Yokote City, located in southern Akita Prefecture and with a population of less than 40,000, has decided to start a new energy project and allocated 6 million yen (US$58,000) in its fiscal 2004 budget for research on the feasibility of developing a biomass energy industry.

This city in the Yokote Basin is known in Japan as an area of heavy snowfall, and for agricultural products, mainly rice, but also for apples and asparagus, etc. The city has actively tried to use snow as a source of cooling energy as one way of coping with its abundant snowfall.

Since November 2003, the city has actively explored the feasibility of developing a new energy industry using its natural resources by setting up a project team based on its Yokote City Strategic Industrial Vision and under the aegis of the National Strategy on Biomass Utilization. The project team is examining practical biomass utilization methods, and its project is scheduled to start in October 2004, using the city's abundant organic resources, such as straw, rice chaff, wood chips and livestock waste.



Posted: 2004/07/15 06:56:13 AM
Japanese version

TAG Energy , Food/Water , Government , Local government , Material reduction , System/Law