The forestry ministry is planning a biomass project to generate electricity from the millions of tons of wood debris left behind by the March 11 quake and tsunami in the Tohoku region.
The forestry ministry is planning a biomass project to generate electricity from the millions of tons of wood debris left behind by the March 11 quake and tsunami in the Tohoku region.
The wood biomass power generation project will recycle a large portion of the debris, officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries say.
Biomass power generation plants will be constructed in about five locations in the disaster areas. Each plant is expected to generate 10 megawatts of electricity.
Construction of each plant is expected to cost about 4 billion yen ($50 million), including related facilities. If built by a private company, the government will subsidize about half of the construction costs.
The ministry is looking at earmarking about 10 billion yen for the project in the next supplementary budget.
The volume of debris--25 million tons, according to Environment Ministry estimates--is much larger than was left by the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake in and around Kobe.
About 70 percent is wood that contains little salt deposited by the tsunami seawater and has retained a shape suitable for power generation.
The forestry ministry estimates that about 5 million tons of the debris can be used. Recycling instead of dumping the wood as waste will be more efficient, the ministry says.
After all the wood debris is gone, the power generation plants will use timber thinned from forests and leftover wood from sawmills.
Biomass power generation uses renewable animal matter and plant resources, such as woodchips, raw kitchen garbage and animal manure.
According to the forestry ministry, Japan has about 50 biomass power generation plants that use wood. They have not yet come into widespread use because they are more costly than generating electricity using fossil fuels.
If legislation obliging electric power companies to buy electricity produced by alternative energy sources at fixed prices passes the Diet, biomass power generation could spread.
(This article was written by Tomoyoshi Otsu and Hiroaki Kimura.)