been stored underneath Osaka
Detection of CO2 Leakage and Environmental Bay. Hence, we can regard the data exceeding the Impact Assessment threshold line as the false-positives. Fig. 3a is a scatter
For offshore CO2 geological storage in Japan, ma- plot of pCO2 vs DO(%), with the 95 % prediction inter- rine monitoring is mandatory to confirm that stored CO2 val range (the green dashed lines) based on the all does not leak into the sea and to detect CO2 leakage data acquired in a period of 9 years. There are 15 data as soon as possible should it occur. Besides, the fact plotted over the upper limit of the prediction interval that monitoring is been carried out is important from (the threshold line). As the total number of the data is the point of view of public acceptance. 465, the rate of false-positive is 3.2 %, which is close to
When CO2 goes out from the seabed, it is presum- but higher than the theoretical rate of 2.5 %. Threshold ably in the form of bubbles, but CO2 bubbles dissolve in lines made with less data can, however, result in ex- seawater quickly after the release. The CO2 Storage tremely high occurrence of false-positive. We made Research Group has been studying and developing threshold lines based on data in a certain period of 1 methods to find CO2 bubbles in the water column and year out of the 9-year data acquisition period, and to detect anomalous values of partial pressure of CO2 compared all the 9-year-period data with each of the
(pCO2) in seawater, which is an index of the concentra- threshold lines. The highest false-positive rate, which tion of CO2 dissolved in seawater. The section here in- is 49.2 %, appears in a case shown in Fig. 3b. The troduces our study of a threshold method for the judge- black crosses in the figure, which were used to make ment of anomalous pCO2 using covariance between the threshold line (the upper black dashed line), are pCO2 and the percentage Dissolved Oxygen saturation plotted mostly in the lower half part of the distribution
(DO(%)) with the focus on baseline data required. area of all pCO2 data for the 9 years. As a result, their We have analyzed data observed in Osaka Bay, a 95% prediction interval is far narrower than that of the semi-enclosed bay in Japan, where Osaka Prefecture 9-year-period data and their threshold line (the upper has observed several variables at fixed points for over black dashed line) is also lower than that of the 9-year 40 years on a quarterly basis (February, May, August data (the upper green dashed line). These results indi- and November). Among the data, we have used data cate that the threshold line has a possibility of confus-
38 R&D Activities⃝CO2 Storage Research Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
ing high-value data due to natural fluctuation with false-positive rate (Table 1). For small numbers of N, anomalies for every two measurements, although the false-positive rates have a higher potential of being theoretical false-positive rate is only 2.5%. The lowest much larger than theoretical 2.5 %. These results sug- false-positive rate in this study is 1.1 % in the case gest that it is required to use data for 4-6 years or more shown in Fig. 3c. The false-positive rate in this case is to set out an adequate threshold line. low, but its threshold line is relatively high, which would We have been conducting continuous observa- make it difficult to detect CO2 leakage. We should keep tions of pCO2 and DO in Osaka Bay since summer in it in mind that a threshold line with a low false-positive 2018. By analyzing the continuously-observed data, rate is not always good. together with the data seasonally acquired for 9 years, In the same way, we made threshold lines using we will attempt to identify adequate frequencies and
N-year-period data (1≦N≦8). There are 9CN ways to durations of baseline surveys for determining a thresh- select N years from the 9 years, for each of which we old line to judge whether CO2 leakage occurs or not at determined a threshold line and then calculated its offshore CO2 storage sites.
2.3. Development of Technique for Monitoring For-
mation Stability during CO2 Injection Using Op- tical Fiber At the In Salah project site in Algeria, ground uplift
around the injection wells due to CO2 injection and subsidence due to the production of natural gas were observed. In fluid injection operation, if formation de- formation becomes significant under inappropriate pressure management, caprock seal can be breached,
which affects the safety of CO2 geological storage. In order to understand how pressure buildup in a target formation caused by fluid injection affects the displace- ment of the ground surface, it is desirable to monitor from the deep underground to the earth surface contin- uously in a depth direction. For the vertically-continu- Fig. 3 : Scatter plots of pCO2 vs DO% with (a) all 9 years data (red: February, pink: May, blue: August, orange: November) ous monitoring of underground displacement, conven- and the 95 % prediction interval based on them (the green dashed lines), (b) data of 2005 and (c) 2010 tional sensors are not practical because it is required to (crosses) and the 95 % prediction interval based on them (black dashed lines). determine their exact installation locations and depths in advance and because it is far from easy work to em- Table.1 : False-positive rates bed so many sensors in field. These challenges can be solved for the vertically-continuous data acquisition when distributed optical fiber sensing technology is employed . In this section, we introduce results of lab- oratory experiments to show the effectiveness of mon- itoring geological deformation with optical fiber sensing technology. Figure 4 shows a unique composite sandstone sample that has a physical system of a deep under- ground reservoir and a seal layer. In the laboratory ex-
39 R&D Activities⃝CO2 Storage Research Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
periments with the sample, the behavior of CO2 under tion pressure was elevated, CO2 broke into the caprock reservoir pressure and temperature conditions was vi- seal. The strains in the seal part increased abruptly af- sualized with a medical X-ray CT apparatus. CO2 was ter the CO2 percolation (see Fig. 6). The results indi- injected to the coarse-grain part (a reservoir) at the left cate that it is possible to monitor the mechanical stabil- end of a sandstone sample. The fine-grain part at the ity of the caprock and the leakage of CO2 from the right of the sample had a lower permeability and played reservoir with an optical fiber installed in a monitoring a role of a caprock seal that had a function of keeping well. the injected CO2 in the coarse-grain part. When injec- tion pressure exceeded a shielding threshold of the fine-grain part, CO2 entered the fine-grain part. The sandstone sample had a helically-twined optical fiber on its surface for monitoring rock deformation in the coarse-grain part during CO2 accumulation and its me- chanical influence on the fine-grain part.
Fig.5 : Distribution of CO2 saturation and expansive strain along the axis direction of the sandstone sample
Fig. 4 : A sandstone sample with a helically-twined optical fiber Fig. 6 : A sharp increase in strain accompanying the entry of CO2 and its X-ray CT image into the caprock seal
Figure 5 shows the distribution of CO2 saturation 2.4. International Collaboration and Survey of CCS and the strain along the longitudinal direction of the Development in the world sandstone sample as CO2 gradually accumulated in RITE contributes to CCS deployment through col- the coarse-grain part since the injection commenced. laboration with international organizations and frame-
CO2 saturations were calculated based on the X-ray works for CCS and also conducts a survey of CCS CT images and the strains of the rock were measured development in the world. Here are highlights in global by the optical fiber. CO2 was initially injected from the CCS development and international frameworks in left end of the sample under a driving pressure that 2018: was less than the sealing threshold. The CO2 plume (1) Highlights in Global CCS Development was confined within the approximately-45 mm-long left In the UK, an expert task force formed by the gov- part by the boundary between the coarse- and fine- ernment publicized a strategy proposed for CCS de- grain parts However, slight expansion was observed in ployment in July 2018. Its major message is that the the section between 50 and 60 mm. This means that most effective way of CCS deployment is to promote although the caprock seal was slightly deformed, the CCS in the form of clusters, core of which are expend-
CO2 in the reservoir was tightly trapped. After the injec- able shared infrastructures for CO2 transport and stor-
40 R&D Activities⃝CO2 Storage Research Group ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
age. The strategy presents 16 recommendations with cal group and Japan was elected together with Austra- an assumption of commissioning at least two CCS lia and Canada. We are expected more to contribute to clusters in the mid-2020s with the aim of full CCS de- the international CCS community from the perspec- ployment in the 2030s. It is noteworthy that it states tives of Japan and also Asia. private-sector-driven CCS deployment is achievable if In a ministerial meeting held in June 2018 under the deployment is put forward as clusters and if ade- the framework of the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM), quate business models and risk allocations are identi- it was formally agreed to launch a CCUS initiative that fied. Following the publication, the government an- has been proposed by the USA in 2017. The initiative nounced an action plan regarding CCS in November plans to work on improving the awareness of CCS in 2018. The action plans is based on the task force’s the community of clean energy and activating commu- recommendations, but the number of cluster to be nications between the CCS community and the finan- commissioned in the mid-2020s is only one. This lists cial community. 19 actions, which can be categorized broadly into The mission innovation, which is an international those for commissioning the first project and those for framework with the aim of doubling public investment deploying CCS at scale in the 2030s. in clean energy R&D over five years, publicized a re- In Norway, the Industrial CCS project has been port on CCS in May 2018. The report presents priori- considered and the number of its CO2 sources was re- tized areas of innovative R&D in the four areas: CO2 duced from three to two. Its front-end engineering de- capture, storage, use and cross-cutting. The CCS sign (FEED), however, got a green light officially in the community is now required to make great efforts to de- parliament in May 2018. The project adopts a shared ploy CCS with existing technologies and also to under- infrastructure for CO2 ship transport and offshore stor- take R&D for step-change reduction in CCS costs in age. Its final invest decision is due in the fiscal 2020. order to further accelerate CCS deployment. What are often referred to as a pioneer of such shared infrastructures are CO2 pipeline networks for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the USA. In the coun- try in February 2018, a scheme of tax credits which is given in proportion to volume of CO2 geologically stored was updated to raise the values of credits to be given. Prompting multiple new CO2 capture projects to be explored, the amendment is expected to accelerate CCS deployment. (2) Highlights in CCS International Frameworks CCS shared infrastructures draw attentions glob- ally and a task force on infrastructures was formed in an international framework, the technical group of the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) in a meeting held in October 2018. What was agreed there is that the task force will review the current status of shared infrastructures and that the technical group will discuss, based on outcomes, whether to continue the task force. If its continuation is agreed, the task force will develop a plan of its activities. In the October meet- ing, there was an election of vice chairs for the techni-
41 R&D Activities⃝Inorganic Membranes Research Center ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Inorganic Membranes Research Center
[Key Members] Yuichiro Yamaguchi, Deputy Director, Chief Researcher Hidetoshi Kita, Chief Researcher Hitoshi Nishino, Chief Researcher Katsunori Yogo, Associate Chief Researcher Makoto Ryoji, Senior Researcher Hye Ryeon Lee, Researcher Masahiro Seshimo, Researcher Hajime Nakano, Researcher Shin-ichi Nakao Bo Liu, Researcher Director, Chief Researcher
Research and Development of Innovative Environmental and Energy Technologies that Use Inorganic Membranes and Efforts toward Practical Use and Industrialization
1. Introduction Division and the Industrial Collaboration Division. In Inorganic membranes, such as silica membranes the Research Division, silica membranes, zeolite mem- and zeolite membranes, have the features of heat re- branes, palladium membranes, which have superior sistance and environmental resistance, in addition to features in each, are used as the core technology for their high separation performance, and are expected to hydrogen separation, purification, and recovery. We be applicable to a variety of applications. Moreover, it are working in the research fields of the effective use of is possible to achieve significant energy savings, and CO2. In the Industrial Collaboration Division, in order to development is also being promoted for hydrogen sep- share the vision of manufacturers and user companies aration and purification applications essential for CO2 and to plan and draft collaborative research at the In- separation and recovery applications for hydrogen so- dustrialization Strategy Council, which consists of the ciety construction compared to conventional separa- inorganic separation membrane and support manufac- tion and purification methods, such as the distillation turer and 18 user companies, member companies and adsorption methods. And, it attracts a great deal of meet regularly to actively promote the work of the re- attention as an environment and energy technology search groups. that contributes to conservation of the global environ- In 2018, in the development of membrane reactor ment. However, practical application has been limited for methylcyclohexane (MCH) dehydrogenation as an to such uses as dehydration of alcohol; from now on, efficient transportation and storage technology of hy- efforts to promptly commercialize and industrialize in- drogen, we developed the silica film with the world’s novative environmental and energy technologies using highest hydrogen separation performance, and the inorganic membranes are required. seal structure between metal and ceramics. In addi- The Inorganic Membranes Research Center tion, progress was also made in efforts related to car- (IMeRC) was established in April 2016 to promote the bon capture and utilization (CCU), which was newly activities of research and development and industrial adopted as the New Energy and Industrial Technology collaboration as the bilateral aim for the early commer- Development Organization (NEDO) project. In addi- cialization and industrialization of innovative environ- tion, at the industrial strategy council, activities such as mental and energy technologies using inorganic mem- a research group for the start-up of government ex- branes. The organization comprises the Research penses business etc. are full-scale. In this paper, we
42 R&D Activities⃝Inorganic Membranes Research Center ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Fig. 1 : Energy Carrier will introduce main results of the research department chemical vapor deposition (CVD), for the purpose of such as development of MCH dehydrogenation mem- the development and commercialization of the efficient brane reactor and development of CCU technology, and stable production of highly pure hydrogen from future prospects, and activities of the industrialization methylcyclohexane for small- to medium-sized cus- strategy council. tomers, such as commercial establishments and office buildings. 2. Development of Silica Membrane Reactors for a The membrane reactor uses the principle that Hydrogen-Based Society equilibrium is shifted to the product side, and conver- The development of efficient hydrogen transporta- sion is improved when a separation membrane is in- tion and storage methods is essential for building a hy- serted into the reaction field. Since the reaction takes drogen-based society. As a promising method, the con- place under high temperature and high pressure, the cept of an energy carrier has been proposed where membrane must be durable under these conditions. hydrogen is converted into chemical hydrides that can This work is funded by NEDO as part of the Ad- be efficiently transported and stored, such as methyl- vancement of Hydrogen Technologies and Utilization cyclohexane and ammonia. Then, the chemical hy- Project for the analysis and development of hydrogen dride is transported and stored to take out the hydro- as an energy carrier and the development of a dehy- gen at the place and time where it is required. (Fig. 1) drogenation system using inorganic hydrogen separa- tion membranes for organic chemical hydrides in col- The technology for the conversion of hydrogen to laboration with Chiyoda Corporation. methylcyclohexane or ammonia has already been es- In order to improve the performance of the silica tablished as a mass production technology, but an ex- membrane, it is necessary to have high hydrogen per- traction technology for hydrogen has not yet been de- meability (H2 permeance) and not pass molecules oth- veloped as a definitive method. An excellent catalyst er than hydrogen (separation coefficient α = H2 per- for dehydrogenation has recently been developed, but meance / SF6 permeance is large), but in general, a technology for highly pure hydrogen to be supplied to permeance and the separation factor α are in a trade- a fuel cell has not yet been established. off relationship. The IMeRC developed silica mem- IMeRC develops membrane reactors using a sili- branes providing the world’s top-level performance ca membrane, which is prepared by counter-diffusion (permeance > 3.5 x 10-6 (mol / m2 sec Pa), separation
43 R&D Activities⃝Inorganic Membranes Research Center ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
factor of α 63,000) with good reproducibility by break- proceed in a compact reactor. ing down the phenomena of this tradeoff into individual In order to verify this phenomenon on an actual factors (Fig. 2). scale, we designed and fabricated a test apparatus composed of 3 x 500 mmL silica membranes (Fig. 4) and collected a variety of engineering data. As a result, it was verified that a remarkable equilibrium shift was confirmed using 500 mmL silica membranes, and a conversion rate of 95% or more, which was significant- ly higher than the equilibrium conversion rate of 42.1%, was obtained (Fig. 5).
Fig. 2 : Performance of silica membranes
In the membrane reactor study, the improvement in the reaction efficiency of the dehydrogenation reac- tion from the MCH using several silica membranes of 200-500 mm was confirmed. The mechanism is illus- trated in Fig. 3. When MCH is fed into a reaction where a hydrogen separation membrane and a catalyst are set, MCH is dehydrated into toluene and hydrogen by an equilibrium reaction, but only the generated hydro- Fig. 4 : Membrane Reactor for Silica Modules gen passes through the hydrogen separation mem- brane and is separated from the reaction field. Be- cause the product is removed from the reaction field, the reaction shifts to the product side, and the conver- sion of hydrogen production is improved. At the same time, the hydrogen passing through the separation membrane becomes high purity hydrogen that does not contain toluene, so that hydrogen purification and improvement in the reaction efficiency simultaneously
Fig. 5 : Operation result of the bench-scale membrane reactor
However, this study of the membrane reactor re- vealed the problem of sealing at the same time. In a membrane reactor, it is necessary to have airtight seals for the ceramic membranes with a metallic reactor, but since the expansion coefficient differs between metal and ceramics, rubber seals, such as O rings, have been adopted, so that the ceramics do not break. How- ever, since the reaction field is exposed to organic sol- Fig. 3 : Diagram of a tubular single membrane reactor vents of MCH and toluene at high temperature and
44 R&D Activities⃝Inorganic Membranes Research Center ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
high pressure, a durability problem was found with the Thermal power generation using coal, which is a rubber seals. natural resource offering excellent supply stability and The sealing structures were investigated, and the economic efficiency, is positioned as an important pow- module structure was developed, which provides dura- er source that will contribute 26% of the domestic elec- bility for pressure, temperature, and solvent, even at tricity supply by fiscal year 2030 in terms of the long- 300℃, and was easy to attach to and detach from the term energy supply and demand forecast. However, reactor. The developed prototype module with the coal-fired power plants emit comparatively large vol- structure is shown in Fig. 6. umes of CO2, and CO2 utilization (CCU: carbon capture and utilization) is being studied after separation and
recovery. Although large-scale processing of CO2 is dif- ficult at the present time, it is also possible to generate profits and create value by manufacturing valuable re- sources using renewable energy. In the future, it is nec- essary to use the advantages of coal-fired power gen- eration mutually by employing renewable energy in an attempt to ensure a stable supply of electricity and a
reduction in CO2 emissions in our country. Therefore, in this project, we aim to establish promising future CCU technologies in anticipation of fiscal year 2030 and beyond and can further grant in- Fig. 6 : Silica membrane module using glass binder and reactor dustrial competitiveness to Japan’s excellent clean The prototype silica module was made to bundle coal technology (CCT). We plan to establish a compre- 500 mm L × 3 silica membrane tubes using a glass hensive evaluation of CCU technologies for the effec- binder to bond the ceramics to metal with different ex- tive use of CO2 in the product manufacturing process pansion coefficients, and airtightness was confirmed at and system with the aim of establishing CCU technolo- 300℃ and 500 kPa-G. gy. We plan to develop highly stable zeolite mem- Through these studies, RITE has demonstrated branes, and investigate a membrane reactor for meth- that hydrogen generation from MCH can be designed anol synthesis. In addition, Prof. Kita (Yamaguchi compactly in a membrane reactor using a high perfor- University) works for the development of inorganic mance silica membrane on the bench scale. membranes, such as carbon membranes, and Prof. We continue to study and demonstrate the durabil- Hasebe (Kyoto University) works for process develop- ity of a silica membrane and silica module to further ment work toward the same end. accelerate the practical application. 4. Development of pure silica CHA type zeolite 3. Development of CCU Technology membrane To the end of fiscal year 2019, RITE, JFE Steel Thirty or more types of aluminosilicate zeolite Corporation, the Institute of Applied Energy (IAE), IN- membranes have been reported so far; however, pure PEX Corporation, and Hitachi Zosen Corporation col- silica zeolite membranes have only been synthesized laborate in the technological development of next gen- into LTA membranes in addition to MFI and DDR as eration thermal power generation, next generation reported. We succeeded in synthesizing two types of thermal power development of power generation infra- pure silica zeolite membranes, which were not report- structure technology, and the development of technol- ed in the past (Si-CHA membrane (RITE-1), and Si- ogy for effective utilization of CO2 as a project of NEDO. STT membranes (RITE-2), patent pending). As a result
45 R&D Activities⃝Inorganic Membranes Research Center ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
of the investigations, we found that Si-CHA zeolite support manufacturers, and user companies on April membranes having a a) three-dimensional structure, 15, 2016. b) high pore volume, and c) eight-membered oxygen As of January 2019, eighteen selective membrane ring pores could attain both water vapor resistance and and support manufacturers and user companies partic- high CO2 permeance. ipate in this Council. Our goal is to establish an inor-
As shown in Fig. 7, the CO2/CH4 separation perfor- ganic membrane industry that contributes to innovative mance of the Si-CHA membrane shows a CO2 perme- environmental and energy technologies by promoting
-6 2 ation rate of 4.0 × 10 mol/m sPa or more and a CO2/ a common vision for manufacturers and user compa-
CH4 permeation rate ratio of 100 or more. It shows bet- nies, as well as a joint research plan involving national ter separation than the previously reported zeolite projects and other initiatives. membranes. In addition, even when exposed to water To realize this goal, we are promoting various ac- vapor, there was no change in permeation perfor- tivities, which include the following: mance, and since it had water vapor resistance, it is a) Conducting needs and seeds matching meet- considered a membrane structure more suitable for ings toward the practical use of innovative envi- practical use. To further increase the separation perfor- ronmental and energy technologies that use mance of Si-CHA membranes, it will be necessary to inorganic membranes, and the establishment optimize the module structure and the method of intro- and operation of a research group in which a ducing the supply gas into the module. future roadmap will be prepared This newly developed Si-CHA membrane has high b) Planning joint implementation projects funded potential and the capability for various separation ap- by the government and NEDO plications besides CO2 separation applications. We c) Acceptance of researchers from council mem- have confirmed the usefulness as a hydrogen separa- bers into the Research Section of the IMeRC tion membrane to date. Currently, we are studying long and Implementation of training workshops modularization aiming at commercialization and the d) Offering technical guidance from the IMeRC ad- separation process using these membranes. visory board and Research Section e) Hosting exclusive technology seminars for council members f) Offering exclusive supply services (needs and seeds technology information) to council mem- bers As for the Research Group activities, we have been conducting various activities of the following three Research Groups set up in November 2016,
a) CO2 Separation Research Group b) Hydrogen Production Research Group c) Common Base (Reliability Evaluation Method) Fig. 7 : CO2/CH4 separation performance of Si-CHA membrane Research Group In fiscal 2018, we conducted deep surveys and 5. Activities and efforts toward commercialization studies through activities by both the Research Group and industrialization and its subsidiary research workshop (each Research The Industry Collaboration Section of the IMeRC Group had four to five meetings, respectively, up to the established the Industrialization Strategy Council to- end of 2018), and they are preparing for projects with gether with manufacturers of separation membranes, the goal of practical application funded by the govern-
46 R&D Activities⃝Inorganic Membranes Research Center ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
ment. Hydrogen production and common base re- researchers from two companies took part in the work- search groups are jointly aiming for projects funded by shop. They were able to examine the most advanced the government to start in FY 2019 by providing re- CVD Si membrane experiment methods and gain valu- quests for information (RFI) to NEDO. able experience. (Fig. 9) In addition, technology seminars for council mem- bers are held three times annually in which the latest R&D trends, needs, and seeds are introduced in a total of 10 lectures by IMeRC advisory board members, member companies, and the IMeRC with active dis- cussions among participants. The participants are pleased to take part in the seminars, not only because they can acquire knowledge of inorganic membranes, which is useful in promoting the practical use and in- dustrialization of the membranes, but also because Fig. 9. : Exclusive training workshop for young researchers at IMeRC they have the opportunity to interact with other frontline researchers from member companies and organiza- We also conduct patent and literature surveys re- tions. lated to the seminar lectures and periodically provide As an overseas investigation activity, we conduct- council members with needs and seeds technology in- ed a study tour of Nanjing University of China and the formation and special comments from the IMeRC in university related industrial area in May and four of the the abstract. three council member companies participated. (Fig. 8) In addition, we support the various activities of At Nanjing Tech University, we were able to deepen council members in promoting the practical use and technical exchanges with lecturers as the Japan and industrialization of inorganic membranes by providing China symposium of inorganic membranes. In the uni- a summary of remarkable lectures with RITE com- versity related industrial area, we were very impressed ments on the 15th International Conference on Inor- by China’s strong enthusiasm for industrialization of ganic Membranes (ICIM 2018), which is one of the inorganic membranes. most popular international conferences related to inor- ganic membranes.
6. In conclusion Three years have passed since the IMeRC was established, and in 2018, the organization steadily achieved results in research and development that in- volved hydrogen production, transportation and stor-
age, and the effective use of CO2. Activities toward Fig. 8 : Overseas investigation activity (Nanjing Tech University) commercialization and industrialization of research In December 2018, a two-day training workshop and development results are also full-fledged, and it was held at RITE. Lectures included an outline of can be said that the foundation as a center is solidify- RITE, membrane separation technologies, and hydro- ing. We would like to continue working diligently to be- gen separation CVD Si membrane; in addition, experi- come a core organization leading the development and mental membrane formation methods and guidance on practical application of inorganic membranes in the performance and evaluation methods for prepared world in the future. membranes were provided in the workshop. Two young
47 Topics ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Research & Coordination Group Research & Coordination Group
Environmental Education with Symposium in Kansai on Global Warming CCUS Video Game Mitigation Technology for Future Society
RITE has been conducting environmental educa- RITE annually hosts Innovative Environmental tion for younger generation, who is responsible for the Technology Symposium in Tokyo to present our latest future, through organizing workshops and engaging in research progress and achievements, and this year another symposium was held in Kansai first time in school curriculum such as accepting visits from neigh- nine years for more participation from the region. boring schools and offering guest seminars etc, where At the symposium, Prof. Yoshiyuki Shimoda, Osa- we provide lectures with science experiments and ka University, gave a special lecture on the appear- games. In 2018 summer, we organized a lecture com- ance of low-carbon urban society in the future focusing bining with a video game so that children could learn on the perspective of the energy consumption in resi- about CCUS (Carbon dioxide Capture, Utilization and dential and commercial sectors where drastic energy Storage) technology with fun. saving measures are to be taken for mitigating global warming, and then we reported the latest achieve- This video game, produced by the Global Industri- ments and future plans of our R&D activities regarding al and Social Progress Research Institute [GISPRI] (in global warming mitigation technologies. Many people collaboration with Daiko Advertising Inc.) to be exhibit- answered the event as useful according to the feed- ed at the Japan Pavilion under the theme of “Future back collected from the audience, which shows that Energy” at the International Expo 2017 held in Astana, the symposium in Kansai was a good opportunity to the capital of the Republic of Kazakhstan, introduces introduce our research activities to the people in the CCUS through animation and game. GISPRI offered region. 26 September 2018 us to use the game during the summer, and we utilized Date: Venue: Osaka Science & Technology Center (OSTEC) it in the workshops for elementary school children and Organized by RITE as a part of the programs for the junior high / high Supported by Kansai Bureau of Economy, Trade and school students who visited RITE during this period. Industry (METI-KANSAI); Kansai Economic Federa- About 140 students in total experienced the game. tion (KANKEIREN); The New Industry Research Or- The aim of the game is to collect red balls resem- ganization (NIRO); the Chemical Society of Japan (CSJ); The Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan bling CO2 by touching the screen and compete in rank- (SCEJ); Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnolo- ing according to the number of CO collected in a team. 2 gy, and Agrochemistry (JSBBA); Japan Society of The children tried playing the game again and again to Energy and Resources (JSER); the Japan Institute gather as many CO2 balls as possible and got excited of Energy (JIE) when they marked a higher ranking. We gained many Number of participants 156 favorable comments about the game from the partici- Program pants, such as “it was great to learn with fun through ・ Special lecture: Future outlook of low-carbon urban the game,” or “I enjoyed the game, which helped me society Prof. Yoshiyuki Shimoda, understand the technology called CCUS.” Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University As CCUS is generally unfamiliar to young people, ・Strategy to respond climate risks and role of counter- it is important to first let them know the name and the measure technologies based on the Paris Agreement rough idea of the technology. Therefore the video Keigo Akimoto, Group Leader, game, which includes the animated explanation of Systems Analysis Group CCUS, must have been a great help for the partici- ・Development of biorefinery production technology pants to grasp the image of CCUS. toward realization of carbon cycle society Masayuki Inui, Group Leader, Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group
・ Development of highly efficient CO2 separation and capture technologies in RITE Katsunori Yogo, Associate Chief Researcher, Chemical Research Group ・Current status and challenges for deployment of
CO2 geological storage technologies Ziqiu Xue, Group Leader,
CO2 Storage Research Group ・Activities of Inorganic Membranes Research Center to contribute to low-carbon society Yuichiro Yamaguchi, Deputy-Director, Inorganic Membranes Research Center
48 Topics ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Research & Coordination Group Systems Analysis Group
GHGT-14 Participation Report FY2017 ALPS International Symposium Toward long term, deep emissions reductions
The 14th International Conference on Greenhouse The Paris Agreement entered into force in Novem- Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-14) was held in Mel- ber 2016, establishing a new international framework bourne, Australia on October 21st - 25th 2018. The con- in which almost all nations should make efforts to re- duce GHG emissions beyond 2020 through submitting ference series are held every two years as the principal their own reduction target. As to long term efforts, each international conference on greenhouse gas mitigation nation is requested to submit its low emissions devel- technologies especially focusing on CCS. opment plan to UN by 2020, and correspondingly dis- More than a thousand delegates from around the cussions are becoming active to explore long term (be- world had active discussions on 12 themes in 71 tech- yond 2050) response strategies/measures to climate change. Under recognition of various risks of climate nical sessions. Among them, 27 sessions were about change, ALPS International Symposium was held to storage (including other storage options) and 20 were disseminate the research achievements of the project. about capture, which accounted for 70 percent of all. Lectures were presented by eminent specialists from The researchers from RITE delivered 8 oral presenta- the various viewpoints such as the necessity of net zero CO emission for a long term, the gap between tions and 9 poster presentations in either storage or 2 the future goal and the current situation, the impor- capture sessions. Also Dr. Xue, Group Leader of CO 2 tance of risk management and the necessity of techno- Storage Research Group, acted as a chairperson for logical innovation. the “Tracking the Plume in the Reservoir” storage session. Date 9 February 2018 As the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of Venue Toranomon Hills Forum (Tokyo) Organization RITE 1.5℃ had been published on October 8th just before Co-organization METI the GHGT-14, how to deal with the issue especially re- Number of participants 310 garding CCS was one of the topics of attention. Ms. Program Thelma Krug, Vice Chair of IPCC, explained in her key- ・ Toward long term, deep emission reductions -Needs note speech in the Opening Plenary that CCS would of developing sectoral ZE technologies- Yoichi Kaya, President, RITE be required along with high efficiency, electrification, ・ “Carbon Law” for deep emissions reductions and use of hydrogen and biomass and that CO2 zero emis- sustainable development sion would be impossible without CCS in cement man- Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Deputy Director General/ ufacturing etc. although it does not necessarily mean Deputy CEO, IIASA that the 1.5℃ target cannot be achieved without CCS. ・Some thoughts on global climate risks and the Paris goals Seita Emori, Chief, In the closing session “The CCS Narrative”, there were Climate Risk Assessment Research Section, NIES discussions on the importance to communicate the sig- ・The state of the global energy transition: lessons nificance of CCS to external communities. from the IEA’s World Energy Outlook The 5-day conference concluded with the an- Laura Cozzi, Head of Division, nouncement that the next GHGT-15 would be held in Energy Demand Outlook, IEA ・Misusing the Future Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates in 2020. Roger Pielke Jr., Professor, University of Colorado ・ Net-Zero Emissions: the most actionable climate target Oliver Geden, Head of EU/Europe Division, SWP ・ Techno-economic analysis of the decarbonisation of pow- er mix in Europe - and particularly in France - by 2050 Pascal Da Costa, Professor, Ecole CentraleSupelec - University Paris Saclay ・Climate change response strategy toward long-term
zero CO2 emissions Keigo Akimoto, Group Leader, Systems Analysis Group, RITE
49 Topics ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Systems Analysis Group Systems Analysis Group
International Workshop on Low- COP24 Side Event demand Scenarios Mitigation Policy Choices and
Although the Paris Agreement requires massive Levels of Effort
CO2 emissions reduction, achieving 2℃ or 1.5℃ tar- The RITE side events at COP24 in Poland were gets is extremely challenging. Actually model analyses held both in Japan Pavilion and UNFCCC side event, estimate MAC in 2100 at around 1000$/tCO2, with con- to address scientific estimates of impacts of Nationally siderable reliance on BECCS. Given that, it is extreme- Determined Contributions (NDCs) on economy and in- ly important to consider potentials of transition to a so- ternational competitiveness. ciety with lower energy demand without impairing After an introduction by Dr. Kopp of RFF, Dr. utility. Akimoto presented RITE’s analyses of comparison of In September, RITE and IIASA jointly held an in- emissions reduction in NDCs, arguing that marginal ternational workshop to discuss opportunities and abatement costs (MAC) are considerably different challenges for realizing a society with lower energy de- among nations and globally total cost is much higher mand. than ideally optimum cost due to social and political Participants from broader research fields world- constraints. He also presented the importance of NDCs wide pointed out opportunities for lowering energy de- coordination through review processes because large mand by car-sharing or ridesharing which are expect- differences among MACs may cause carbon leakage. ed to be induced by further development of IT and its Speakers including Mr. Sieminski (KAPSARC), Dr. Flannery (RFF), Mr. Tezuka (KEIDANREN), Ms. Takeu- expansion, as well as for reducing GHG emissions chi (IEEI), and Prof. Arima (the University of Tokyo) throughout the entire course from supply to consump- pointed out the poor reality of high carbon pricing, im- tion of food. Discussion indicated considerable poten- portance of emissions reduction from product usage in tials for transition to lower energy services and accom- Global Value Chain, cultivation of conditions for busi- panying emissions decrease, thus need for researches nesses to invest, and importance of various technology focusing on technologies and actions in the demand development or innovation. side. Date 11 December 2018 Summary of the workshop was uploaded at a Jap- Venue COP24 Japan Pavilion anese official website for the Talanoa Dialogue “Tala- Organization RITE noa Japan”, introducing RITE’s research effort to Co-organization RFF achieve the long-term goal of the Paris Agreement.
Date September 25 to 27, 2018 Venue Todaiji Culture Center (Nara) Number of Participants 21
Date 13 December 2018 Venue COP24 UNFCCC side event Organization RITE, RFF
50 Topics ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group
BioJapan 2018
The World Business Forum “BioJapan 2018” was held at PACIFICO Yokohama on October 10-12, 2018, and it was jointly conducted with Regenerative Medicine JAPAN 2018 for the third consecutive year. The number of visitors was 15,133 in 2016, 15,711 in 2017, and 16,309 in 2018, the latter of which was the largest ever number of attend- ees. RITE had a joint booth at the exhibition in collaboration with Green Chemicals Co., Ltd.# (GCC). #Green Phenol Development Co., Ltd. (GPD) changed its trade name to Green Chemicals Co., Ltd. on April 1, 2018.
1. In the booth, we introduced our key technologies, as 100% green jet fuel well as our current projects funded by METI and 6) Industrialization of RITE Bioprocess NEDO. We also explained the activities of Green 7) Green Chemicals Co., Ltd. (GCC) Earth Institute Co., Ltd. (GEI), giving examples of 8) New trends for biotechnological production of the commercial uses of the RITE Bioprocess, and green-aromatic compounds technologies to produce green-aromatic com- pounds, together with our introduction to GCC. We 2. We also had exhibits that included various samples displayed the following posters in the exhibition and pictures, such as several types of non-food booth. biomass; amino acids, such as L-alanine and 1) RITE Bioprocess, a key technology for biorefin- L-valine that are commercial products made by ery from non-food biomass GEI using the RITE Bioprocess; GEI’s ethanol for 2) “Smart Cell” project cosmetics; and green phenolic moldings from 3) R&D of biohydrogen production GCC. 4) R&D of bio-butanol production We would like to extend our appreciation to those 5) R&D for a novel bioprocess for production of who attended this event and visited our booth.
51 Topics ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group
Participation in Cross-ministerial Strategic Collaboration with the JAL Innovation Promotion Program (SIP) biojet fuel flight project
SIP is a national project for science, technology, Aviation is responsible for 2% of worldwide anthro- and innovation, spearheaded by the Council for Sci- pogenic CO2 emissions. Since it is difficult to replace ence, Technology and Innovation as it exercises its pri- jet fuel with electricity, biojet fuel made from non-food mary function to accomplish its role in leading science, biomass as a raw material is expected to contribute to technology, and innovation beyond the framework of solving the global warming problem without causing government ministries and traditional disciplines. food shortages. Given these circumstances, RITE be- In this project, we will develop informatics-based gan technical cooperation with the Japan Airlines Co., technology to accelerate the development of innova- Ltd. (JAL) project “Let’s fly with 100,000 used clothes!” tive biomaterials and highly functional polymers. Tradi- in October 2018. tionally, desirable “polymer properties” were obtained This project aims to produce biojet fuel from used by trial and error, but the “biopolymer materials infor- clothes collected from across the country by JAL and matics” (BPMI) approach that will be developed in this JEPLAN, INC. Ltd. In 2020, JAL aims to launch a char- project enables the presentation of biomonomers and ter flight using this biojet fuel. The Green Earth Institute design of new, artificial metabolic pathway by reverse Co., Ltd., which was established in 2011 for industrial- engineering from desired polymer properties. Further- ization of RITE Bioprocess, is participating in this proj- more, through the creation and evaluation of key ect and is responsible for the production of isobutanol high-activity enzymes and the development of bio- from cotton fibers in used clothes, and for producing monomer-producing strains, we aim to realize efficient biojet fuel conforming to international standard ASTM bioproduction with a shorter development time of about D7566 Annex 5. a quarter of the time taken using conventional meth- Corynebacterium glutamicum R, which was devel- ods. oped by RITE, is a key component in the production of isobutanol. It is possible to use the RITE Bioprocess® to efficiently produce isobutanol from sugars after the saccharification of used cotton fibers, which is an inno- vative bioprocess invented by RITE.
Development of informatics-based technology to accelerate development of innovative biomaterials / highly functional polymers by SIP
52 Topics ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Chemical Research Group Chemical Research Group
th Win the 7 Award of Japan Society 8th Symposium for Innovative CO2 of Energy and Resources Membrane Separation Technology
Dr. Katsunori Yogo and Dr. Hidetaka Yamada won The Molecular Gate Membrane module Technolo- the seventh Award of the Japan Society of Energy and gy Research Association (MGMTRA) is conducting a Resources with their collaborators from Kawasaki project entrusted by NEDO to develop a low-cost inno-
Heavy Industries, Ltd., (KHI) for the study on the ener- vative CO2 separation membrane for high-pressured gy-saving CO2 capture system. This award is given to gas from IGCC. In this symposium, lectures were given researchers who have made remarkable achievements on the recent results of CO2 separation membrane in the development, analysis, and investigation of tech- technologies by MGMTRA along with an overview of nologies and systems that contribute to the progress of the CO2 separation technologies overseas. A total of the academic fields of energy, resources, and the envi- 179 people attended, including government, university, ronment. and company officials.
For conventional CO2 capture technologies using Date: Friday, January 18, 2019 aqueous amine solvents, CO2-loaded solvents are Place: Ito hall, The University of Tokyo heated above 100℃ for regeneration. Thus, the pro- Program: cess operation requires a lot of energy. The solid sor- < Plenary lecture > bent method developed by the winners realizes signifi- ・ ”On the goal of global warming mitigation” Prof. Yoi- cant energy savings by using amine-modified porous chi Kaya PhD, President of RITE materials with low specific heat when compared to the < Invited lecture > conventional solvent method. Furthermore, a novel ・ ”New Amine-Based Membranes for Post- and amine invented by RITE makes it possible to use waste Pre-Combustion CO2 Capture “ Prof. W.S. Winston heat of ca. 60℃ because of its high ability even at low Ho, The Ohio State University temperature. ・ ”CO2 capture with membranes : lessons learned Currently, RITE’s solid sorbent is applied to KHI’s from field trials in the USA “ Dr. Tim Merkel, Mem- moving-bed system. So far, a capture amount exceed- brane Technology and Research, Inc. Vice President ing 5 t per day has been achieved by using 60℃ steam of Technology and KHI’s bench-scale plant equipped with the coal ・ ”On the progress of field testing of Osaki CoolGen combustion furnace. By steadily demonstrating the en- oxygen-blown IGCC with CO2 capture” Mr. Kenji ergy-saving CO2 capture system using low-tempera- Aiso, President of Osaki CoolGen Corporation ture waste heat that we developed, it is expected that < Lecture > the CCS cost will be greatly reduced, leading to early ・ ”On R&D of next-generation membrane modules by CCS deployment. MGMTRA” Prof. Shin-ichi Nakao PhD, Senior Man- aging Director of MGMTRA
・ “Latest trend in CO2 separation technologies over- seas” Dr. Teruhiko Kai, MGMTRA
53 Topics ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
CO2 Storage Research Group CO2 Storage Research Group
License Agreement with Junlun Petroleum Company on CCS Technical Workshop 2019 a Patent Technology for Microbubble CO2 Injection
At the 12th Japan-China Energy Conservation In the CCS Technical Workshop 2019, our invited and Environment Forum held in Beijing in November international experts shared their expertise on the cur- 2018, RITE and Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd concluded a li- rent status of CCS policies and regulations and up-to- cense agreement on our developed-microbubble CO2 date risk assessments on CO2 leakage and microseis- injection technology with Junlun Petroleum Company, micity in the context of public perception There was Chinese technology service company for oil produc- also a presentation to update the status of R&D in the tion. Geological Carbon Dioxide Storage Technology Re- search Association (GCS).
Date 16 January 2019 Venue Toranomon Hills Forum (Tokyo) Organization Geological Carbon Dioxide Storage Technology Research Association (GCS) Co-organization Ministry of Economy, Trade and in- dustry / New Energy and Industrial Technology In depleted oilfields, a new technique called Development Organization (NEDO)
CO2-EOR（Enhanced Oil Recovery） is occasionally Number of Participants 362 applied to increase oil recovery by injecting large vol- ume of CO2 into oil formations to improve the mobility Program of oil. The technology licensed in the agreement has ・ Talk1: Current States of Legislation and Regulation the potential of having higher oil recovery because it is on CCS to inject CO2 as microbubbles, which potentially enter Tim Dixon, IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme low-permeability oil formations. ・ Talk2: CO2 Risk Assessment on Leakage at CO2 Junlun Petroleum Company has high-level tech- Storage Site nologies for heavy oil production and operates busi- Katherine Romanak, ness with China National Petroleum Corporation The University of Texas at Austin (CNPC) in the area, but faces difficulties in oil produc- ・ Talk3: Progress and Challenges in Risk Manage- tion in low permeability oilfields. Applying the patent ment at CCS Sites: US Perspective technology to such oilfields, the company plans to in- Joshua White, crease oil production in China. Wider deployment of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
CO2-EOR through the technology licensing will contrib- ・ Talk4: Developments on Microseismic Monitoring ute to the reduction of CO2 emissions and the mitiga- and Risk Assessment of Large-scale CO2 Storage tion of the global warming. Bettina Goertz-Allmann, NORSAR ・ Talk5: Progress of R&D in the Geological Carbon Di- oxide Storage Technology Research Association (GCS) Ziqiu Xue, GCS, Japan
Schematic diagram of CO2-EOR
54 Topics ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Inorganic Membranes Research Center Inorganic Membranes Research Center
Highly Functional Ceramics Expo Inorganic Membrane Environment and Energy Technology Symposium to Explore the Future
The third Highly Functional Ceramics Expo, orga- This symposium focused on the latest trends in nized by Reed Exhibitions Japan Ltd., was held at hydrogen energy uses and inorganic membranes and Makuhari Messe from 5-7 December 2018. We intro- efforts to put it into practical use, lectures by NEDO, duced the R&D activities of RITE by showing samples universities and companies, as well as the latest re- and models of inorganic membranes (silica, palladium, search by the IMeRC. We introduced the results and and zeolite membranes) that are currently being stud- efforts of the Industrialization Strategy Council as an ied by the IMeRC. We also introduced the Industrializa- opportunity to think about promoting the development tion Strategy Council and our other efforts to put inno- of innovative environmental and energy technologies vative environmental and energy technologies using inorganic membranes and creating the inorganic employing inorganic membranes into practical and in- membrane industry together with participants. dustrial use. Over 130 people, including potential user We received favorable comments from visitors, companies, came to the RITE booth and discussed the such as “I understood the international trend of inor- use and advantages of inorganic membranes when ganic membranes, and I realized that they are practical applying the ordinary process. We will put the opinions technologies in the near future.” of the attendees to good use in future R&D activities and in strengthening industrial collaborations. Finally, Program we would like to thank all visitors for coming. ・ Keynote Lecture ①: The latest trend in hydrogen en- ergy utilization Daishu Hara, Director, Advanced Battery and Hy- drogen Technology Department, Fuel Cell and Hy- drogen Technology Group, NEDO ・ Lecture ①: Development Status of SOFC toward the commercialization in the market Kazuo Ieyama, Executive Officer, Business and Product Department, Hitachi Zosen Corporation ・ Keynote lecture ②: Present state and new develop- ment of nano / subnano porous silica membrane RITE exhibition booth Toshinori Tsuru, Professor, Hiroshima University Graduate School of Engineering ・ Lecture ②: Feature and application of high silica CHA type zeolite membrane Takahiko Takewaki, Principal Scientist,
Symposium Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation Yokohama R&D Center ・ Activity report: Research results of inorganic mem- brane research center and plan for the future Shin-ichi Nakao, Director, IMReC, RITE
55 Outreach Activities ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
In order to introduce the recent achievements of our research and development and also to promote the collab- oration among industry, government and academia, RITE is providing the most advanced information for mitigating global warming through symposiums and various media. In addition, we actively engage in environmental education activities on global warming issue targeting students from elementary school to high school mainly in the Keihanna district where RITE is located.
Symposiums
Date Symposium Description Related Dept.
CCS Technical Workshop ・Venue: Iino Hall CO Storage 23 Jan. 2018 2 ・Organizer: Geological Carbon Dioxide Storage Technology Research Association (GCS) Research Group ・Number of participants: 320
FY2017 ALPS International Symposium ・Venue: Toranomon Hills Forum Systems Analysis 9 Feb. 2018 ・Organizer: RITE Group ・Number of participants: 310
7th Symposium for Innovative CO2 Membrane Separation Technology ・Venue: Ito Hall Chemical 13 Feb. 2018 ・Organizer: Molecular Gate Membrane module Technology Research Research Group Association (MGMTRA) ・Number of participants: 179
Symposium in Kansai on Global Warming Mitigation Technology for Future Society Research & 26 Sep. 2018 ・Venue: Osaka Science & Technology Center Coordination ・Organizer: RITE Group ・Number of participants: 156
Inorganic Membrane Environment and Energy Technology Symposium to Explore the Future Inorganic 6 Nov. 2018 ・Venue: Ito Hall Membranes ・Organizer: RITE Research Center ・Number of participants: 136
Innovative Environmental Technology Symposium 2018 Research & ・Venue: Ito Hall 19 Dec. 2018 Coordination ・Organizer: RITE Group ・Number of participants: 430
CCS Technical Workshop 2019 ・Venue: Toranomon Hills Forum CO Storage 16 Jan. 2019 ・Organizer: Geological Carbon Dioxide Storage Technology Research 2 Research Group Association (GCS) ・Number of participants: 362
8th Symposium for Innovative CO2 Membrane Separation Technology ・Venue: Ito Hall Chemical 18 Jan. 2019 ・Organizer: Molecular Gate Membrane module Technology Research Research Group Association (MGMTRA) ・Number of participants: 179
56 Outreach Activities ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Exhibitions
Dates Event Description Related Dept.
Molecular Microbiology 10-12 Oct. BioJapan 2018 ・Venue: Pacifico Yokohama and Biotechnology 2018 ・Organizer: BioJapan Organizing Committee, JTB Communication Design, Inc. Group
3rd Highly Functional Ceramics Expo 5-7 Dec. Inorganic Membranes ・Venue: Makuhari Messe 2018 Research Center ・Organizer: Reed Exhibitions Japan Ltd.,
Press Releases
Date Title
5 Jan. 2018 Announcement of ALPS International Symposium
3 Jul. 2018 Announcement of Symposium in Kansai on Global Warming Mitigation Technology for Future Society
7 Sep. 2018 Announcement of Inorganic Membrane Environment and Energy Technology Symposium to Explore the Future
26 Oct. 2018 Announcement of Innovative Environmental Technology Symposium 2018
15 Nov. 2018 Announcement of CCS Technical Workshop2019
15 Nov. 2018 Announcement of 8th Symposium for Innovative CO2 Membrane Separation Technology
28 Nov. 2018 License Agreement with Junlun Petroleum Company on a Patent Technology for Microbubble CO2 Injection
Environmental Education
◇Facility Visit Program and Lecture Number of Date Place Participants participants
18 Jan. RITE Seikaminami Junior High School 5 29 Jan. RITE Kizugawadai Elementary School 37 20 Feb. Seikaminami Junior High School Seikaminami Junior High School 54 22 Mar. RITE Nara Prefectural Institute for Educational Research, Career Seminar for High School Students 3 1 May RITE Narakita High School 39 18 May RITE Seika Junior High School 11 13 Jul. RITE Tezukayama Junior High School 25 3 Aug. RITE Nishimaizuru High School 40 27 Aug. RITE Todaijigakuen Junior High School 27 27 Aug. RITE Kaisei Junior & Senior High School, Chemistry Club 33 27 Sep. RITE Naragakuen Tomigaoka Junior High School 11 9 Oct. Suzaku Daiyon Elementary School Suzaku Daiyon Elementary School 48 18 Oct. RITE MASUDA Senior High School 21 16 Nov. RITE Seikanishi Junior High School 6
◇Workshop and Exhibition Number of Date Place Title participants
3 Feb. Keihanna-Plaza KEIHANNA Science Festival 2018 Jul. - Aug. RITE Global Warming and CCS Study Workshop “Experiment and Game” 59
57 2018 Paper, Presentation and Publication ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Directors・Research & Coordination Group Other Paper Title Researchers Journal The Japan Journal, MAY/JUNE, pp.24-25, 1 Climate Pledges: The Need for Greater Transparency Mitsutsune Yamaguchi 2018 Issues Concerning the Paris Agreement on Global Warming: Limitations of Negative Emissions Discuss Japan̶Japan Foreign Policy 2 Y. Kaya and M. Yamaguchi Dependence̶ Make Zero Emissions the Guiding Forum, No.50, 2018 Principle
Oral Presentation (International Academic Society) Title Researchers Forum 14th International Conference on Development of Educational Materials and Programs Naoko Onishi, Nami Tatsumi, Satoshi Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies 1 for Public Outreach of CCS Nakamura and Yoshinori Aoki. (GHGT-14), Melbourne, Australia October 21-26, 2018
Oral Presentation (Domestic Academic Society) Title Researchers Forum The 23rd Annual Meeting of Society for A Proposal for climate change strategies up to and after 1 M. Yamaguchi Environmental Economics and Policy 2030 from short and mid-long term perspectives Studies, Sep. 8, 2018
Systems Analysis Group Original Paper Title Researchers Journal A global analysis of residential heating and cooling Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for K. Gi, F. Sano, A. Hayashi, T. Tomoda, 1 service demand and cost-effective energy consumption Global Change, Vol. 23, Issue1, pp. 51-79, K. Akimoto under different climate change scenarios up to 2050 Jan. 2018 Low-carbon investments from the perspective of electric Utilities Policy, Vol. 51, pp. 18-32, April 2 B. Shoai-Tehrani, K. Akimoto, F. Sano utilities: The burden of the past 2018 A model-based analysis on energy systems transition Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for 3 for climate change mitigation and ambient particulate K. Gi, F. Sano, A. Hayashi, K. Akimoto Global Change, Published online Apr. 2, matter 2.5 concentration reduction 2018
An Analysis on Global Energy-Related CO2 Emission Reduction and Energy Systems by Current Climate and K. Gi, F. Sano, T. Homma, J. Oda, A. Journal of the Japan Institute of Energy, 4 Energy Policies and the Nationally Determined Hayashi, K. Akimoto Vol. 97, pp. 135-146, 2018 Contributions N. Bauer, S. K. Rose, S. Fujimori, D. P. van Vuuren, J. Weyant, M. Wise, Y. Cui, Global energy sector emission reductions and V. Daioglou, M. J. Gidden, E. Kato, A. Climatic Change, Published online July 2, 5 bioenergy use: overview of the bioenergy demand Kitous, F. Leblanc, R. Sands, F. Sano, J. 2018 phase of the EMF-33 model comparison Strefler, J. Tsutsui, R. Bibas, O. Fricko, T. Hasegawa, D. Klein, A. Kurosawa, S. Mima, M. Muratori GHG emission pathways until 2300 for the 1.5℃ Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for 6 temperature rise target and the mitigation costs K. Akimoto, F. Sano, T. Tomoda Global Change, Vol. 23, No. 6, August achieving the pathways 2018 Next step in geoengineering scenario research: M. Sugiyama, Y. Arino, T. Kosugi, A. Climate Policy, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp 681-689, 7 Restrained deployment scenarios and beyond Kurosawa, S. Watanabe 2018 D. L. McCollum, C. Wilson, M. Bevione, S. Carrara, O. Y. Edelenbosch, J. Emmerling , C. Guivarch, P. Interaction of consumer preferences and climate 8 Karkatsoulis, I. Keppo, V. Krey, Z. Lin, E. Nature Energy 3, pp. 664-673, 2018 policies in the global transition to low-carbon vehicles O Broin, L. Paroussos, H. Pettifor, K. Ramea, K. Riahi, F. Sano, B. S. Rodrigues, D. P. van Vuuren Changes in terrestrial water stress and contributions of Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for A. Hayashi, F. Sano, Y. Nakagami, K. 9 major factors under temperature rise constraint Global Change, Vol.23 No.8, pp. 1179- Akimoto scenarios 1205, December 2018
Oral Presentation (International Academic Society) Title Researchers Forum Ex-post evaluation of cost effectiveness of residential Grand Renewable Energy 2018 1 solar PV diffusion policy in Japan: The case of feed-in Y. Arino (GRE2018), Jun. 19, 2018, Japan tariff An analysis of large-scale supply cost of energy crops Grand Renewable Energy 2018 2 A. Hayashi, F. Sano, K. Akimoto under climate change scenarios (GRE2018), Jun. 21, 2018, Japan 58 2018 Paper, Presentation and Publication ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Systems Analysis Group
Title Researchers Forum WCERE 2018 - 6th World Congress of Evaluations on emission reduction efforts of NDCs and K. Akimoto, T. Homma, F. Sano, 3 Environmental and Resource Economists, their economic impacts by sector B. Shoai-Tehrani Jun. 26, 2018, Sweden 14th International Conference on Toward a strategic design of the CCS demonstration Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies 4 N. Wang, K. Akimoto projects: A statistical approach (GHGT-14), Melbourne, Australia October 21-26, 2018 Contribution of fusion energy to low-carbon K. Gi, F. Sano, K. Akimoto, R. 27th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, Oct. 5 development under the Paris Agreement and Hiwatari, K. Tobita 24, 2018, India accompanying uncertainties ICUE2018 on Green Energy for T. Nagata, Y. Arino, Y. Nakano, K. 6 Assessment of Equity of Feed-in Tariff in Japan Sustainable Development, Oct. 24, 2018, Akimoto Thailand The interplay of climate policy and electric sector 6th IAEE Asian Conference, Nov. 3, 2018, 7 deregulation: the perspective of firm’s investment N. Wang, K. Akimoto China strategy in renewable energy Alternative pathways for deep emission reductions with IAMC annual meeting, Nov. 13-15, 2018, 8 low energy demands and low carbon prices considering K. Akimoto, F. Sano, K. Gi Spain a car- and ride-sharing society
Oral Presentation (Domestic Academic Society) Title Researchers Forum T. Nagata, Y. Arino, Y. Nakano, K. The 34th Conference on Energy, Economy, 1 Assessment of Equity of Feed-in Tariff Akimoto and Environment, Jan. 25, 2018 An Impact Analysis of Subsidizing Program for Energy- Y. Nakano, K. Akimoto, T. Nagata, Y. The 34th Conference on Energy, Economy, 2 Efficient Housing by the Income Groups Arino and Environment, Jan. 25, 2018 Economic Analysis on climate change impacts and T. Homma, Y. Arino, A. Hayashi, M. The 34th Conference on Energy, Economy, 3 adaptation considering coastal and agricultural sectors Nagashima, K. Akimoto and Environment, Jan. 26, 2018 Evaluations on Contributions through Diffusions and K. Akimoto, T. Homma, F. Sano, J. The 34th Conference on Energy, Economy, 4 Deployments of Environmentally-friendly Products to Oda and Environment, Jan. 26, 2018 Global CO2 Emission Reductions A Consideration of Service Demand in Terms of Time K. Gi, K. Akimoto, F. Sano, T. Homma, The 34th Conference on Energy, Economy, 5 Use Consumption J. Oda and Environment, Jan. 26, 2018 Assessment of Concentrated Solar Power Generation B. Shoai-Tehrani, K. Akimoto, F. Sano, The 34th Conference on Energy, Economy, 6 with World Energy Model DNE21+ N. Nakamura and Environment, Jan. 26, 2018 Evaluation of Steel Product Trade Elasticity of The 34th Conference on Energy, Economy, 7 J. Oda, T. Homma, K. Akimoto Substitution and Environment, Jan. 26, 2018 A Bottom-up End-use Model for Myanmar Regional The 34th Conference on Energy, Economy, 8 N. Wang, J. Oda, K. Akimoto Residential Electricity Demand and Environment, Jan. 26, 2018 Support to developing countries under the Paris The 34th Conference on Energy, Economy, 9 K. Wada Agreement and Environment, Jan. 26, 2018 Assessment of the Effective Allocation of Climate M. Nagashima, F. Sano, K. Akimoto, The 34th Conference on Energy, Economy, 10 Finance for Mitigation K. Gi and Environment, Jan. 26, 2018 An Analysis on Land-Use Change and Food Access A. Hayashi, F. Sano, T. Homma, K. The 34th Conference on Energy, Economy, 11 Under Scenarios for Long-term-temperature Targets Akimoto and Environment, Jan. 26, 2018 Potential estimates of renewable energy based on GIS N. Nakamura, F. Sano, K. Akimoto, B. The 34th Conference on Energy, Economy, 12 data for a world energy system model Shoai-Tehrani, K. Gi and Environment, Jan. 26, 2018 The 34th Conference on Energy, Economy, 13 A Study on diffusion of Sharing Economy in Mobility F. Sano, K. Akimoto, J. Oda, K. Gi and Environment, Jan. 26, 2018 Strategies of Energy and Global Warming Response 12th Joint Conference on Fusion Energy, 14 K. Akimoto Measures and the Roles of Fusion Energy Jun.28, 2018 An analysis of development targets of fusion energy K. Gi, F. Sano, K. Akimoto, R. 12th Joint Conference on Fusion Energy, 15 under the Paris Agreement Hiwatari, K. Tobita Jun. 28, 2018 Global energy prospects: Social landscape and 12th Joint Conference on Fusion Energy, 16 K. Gi technology development Jun.29, 2018 Analyses of effects of volatility in electricity wholesale 17 J. Oda, Y. Nakano, K. Akimoto JAROS2018, Dec. 2, 2018 prices on investment in power plant
Other Oral Presentation and Non-Journal Publication Title Researchers Magazine, Newspaper, etc. Seminar for workshop for women on daily 1 Let's learn more on energy K. Akimoto environmental issues in Takayama, Jan. 13, 2018
59 2018 Paper, Presentation and Publication ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Systems Analysis Group
Title Researchers Magazine, Newspaper, etc. Countermeasure scenario on energy based on Japan Atomic Energy Commission regular 2 K. Akimoto uncertainties of socioeconomy and climate change meeting, Jan. 30, 2018 Japan-Brazil Joint Workshop "Towards Evaluation of Relationship between Embodied Energy Sustainable Urban Energy Systems: 3 J. Oda, K. Akimoto and Transport Energy of Cities in Japan Experiences from Asia and Latin America", Feb. 2, 2018 International Symposium-Prospect of Long-term strategy toward deep emission reductions 4 K. Akimoto Decarbonization after the Paris Agreement, under several kinds of uncertainties Feb. 8, 2018 Climate change response strategy toward long-term ALPS International Symposium, Feb, 9, 5 K. Akimoto zero CO2 emissions 2018 National and international situation regarding Basic ANRE regional information exchanging 6 K. Akimoto Energy Plan and discussion about its revision program workshop, Feb. 15, 2018 Differences among emission reduction costs due to 7 K. Akimoto Scenario initiative meeting, Feb. 20, 2018 uncertainties of climate projection Integrated Research Program for Differences among emission reduction costs due to 8 K. Akimoto Advancing Climate Models (TOUGOU), uncertainties of climate projection Mar. 8, 2018 Industrial policy committee of the Progress and issues on long-term global warming Federation of Electric Power Related 9 K. Akimoto countermeasures and energy policies Industry Worker's Unions of Japan, Mar. 27, 2018 The 72nd TECUSE Study Meeting, Apr. 18, 10 Outcomes of CTCN advisory committee and TEC K. Wada 2018 TPES (Tokyo Professional Energy 11 A study on the scenario of progress in sharing economy F. Sano Seminar), Apr. 20, 2018 A position of LNG towards long-term emission reduction Plenary meeting of Tokai-Hokuriku Division, 12 K. Akimoto and trends in policies for energy and global warming Japan Gas Association, May 15, 2018 Energy chain WG, Research Institute for Advanced Network Technology, Advanced Trends of energy consumption and CO reduction in 13 2 J. Oda Collaborative Research Organization for industry sector: focused on iron and cement sectors Smart Society, Waseda University, May 17, 2018 The 73rd TECUSE Study Meeting, May 23, 14 Talanoa Dialogue K. Wada 2018 Round-table conference on energy policy, 15 Direction of the 5th Basic Energy plan K. Akimoto Japan Society of Energy and Resources, May 29, 2018 Strategies of Japanese steel sector for the contribution the 233rd Nishiyama memorial lectures of 16 K. Akimoto, J. Oda of worldwide reduction of CO2 emissions technology, Jun. 7, 2018 Strategies of Japanese steel sector for the contribution the 234th Nishiyama memorial lectures of 17 J. Oda, K. Akimoto of worldwide reduction of CO2 emissions technology, Jun. 21, 2018 Chapter 2: The Paradoxes of the European Energy Towards a Sustainable Economy, July 18 Market Regulation: A Historical and Structural Analysis B. Shoai-Tehrani, P. da Costa 2018 of the Electricity Mix Scenario analysis for developing long-term low 19 K. Akimoto RITE Association Meeting, Jul. 6, 2018 emission development strategy Society for scientific study on renewable An economic assessment of renewable energies and 20 K. Akimoto energy and public policy of the University their issues of Tokyo, Jul. 11, 2018 The 5th Energy and Environment Committee of the Japan Chamber of An assessment of the 5th Strategic Energy Plan, its 21 K. Akimoto Commerce and Industry/the Tokyo impact on SME and required measures Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Jul. 11, 2018 Saga Prefectural Government, Aug. 30, 22 The 5th Strategic Energy Plan K. Akimoto 2018 Workshop for women "weather tomorrow, 23 Global warming and energy strategy K. Akimoto future earth", Sep. 20, 2018 Symposium on technologies for global Strategy for responding to climate risk under Paris 24 K. Akimoto warming countermeasures towards future Agreement and roles of various mitigation technologies society in Kansai, Sep. 26, 2018 A Consideration of Service Demand in Terms of Time Rethinking Energy Demand Discussion 25 Budgets: A case study of passenger travel demand in K. Gi Workshop, Sep. 26, 2018 Japan 60 2018 Paper, Presentation and Publication ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Systems Analysis Group
Title Researchers Magazine, Newspaper, etc. Keynote seminar in Advanced energy The 5th Strategic Energy Plan and future measures of 26 K. Akimoto technology exhibition, 2018 Eco- energy and global warming technology exhibition, Oct. 10, 2018 27 The 5th Strategic Energy Plan K. Akimoto CCS Forum, Oct. 12, 2018 Outline of RITE Global model for energy and climate 28 change mitigation, and economic assessment of CCS F. Sano CCS Forum, Oct. 12, 2018 under various scenarios 430th Forum on Research Works, The 29 Comments based on IEEJ Outlook 2019 K. Akimoto Institute of Energy Economics, Japan, Oct. 15, 2018 Liaison council for affiliate organizations of 30 The 5th Strategic Energy Plan K. Akimoto nuclear fuel tax, Nov. 1, 2018 The 78th TECUSE Study Meeting, Nov. 21, 31 IPCC 1.5℃ Special Report K. Wada 2018 Tokai University Shizuoka Shoyo Senior 32 Science technology, energy and global warming issues K. Akimoto High School, Nov. 22, 2018 Trends and the future of global warming policies under The Japan Society of Industrial Machinery 33 K. Akimoto the Paris Agreement Manufacturers, Nov. 26, 2018 Chronological Environmental Tables 34 Chapter 10 Industry & living Environment (Editor) K. Gi, K. Akimoto 2019-2020, Maruzen Publishing, Nov. 30, 2018 Evaluations on Emission Reduction Efforts of NDCs for COP24 Japan Pavilion side event, Dec. 11, 35 K. Akimoto, T. Homma, F. Sano Sustainable Measures Responding to Climate Change 2018, Poland Evaluations on Emission Reduction Efforts of NDCs COP24 UNFCCC official side event, Dec. 36 and the Implications of Global Effectiveness on Climate K. Akimoto, T. Homma, F. Sano 13, 2018, Poland Change Mitigation Seminar on weather anomalies and 37 Global warming and energy K. Akimoto environmental issues, Dec. 18, 2018 Potentials of low-energy demand and its impact on Innovative Environmental Technology 38 K. Akimoto global warming countermeasures Symposium 2018, Dec. 19, 2018 39 Summary of IPCC 1.5℃ Special Report and COP24 K. Wada JMIP Workshop, Dec. 21, 2018
Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group Original Paper Title Researchers Journal Production of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid by an aerobic Y. Kitade, R. Hashimoto, M. Suda, K. Appl. Environ. Microbiol., Vol.84, e02587- 1 growth-arrested bioprocess using metabolically Hiraga, M. Inui 17, 2018 engineered Corynebacterium glutamicum Efficient construction of xenogeneic genomic libraries J. Microbiol. Methods., Vol.146, pp.13-15, 2 by circumventing restriction-modification systems that S. Hasegawa, T. Jojima, M. Inui 2018 restrict methylated DNA Glutamine-rich toxic proteins GrtA, GrtB and GrtC together with the antisense RNA AsgR constitute a 3 T. Maeda, Y. Tanaka, M. Inui Mol. Microbiol., Vol.108, pp.578-594, 2018 toxin-antitoxin-like system in Corynebacterium glutamicum Development of green chemical production technology 4 M. Inui BioPla Journal, Vol.17, pp.15-19, 2018 to realize a low carbon society Development of biofuel & green chemical production Society of Biomass Utilization, Vol.19, 5 M. Inui technologies to realize a low carbon society pp.25-34, 2018 Smart Cell Industry -Prospect of Bio-Based Strategies for metabolic engineering of Corynebacterium K. Toyoda, T. Kubota, T. Kogure, M. Material Production Using Microbial Cells-, 6 glutamicum on the comprehensive analyses Inui CMC Publishing Co.,Ltd., pp.183-188, 2018 Recent advances in metabolic engineering of Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol., Vol.102, 7 Corynebacterium glutamicum for bioproduction of T. Kogure, M. Inui pp.8685-8705, 2018 (Mini-Review) value-added aromatic chemicals and natural products Bioproduction of aromatic compounds by Agricultural Biotechnology, Vol.27, 8 T. Kubota, M. Inui Corynebacterium glutamicum pp.38-40, 2018 Enhanced production of D-lactate from mixed sugars in Corynebacterium glutamicum by overexpression of Y. Tsuge, N. Kato, S. Yamamoto, M. 9 J. Biosci. Bioeng. (in press) glycolytic genes encoding phosphofructokinase and Suda, M. Inui triosephosphate isomerase
61 2018 Paper, Presentation and Publication ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group
Title Researchers Journal Introduction of the glyoxylate bypass increases 10 hydrogen gas yield from acetate and L-glutamate in T. Shimizu, H. Teramoto, M. Inui Appl. Environ. Microbiol. (in press) Rhodobacter sphaeroides
Oral Presentation (International Academic Society) Title Researchers Forum Mutation analysis of an ECF sigma factor-dependent The 43rd FEBS CONGRESS, Jul. 7-12, 1 Koichi Toyoda, Masayuki Inui promoter in Corynebacterium glutamicum 2018
Oral Presentation (Domestic Academic Society) Title Researchers Forum The 2018 Annual Meeting of The Japan Regulation of cspA gene expression in 1 Yuya Tanaka, Masayuki Inui Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology and Corynebacterium glutamicum Agrochemistry, Mar. 16-18, 2018 The 2018 Annual Meeting of The Japan Identification of the σD regulon in Corynebacterium 2 Koichi Toyoda, Masayuki Inui Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology and glutamicum Agrochemistry, Mar. 16-18, 2018 The 2018 Annual Meeting of The Japan Improvement of H yield from acetate by metabolic Tetsu Shimizu, Haruhiko Teramoto, 3 2 Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology and engineering of Rhodobacter sphaeroides Masayuki Inui Agrochemistry, Mar. 16-18, 2018 The 2018 Annual Meeting of The Japan Aptitude analysis of microorganism for producing Ryoji Ogura, Takeshi Kubota, 4 Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology and aromatic compounds by evaluating stress tolerance Masayuki Inui Agrochemistry, Mar. 16-18, 2018 Functional analysis of asparagine and aspartic acid Akihiro Domon, Ikumi Fukui, Masako The 2018 Annual Meeting of The Japan 5 metabolism-related genes in Corynebacterium Suda, Taku Nishimura, Koichi Toyoda, Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology and glutamicum Kazumi Hiraga, Masayuki Inui Agrochemistry, Mar. 16-18, 2018 The 2018 Annual Meeting of The Japan Expression of RNase III regulation analysis in Masato Sawa, Yuya Tanaka, Masayuki 6 Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology and Corynebacterium glutamicum Inui Agrochemistry, Mar. 16-18, 2018 The 2018 Annual Meeting of The Japan Construction of a screening system for isoprenoid Hiroki Machida, Shinichi Oide, 7 Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology and biosynthesis enzymes Masayuki Inui Agrochemistry, Mar. 16-18, 2018 Hikaru Mizuno, Koichi Toyoda, Thermotolerance of Corynebacterium glutamicum on The 2018 Annual Meeting of The Japan Kazuaki Ninomiya, Masayuki Inui, 8 production of lactate and succinate under anaerobic Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology and Akihiko Kondo, Kenji Takahashi, Yota conditions Agrochemistry, Mar. 16-18, 2018 Tsuge Glutamine-rich proteins with antisense RNA constitute Yuya Tanaka, Tomoya Maeda, The 70th Annual Meeting of the Society of 9 a toxin-antitoxin system in Corynebacterium glutamicum Masayuki Inui Biotechnology of Japan, Sep. 5-7, 2018 Yukihiro Kitade, Ryoma Hashimoto, Overproduction of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid using The 70th Annual Meeting of the Society of 10 Masako Suda, Kazumi Hiraga, metabolically engineered Corynebacterium glutamicum Biotechnology of Japan, Sep. 5-7, 2018 Masayuki Inui A study on the ECF σ factor-specific promoter The 70th Annual Meeting of the Society of 11 Koichi Toyoda, Masayuki Inui sequence in Corynebacterium glutamicum Biotechnology of Japan, Sep. 5-7, 2018 Trehalose acts as a uridine 5'-diphosphoglucose- The 70th Annual Meeting of the Society of 12 competitive inhibitor of trehalose 6-phosphate synthase Shinichi Oide, Masayuki Inui Biotechnology of Japan, Sep. 5-7, 2018 in Corynebacterium glutamicum The differene between optimal temperature for cell Hikaru Mizuno, Koichi Toyoda, 11th Hokuriku Combination Bio Symposium, 13 growth and central metabolic pathway in Kazuaki Ninomiya, Kenji Takahashi, Oct. 26-27, 2018 Corynebacterium glutamicum Masayuki Inui, Yota Tsuge
Other Oral Presentation and Non-Journal Publication Title Researchers Magazine, Newspaper, etc. Development of biofuel & green chemical production 1 Masayuki Inui Sentan Seeds Forum, Feb. 1, 2018 technologies to realize a low carbon society Symposium of The 2018 Annual Meeting of Microbial degradation of poly (ethylene terephthalate) The Japan Society for Bioscience, 2 Kazumi Hiraga (PET) and its mechanism Biotechnology and Agrochemistry, Mar. 18, 2018 Symposium of The 2018 Annual Meeting of Development of biorefinery technology using The Japan Society for Bioscience, 3 Masayuki Inui functionally improved Corynebacteria Biotechnology and Agrochemistry, Mar. 18, 2018
62 2018 Paper, Presentation and Publication ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group
Title Researchers Magazine, Newspaper, etc. Development of biorefinery technology toward realizing Nagase R&D Center, NAGASE & CO., 4 Masayuki Inui a carbon recycling society LTD., Jul. 3, 2018 Symposium in Kansai on Global Warming Development of biorefinery technology toward realizing 5 Masayuki Inui Mitigation Technology for Future Society, a carbon recycling society Sep. 26, 2018 Press Releases (Japan Airlines Co., Ltd.), 6 "Let's fly a jet plane with 100,000 clothes" - Oct. 11, 2018 Development of green bioprocess to realize a Innovative Environmental Technology 7 Masayuki Inui sustainable society Symposium 2018, Dec. 19, 2018
Chemical Research Group Original Paper Title Researchers Journal Fuminori Ito, Hidetaka Yamada, Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Preparation of Biodegradable Polymer Nanospheres 1 Kiyoshi Kanamura, Hiroyoshi Polymers and Materials Containing Manganese Porphyrin（ Mn-Porphyrin） Kawakami （online） pp1-9, 11 October 2018 Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Exploring the Role of Imidazoles in Amine-Impregnated Quyen T. Vu, Hidetaka Yamada, 2 Research Mesoporous Silica for CO Capture Katsunori Yogo 2 Vol.57 No.7 pp 2638-2644, 2018 Development and fabrication of PAMAM-based IOP Conference Series: Materials Science composite membrane module with a gutter layer of Shuhong Duan, Teruhiko Kai, Shingo 3 and Engineering（ NMCI2018） Vol.296 pp Chitosan/PAA polymer double network for CO Kazama 2 1-9, 2018 separation
Oral Presentation (International Academic Society) Title Researchers Forum H. Yamada, R. Numaguchi, F. A. 23rd International Congress of Chemical Liquid-liquid phase separation induced by carbon 1 Chowdhury, S. Yamamoto, K. Goto, Y. and Process Engineering, Prague, Czech dioxide absorption in amine-water systemB39:D46s Matsuzaki, M. Onoda Republic, August 26-29, 2018 14th International Conference on Development of Chemical CO Solvent for High- 2 Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies 2 Pressure CO Capture (4) : Potentiality for Low- Shin Yamamoto 2 (GHGT-14), Melbourne, Australia Temperature Regeneration October 21-26, 2018 14th International Conference on Kazuya Goto, Firoz Alam Chowdhury, Development of novel solvents of CO removal from Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies 3 2 Hidetaka Yamada, Shin Yamamoto, blast furnace gas (GHGT-14), Melbourne, Australia Yoichi Matsuzaki, Masami Onoda October 21-26, 2018 14th International Conference on Firoz Alam Chowdhury, Kazuya Goto, A guide to evaluate non-aqueous solvents and amine Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies 4 Hidetaka Yamada, Yoichi Matsuzaki, absorbent structures for post-combustion CO capture (GHGT-14), Melbourne, Australia 2 Masami Onoda October 21-26, 2018 14th International Conference on Teruhiko Kai, Shuhong Duan, Development of CO molecular gate membrane Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies 5 2 Fuminori Ito, Satoshi Mikami, modules for IGCC process with CO capture (GHGT-14), Melbourne, Australia 2 Yoshinobu Sato, Shin-ichi Nakano October 21-26, 2018 Hidetaka Yamada, Shin Yamamoto, Junpei Fujiki, Firoz A. Chowdhury, 14th International Conference on Advanced post-combustion CO capture system using Nobuyuki Takayama, Kazuya Goto, Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies 6 2 novel polyamine-based solid sorbents Katsuhiro Yoshizawa, Takeshi (GHGT-14), Melbourne, Australia Okumura, Ryohei Numaguchi, Shohei October 21-26, 2018 Nishibe, Katsunori Yogo 14th International Conference on Development of Amino-Functionalized New Task Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies 7 Firoz Alam Chowdhury, Kazuya Goto Specific Ionic Liquids (TSILs) for Efficient CO2 Capture (GHGT-14), Melbourne, Australia October 21-26, 2018 Takeshi Okumura, Katsuhiro Yoshizawa, Atsushi Kanou, Yusuke 14th International Conference on Demonstration Plant of the Kawasaki CO Capture 2 Hasegawa, Shigeki Inoue, Koujirou Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies 8 (KCC) System with Solid Sorbent for Coal-fired Power Tsuji, Satoshi Fujita, Mizuki Nabeshima, (GHGT-14), Melbourne, Australia Stations Hidetaka Yamada, Shin Yamamoto, October 21-26, 2018 Nobuyuki Takayama, Katsunori Yogo
63 2018 Paper, Presentation and Publication ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
Chemical Research Group
Oral Presentation (Domestic Academic Society) Title Researchers Forum Firoz A. Chowdhury, Shin Yamamoto, The Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan Development of Non-aqueous Amine Based Absorbents 1 Hidetaka Yamada, Kazuya Goto, 83rd Annual Meeting for Post-combustion CO Capture 2 Yoichi Matsuzaki, Masami Onoda March 13-15, 2018
Other Oral Presentation and Non-Journal Publication Title Researchers Magazine, Newspaper, etc. Development of the Kinetics Simulator Based on 34th Symposium on Chemical Kinetics and H. Yamada, T. Yamaguchi, T. Fujiwara, 1 Transition State Theory and its Application to CO Dynamics 2 K. Hori Absorption Reactions June 7, 2018
CO2 Storage Research Group Original Paper Title Researchers Journal Geophysical monitoring at the Nagaoka pilot-scale CO 1 2 Takahiro Nakajima, Ziqiu Xue Active Monitoring, 2nd ed., Elsevier, 2019 injection site in Japan Fiber optic sensing for geomechanical monitoring: (1)-Distributed strain measurements of two sandstones Ziqiu Xue, Ji-Quan Shi, Yoshiaki 2 Applied Sciences, 8, 11, 2103, 2018 under hydrostatic confining and pore pressure Yamauchi, Sevket Durucan conditions Fiber optics Sensing for geomechanical monitoring (2) distributed strain measurements at a pumping test and Xinglin Lei, Ziqiu Xue, Tsutomu 3 Applied Sciences, in press geomechanical modeling of deformation of reservoir Hashimoto rocks Laboratory Measurement of Submicrogal Gravity Change Hiroki Goto, Hiroshi Ikeda, Mituhiko 4 in Time Domain Using a Portable Superconducting Geophysical Research Letters, submitted Sugihara Gravimeter without a Cryogenic Refrigerator Detecting CO leakage at offshore storage sites using 2 Keisuke Uchimoto, Makoto Nishimura, International Journal of Greenhouse Gas 5 the convariance between the partial pressure of CO 2 Jun Kita, Ziqiu Xue Control, 72, 130-137, 2018 and the saturation of dissolved oxygen in seawater Keigo Kitamura, Osamu Nishizawa, Seismic and strain detection of heterogeneous spatial International Journal of Greenhouse Gas 6 Kenneth T. Christensen, Takuma Ito, distribution of CO in high-permeable sandstone Control, 72, 65-73, 2018 2 Robert J. Finley Fiber optic distributed sensing technology for real-time Yankun Sun, Ziqiu Xue, Tsutomu Journal of Natural Gas Science & 7 monitoring water jet test: implications for wellbore Hashimoto Engineering, 58, 241-250, 2018 integrity diagnostics Tracking CO plumes in clay ‐ rich rock by distributed Yi Zhang, Ziqiu Xue, Hyuck Park, 2 Water Resource Research, https://doi. 8 fiber optic strain sensing (DFOSS): a laboratory Ji-Quan Shi, Tamotsu Kiyama, Xinglin org/10.1029/2018WR023415 demonstration Lei, Yankun Sun, Yunfeng Liang A field experiment of inside CT walk-away DAS-VSP at Yuki Kobayashi, Ryohei Naruse, Keita Journal of the Japanese Association for 9 a deep and highly deviated well for time-lapse Adachi, Yusuke Morishima, Masanori Petroleum Technology, 83, 11, 2018 subsurface monitoring Tani, Ziqiu Xue Ryo Ueda, Utaro Kaito, Kazunori The potential of application of micro bubble technology Journal of the Japanese Association for 10 Nakagawa, Masanori Nakano, Ziqiu to EOR Petroleum Technology, 83, 6, 2018 Xue On the feasibility of the monitoring of earthquake event utilizing an optical fiber deployed inside a well - An Yuki Kobayashi, Ryohei Naruse, Ziqiu 11 Geophysical Exploration, 71, 56-70, 2018 example of an earthquake event detected by passive Xue DAS recording in a deep well in Japan - Changes in migration mode of brine and supercritical Tetsuya Kogure, Yi Zhang, Osamu Geophysical Journal International, 214, 2, 12 CO in imbibition process under steady flow state of 2 Nishizawa, and Ziqiu Xue 2018, 1413-1425 very slow fluid velocities Use of SEM-EDX analysis for conventional Takuma Ito, Atsushi Obuchi, Kazuhiko 13 measurement of major element compositions and its Analytical Chemistry, submitted Nakano, Tokio Sasai, Ziqiu Xue geological application Deformation-based monitoring of water migration in 14 Yi Zhang, Ziqiu Xue Water Resources Research, submitted rock by distributed fiber optic strain sensing Experimental and numerical simulation of supercritical Patmonoaji Anindityo, Yi Zhang, Ziqiu International Journal of Greenhouse Gas 15 CO microbubbles injection into a brine saturated 2 Xue, Tetsuya Suekane Control, submitted porous medium JiangTao Pang, Yunfeng Liang, Swelling phenomena of kaolinite induced by CO and 16 2 Yoshihiro Masuda, Toshifumi Nature Communications, submitted water Matsuoka, Yi Zhang, Ziqiu Xue
64 2018 Paper, Presentation and Publication ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
CO2 Storage Research Group
Title Researchers Journal Distributed fiber optic sensing system for well-based Yankun Sun, Ziqiu Xue, Tsutomu 17 monitoring water injection tests - a geomechanical Water Resources Research, submitted Hashimoto, Xinglin Lei, Yi Zhang responses perspective Correction of salinity effect on pH measurement to
18 evaluate geochemical reaction related with CO2 Saeko Mito, Ziqiu Xue Journal of MMIJ, submitted geological storage Shear-induced permeability reduction and shear-zone Kimura Sho, Hiroaki Kaneko, Shohei 19 Engineering Geology, 238, 86-98, 2018 development of sand under high vertical stress Noda, Takuma Ito, Hideki Minagawa Depressurization and electrical heating of methane Hideki Minagawa, Takuma Ito, Sho Journal of Natural Gas Science and 20 hydrate sediment for gas production: Laboratory-scale Kimura, Hiroaki Kaneko, Shohei Engineering, 50, 147-156, 2018 experiments Noda, Norio Tenma
Non-Journal Publication Title Researchers Magazine, Newspaper, etc. Application of marine engineering to offshore CO Keisuke Uchimoto, Makoto Nishimura Bulletin of the Society of Sea Water 1 2 storage: A method to detect CO2 leakage using pCO2 , Ziqiu Xue Sciencem Japan, 72, 1, 2018 IEEJ Transactions on Power and Energy,, 2 Report on Global CCS Symposium 2017 Ryozo Tanaka 142, 5, 2018 Microbubble CO flooding: an innovative technology for 3 2 Ziqiu Xue CHINA CHEMICAL NEWS, 2018 the development of low-permeability oil fields
Oral Presentation (International Academic Society) Title Researchers Forum CCS Seminar, Jakarta, Indonesia, 1 Microbubble CCUS(CO EOR) application effort Ryo Ueda, Ziqiu Xue 2 2018/2/7 3rd International Workshop on Offshore Tomakomai lessons learned in offshore CO storage 2 2 Ryozo Tanaka Geologic CO Storage, Oslo, Norway, regulations 2 2018/5/3 3rd International Workshop on Offshore Discussion on London Protocol application to Norway 3 Ryozo Tanaka Geologic CO Storage, Oslo, Norway, and EOR 2 2018/5/3 3rd International Workshop on Offshore
4 Update on leakage detection Keisuke Uchimoto Geologic CO2 Storage, Oslo, Norway, 2018/5/3 15th Annual Meeting Asia Oceania Advantages of Distributed Deformation Monitoring by Xinglin Lei, Ziqiu Xue, Tsutomu 5 Geosciences Society AOGS2018 Hawaii, Fiber-Optic Sensor in Geomechanical Modelling Hashimoto US, 2018/6/5 Society of Exploration Geophysicists Inside CT-DAS-VSP acquisition using a highly-deviated Ryohei Naruse, Yuki Kobayashi, 6 International Exposition and 88th Annual deep well, onshore Japan Yusuke Morishima, Ziqiu Xue Meeting, California, US, 2018/10/16
Microbubble CO2 injection for Enhanced Oil Recovery Ziqiu Xue, Hyuck Park, Ryo Ueda, 14th International Conference on 7 and Geological Sequestration in Heterogeneous and Masanori Nakano, Takumi Nishii, Shin Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, Low Permeability Reservoirs Inagaki GHGT-14, Melbourne Australia, 2018/10/22 14th International Conference on A preliminary experiment on the detection of bubbles in Keisuke Uchimoto, Makoto Nishimura, 8 Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, the sea with side-scan sonor Yuji Watanabe, Ziqiu Xue GHGT-14, Melbourne Australia, 2018/10/22
Rock reaction experiments in CO2-dissolved hot spring 14th International Conference on 9 waters to evaluate effects of carbonate dissolution on Masao Sorai Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, caprock’s sealing performance GHGT-14, Melbourne Australia, 2018/10/22 14th International Conference on Numerical Study on the Effects of Contact Angle Yuki Kano, Tsuneo Ishido, Masao 10 Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, Change on Capillary trapping Sorai GHGT-14, Melbourne Australia, 2018/10/22 Xiaochun Li, Guizhen Liu, Sarah Forbes, Atsuko Tanaka, Ken 14th International Conference on Introduction to ISO Technical Report on Lifecycle Risk Hnottavange-Telleen, Franz May, 11 Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, Management for Integrated CCS Projects Sallie Greenberg, Philip Stauffer, Rick GHGT-14, Melbourne Australia, 2018/10/22 Chalaturnyk, Hubert Fabriol, Xiaoliang Yang, Andy Brown 14th International Conference on Experimental study of microbubble CO flooding in Hyuck Park, Lanlan Jiang, Tamotsu 12 2 Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, heterogeneous sedimentary rock Kiyama, Ziqiu Xue, GHGT-14, Melbourne Australia, 2018/10/22 Field measurement using distributed fiber-optic sensing 14th International Conference on Yunkun Sun, Ziqiu Xue, Yi Zhang, 13 technology and numerical simulation of geomechanical Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, Tsutomu Hashimoto, Hyuck Park deformation caused by CO2 injection GHGT-14, Melbourne Australia, 2018/10/22
65 2018 Paper, Presentation and Publication ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
CO2 Storage Research Group
Title Researchers Forum Saeko Mito, Ziqiu Xue, Bracken T. 14th International Conference on Gas-tight pH measurements to assess an effect of CO Wimmer, Abbas Iranmanesh, Hongbo 14 2 Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, on groundwater Shao, Randall A. Locke, Sallie E. GHGT-14, Melbourne Australia, 2018/10/22 Greenberg 14th International Conference on Advanced well log analyses using image data at the 15 Takahiro Nakajima, Ziqiu Xue Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, Nagaoka CO injection site 2 GHGT-14, Melbourne Australia, 2018/10/22 Utilization of wave attenuation in time-lapse sonic 14th International Conference on Takahiro Nakajima, Luchen Wang, 16 logging data for the monitoring of CO migration along Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, 2 Ziqiu Xue the well GHGT-14, Melbourne Australia, 2018/10/22 Micro-seismic monitoring data analysis system based Luchen Wang, Tetsuma Toshioka, 14th International Conference on 17 on sequentially discounting autoregressive and its Takahiro Nakajima, Akira Narita, Ziqiu Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies,
application to offshore CO2 storage safety operation Xue GHGT-14, Melbourne Australia, 2018/10/22 14th International Conference on Can we detect CO plume by distributed fiber optic Yi Zhang, Hyuck Park, Tamotsu 18 2 Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, strain measurements? Kiyama, Yankun Sun, Ziqiu Xue GHGT-14, Melbourne Australia, 2018/10/22 Two Dimensional Numerical Simulation of CO Injection 14th International Conference on 2 Anindityo Patmonoaji, Yi Zhang, Ziqiu 19 into Brine Saturated Berea Sandstone with Normal Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, Xue, Tetsuya Suekane Bubble and Micro Bubble Injection Modules GHGT-14, Melbourne Australia, 2018/10/22 Research and Innovation Priorities for 20 CO Storage R&D Priorities in Japan Ryozo Tanaka 2 CCUS Event, Edinburg, UK, 2018/11/28
Oral Presentation (Domestic Academic Society) Title Researchers Forum Detection of CO bubbles in shallow sea using side- Makoto Nishimura, Keisuke Uchimoto, 1 2 JPGU Meeting 2018, 2018/05/23 scan sonar (SSS) Ziqiu Xue Keisuke Uchimoto, Makoto Nishimura, 2 Thresholds of anomalous pCO in sea water JPGU Meeting 2018, 2018/05/23 2 Ziqiu Xue Effective use of drill cuttings analysis for wellsite Takahiro Nakajima, Takayuki Miyoshi, 3 geological investigation in the CO geological storage: JPGU Meeting 2018, 2018/05/23 2 Shun Chiyonobu, Ziqiu Xue a case study of the Nagaoka site, Japan Detection CO flooding by optical fiber; Example of a Hyuck Park, Yi Zhang, Lanlan Jiang, 4 2 JPGU Meeting 2018, 2018/05/23 long core specimen Tamotsu Kiyama, Ziqiu Xue Takuma Ito, Takahiro Nakajima, Image well log data analysis to evaluate reservoir 5 Takayuki Miyoshi, Shun Chiyonobu, JPGU Meeting 2018, 2018/05/23 quality: Application to the Nagaoka storage site Ziqiu Xue Application of sequentially discounting autoregressive Luchen Wang, Tetsuma Toshioka,
6 (SDAR) on seismic event detection for CO2 injection Takahiro Nakajima, Akira Narita, Ziqiu JPGU Meeting 2018, 2018/05/23 safety management Xue The first field experiment of DAS-VSP using fiber optics Yuki Kobayashi, Ryohei Naruse, Ziqiu 7 JPGU Meeting 2018, 2018/05/23 deployed inside coiled tubing, onshore Japan Xue Earthquake events monitoring in a well using Optical Tsunehisa Kimura, Yuki Kobayashi, 8 JPGU Meeting 2018, 2018/05/23 Fiber and DAS Technology Ryohei Naruse, Ziqiu Xue Sedimentological approaches for CO geological Yoshinori Yamanouchi, Mizue 9 2 JPGU Meeting 2018, 2018/05/23 modeling Nishimura A parallel scheme for accelerating optimization of well Mitsuhiro Miyagi, Hajime Yamamoto, 10 JPGU Meeting 2018, 2018/05/23 placement for geologic CO2 storage Yohei Akimoto, Ziqiu Xue Study for the mechanism to the effect of improvement Utaro Kaito, Masanori Nakano, Ziqiu 11 of CO storage efficiency by micro bubble injection JPGU Meeting 2018, 2018/05/23 2 Xue technology Shunsuke Nishimura, Toru Sato, Classification of pCO -DO Correlations of Seawater off OCEANS’18 MTS/IEEE Kobe / Techno- 12 2 Hiroyuki Oyama, Georgios Fytianos, Tomakomai Ocean 2018/5/31 Keisuke Uchimoto, Koichi Goto The investigation on the higher sweep efficiency by Kazunori Nakagawa, Ryo Ueda, Ziqiu 13 JAPT 2018 Spring Meeting, 2018/6/13 micro-bubble CO2 flooding Xue Ryo Ueda, Utaro Kaito, Kazunori The potential of application of micro bubble technology 14 Nakagawa, Masanori Nakano, Ziqiu JAPT 2018 Spring Meeting, 2018/6/13 to EOR Xue Keita Adachi, Yusuke Morishima, Quality Control Processing of DAS-VSP data with the 15 Masanori Tani, Yuki Kobayashi, Ziqiu JAPT 2018 Spring Meeting, 2018/06/14 Surrounding Well Data Xue The First Field Experiment of DAS-VSP using Fiber 16 Yuki Kobayashi JAPT 2018 Spring Meeting, 2018/06/14 Optics Deployed Inside Coiled Tubing, Onshore Japan
66 2018 Paper, Presentation and Publication ＲＩＴＥ Ｔｏｄａｙ ２０１９
CO2 Storage Research Group
Title Researchers Forum Mitsuhiro Miyagi, Hajime Yamamoto, Japanese Society of Civil Engineers, 17 High speed optimization for well placement Yohei Akimoto, Ziqiu Xue 2018/08 Practical application of optic fiber measurement 18 technology in rock engineering: subsurface strain Ziqiu Xue, Tsutomu Hashimoto MMIJ2018, 2018/09/10 distribution measurement field test International standardization works for CO capture, 19 2 Atsuko Tanaka MMIJ2018, 2018/09/10 transportation and geological storage (CCS) Preliminary study on gravity change related to water Hiroki Goto, Mitsuhiko Sugihara, 130th Meeting of the Geodetic Society of 20 table response to tidal fluctuations Hiroshi Ikeda, Yuji Nishi Japan,2018/10/16 Measurement of major elements in sedimentary rocks Takuma Ito, Atsushi Obuchi, Kazuhiko 54th X-ray analysis conference, 21 by SEM-EDX for geological applications Nakano, Tokio Sasai, Ziqiu Xue 2018/10/25 A study of the environmental impact assessment Toshihiro Nishimura, Toru Sato, JASNAOE 2018 Annual Autumn Meeting & 22 standard of leaked CO2 Hiroyuki Oyama, Keisuke Uchimoto Conference, 2018/11/26
Inorganic Membranes Research Center Oral Presentation Title Researchers Forum I2CNER International Workshops 2018, 1 Inorganic membranes and the applications Masahiro Seshimo Kyushu University, Feb. 02, 2018 Shin-ichi Nakao, Hiromi Urai, Kazuaki 158th The International Conference on Operation of small scale membrane reactors with CVD 2 Sasa, Hitoshi Nishino, Ryohei Inogranic Membranes, Dresden, Jun. 22, sillica membranes for MCH dehydrogenation reaction Numaguchi, Ryoichi Nishida 2018 Masahiro Seshimo, The11th conference of the Aseanian Structural change of CHA-type aluminophosphate 3 Hiromasa Fukuda (Waseda Univ.), Membrane Society (AMS11), Brisben, Jul. membrane under HF-free synthesis conditions Masahiko Matsukata (Waseda Univ.) 04, 2018 Masahiro Seshimo, International Symposium on Zeolites and Effect of gel composition for the HF-free synthesis of Hiromasa Fukuda (Waseda Univ.), 4 Microporous Crystals 2018, Yokohama, AlPO4-34 Motomu Sakai (Waseda Univ.), Aug. 08, 2018 Masahiko Matsukata (Waseda Univ.)
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2019 Vol.14 2019 2019 Vo l.14
2019 Vol.14