Business leaders on the Environment
Energy and the Environment - Dreams and Prospects for the 21st Century
Speaker: Kunio Anzai, Chairman, Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd.
11 Dec, 2002
Contents:
- A History of Energy and Protection of the Global Environment
- (1) Cogeneration
- (2) Fuel Cells
- (3) Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs)
- (4) Gas Air Conditioning
- (5) District Heating & Cooling Systems
- World Energy Trends and Expectations regarding Natural Gas
- Towards Building a Sustainable Society
- (1) Developing environmental conservation activities
- (2) Strengthening environmental partnerships
- (3) Environmental business challenges
- a. Energy conservation services
- b. Soil cleanup services
- Message to students inheriting the planet in the 21st century
A History of Energy and Protection of the Global Environment
Steam engines powered by coal represented the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century Great Britain, and coal became its major energy source thereafter. In the 20th century, the main energy source shifted to oil. This represented an evolution from a solid energy source (coal) to a liquid energy source (oil), which is more convenient to transport, store and use, in what might be called a "liquid energy revolution." It was also oil that met Japan's demand for energy, which took off in 1950s. After using coal as its main gas source for a long time, Tokyo Gas introduced oil as a gas source by constructing a plant that produced gas by means of sprinkling oil onto heated bricks in 1952 for the first time in the Japan's gas industry. Then, about ten years later, it started using naphtha (a type of oil similar to gasoline), which is extremely low in sulfur and has a less adverse impact on the environment.
Future trends in energy are shifting away from liquid oil towards natural gas. The reason we chose to introduce liquefied natural gas (LNG) rather than gas in a gaseous state is because, unlike Europe and the United States where natural gas can be transported by pipeline, Japan is an archipelago surrounded only by the ocean and pipelines have not been practical. By liquefying gas, ocean transport by tankers becomes possible, and an effective transport system has been established.
Our company had two main goals when it introduced LNG. First, air pollution was a serious concern at the time and we wanted the sky over Tokyo to be blue again. Second, increased energy supplies were needed to support the rapid growth of the economy, and the regasified gas from LNG could provide 11,000 kilocalories (kcal) per cubic meter, 2.2 times as much as the 5,000 kcal supplied until then, and moreover meaning that the same distribution system could deliver gas 2.2 times as much efficiently.
Because of its cleanness, natural gas plays an important role in dealing with environmental problems such as global warming. I would like to present the following practical applications of natural gas in this respect: (1) Cogeneration, (2) Fuel Cells, (3) Natural Gas Vehicles, (4) Gas Air Conditioning, and (5) District Heating & Cooling Systems.
PAGE TOP
(1) Cogeneration
Gas cogeneration systems utilize city gas to run gas turbines or gas engines to generate electricity while using the waste heat to provide hot water or to power heating/cooling systems. Both electricity and heat can be recovered from the same system. Cogeneration systems utilize heat at several stages; processes that require high-temperature are run first, and then the waste heat generated at this stage is put to further use. Because it is possible to use all the heat as it falls from higher temperatures to lower temperatures in what is called a "cascading use" pattern, traditional electricity generating efficiencies of about 40% can be raised through cogeneration to overall energy efficiencies of 70-80%. This doubling of energy efficiency is one of the particular features of cogeneration systems. Due to this highly appreciated efficiency, as of the end of FY 2001, 772 cogeneration systems with a total capacity of approximately 810 MW of electricity have been introduced in Tokyo Gas' service area, about equal to the amount generated by one medium-sized nuclear power plant.
PAGE TOP
(2) Fuel Cells
The second example of a practical application of natural gas involves fuel cells. Fuel cells have high electricity generation efficiency and energy conservation characteristics. In addition, their by-product is only water, which means that they are highly advanced systems which emit almost no environmental pollutants. NASA space vehicles, from the old Apollo missions through the Space Shuttle, have used fuel cells as sources of electricity and heat. City gas utilities considered fuel cells as promising sources for on-site cogeneration systems of energy-conserving and environmental advantages, and started fuel cell research and development activities in 1972.
Polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) are presently attracting attention as next-generation fuel cells. These cells are characterized by an ability to operate at lower temperatures and by their shorter start-up times than the earlier technologies, and are in the process of vigorous development. Research and development activities are underway to embark fuel cells on vehicles and to utilize them in residential cogeneration systems. Fuel cells for residential use are presently being developed with the goal of practical application by 2004. Should fuel cell systems for home use be introduced, it is thought that energy consumption could be cut by 18 percent and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 25 percent.
PAGE TOP
(3) Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs)
The third example is natural gas vehicles (NGVs). As of the end of September 2002, about 14,000 NGVs were in use in Japan. In fact, I came here today by one of them. Natural gas is being practically applied in a wide range of vehicles, including delivery trucks, public transportation buses, and garbage collection trucks. While you may find the idea of vehicles being powered by natural gas somewhat incongruous, the only difference is that natural gas is being used as fuel instead of gasoline or diesel fuel. Many automobile manufacturers have recently started producing NGVs. With natural gas as a fuel, no black smoke or soot whatsoever is emitted as exhaust, and other atmospheric pollutants such as nitrogen oxide (NOx) are greatly reduced. A grand plan is now being devised that will call for 1 million NGVs operating in Japan by 2010.
PAGE TOP
(4) Gas Air Conditioning
The fourth example is gas air conditioning. Gas air conditioning systems cool the air by utilizing the way water captures heat when it evaporates in a near-vacuum. Gas is used to reheat and recycle the solution that has absorbed the evaporated water vapor. In recent years, more than half of the large-scale buildings constructed in our company's service area have adopted gas air conditioning systems. Examples include Tokyo Dome, the Ryogoku Kokugikan arena, the Supreme Court building, and the Hotel New Otani.
There are three things about gas air conditioning that I would like to remind you of. The first is that the gas absorption cooling systems use water as refrigerant, rather than CFC (chlorofluorocarbon), and much better in preserving the ozonosphere. The second is that demand for city gas is normally greater in winter than in summer, so the demand for air conditioning in summer works to level out the seasonal difference in gas demand, resulting in higher equipment utilization rates, etc. It also contributes greatly to alleviating the summer peak demand for electricity. The third thing is that with gas air conditioning, the same unit can be used both for heating and cooling, meaning great savings in the space needed for equipment. This is a significant merit for urban offices and buildings where space is at a premium.
PAGE TOP
(5) District Heating & Cooling Systems
The fifth example of practical application is district heating/ cooling systems. In these district systems, a central plant provides heating and cooling to buildings and other facilities over a relatively wide area through a system of pipes that carry hot and cold water. This kind of system is being rapidly adopted all over Japan, especially in urban areas. These central plants can use natural gas, oil, electricity, etc. as fuel, but natural gas is highly regarded because it provides clean energy, and many district heating/ cooling systems use gas. As of the end of FY 2001, district heating/ cooling systems using natural gas had been introduced at 80 locations in the Tokyo Gas service area. Examples include the Shinjuku Subcenter (Skyscraper Town), Saitama Shintoshin, Makuhari area, and Narita New Town [all urban centers incorporating a variety of more or less adjacent large public and private buildings].
PAGE TOP
World Energy Trends and Expectations regarding Natural Gas
In the fall of 2002, "International Energy Forum" was held in Osaka, Japan, where the International Energy Agency gave its report on the world energy forecast up to 2030. According to this report, energy demand is expected to grow at a rate of 1.7 percent per year during the coming 30-year forecast period. That is, in 30 years from now, the world will be consuming about 70 percent more energy than it is now. It is also expected that more than 90 percent of the increase in energy supplies during this 30-year period will be provided by fossil fuels. At the same time, it is also expected that the world electricity generation by nuclear power will peak in 2010, and then slowly decline as existing nuclear power plants successively approach the end of their useful lives. In the context of these global trends, it is expected that even in countries like Japan and Korea that still have nuclear power expansion programs, the pace of new nuclear power plant construction will inevitably fall behind. Renewable energy such as solar and wind power are expected to increase rapidly, but present consumption levels of these types of energy are still exceedingly low, and even by 2030 they will probably still account for an insignificant share of the total energy supply.
Among fossil fuels, demand for natural gas in particular is exhibiting strong growth, and the forecast is for a doubling of natural gas demand between the present and 2030 - this is the IEA forecast. Thus, we can see that international expectations regarding natural gas are high. For Japan, which depends on imports for nearly all of its energy resources, and which has a particularly high level of dependence on oil, promoting a switch to natural gas is a very important theme.
Expectations regarding natural gas can be divided into two main categories - concerns about energy security and concerns about the environment. From the perspective of energy security, world dependence on the Middle East's oil is 66 percent, but dependence on the Middle East for natural gas is 36 percent. These are global figures, but if we look at the volume of imports into Japan they are more striking - Japan depends on the Middle East for 86 percent of its oil imports, whereas it imports natural gas from a variety of areas, including the Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, as well as from Australia and the United States, depending on the Middle East for only about 20 percent of its natural gas imports. In the context of today's extremely murky international situation, increasing the number and diversity of energy import routes is becoming ever more important.
From the perspective on the environment, compared with other fossil fuels, natural gas [combustion] emits less nitrogen oxide (NOx) which causes acid rain and other atmospheric pollution, and also has the excellent advantage of not emitting any sulfur oxides at all. In addition, emissions of carbon dioxide are also lower than other fossil fuels, meaning that expanding its use will be important also as an environmental protection measure. Japan's government has also expressed considerable expectations with respect to promoting natural gas use in the cogeneration and fuel cell technologies I mentioned earlier. Our company has also started working to develop high-efficiency electricity generation using natural gas.
In considering growth in natural gas use, while we are working on the demand
side, it is also important to work on the supply
side as well. Import contracts for natural gas
normally extend for about 20 years or even longer.
While we have traditionally relied on outside
companies for the ocean transportation of LNG,
in order to create a more flexible import system,
and as a way to cut costs, our company has decided
to build its own tankers. Two 145,000 m3 tankers
are under construction, and we expect to launch
one each in 2003 and 2005. Just for your reference
I would like to mention that one of the tankers
presently under construction will be able to carry
at one time enough gas to supply the ordinary
needs of approximately 180,000 households for
a year. In this way we are aiming towards creating
a more versatile and economical import system
in future that will intelligently utilize both
long-term and short-term import contracts.
Another topic that has attracted attention recently is methane hydrate. Methane hydrate is a substance that captures natural gas molecules including methane inside water-molecule cages under high pressure and is often dubbed "flammable ice" or "canned natural gas." Methane hydrate is said to exist on continental shelves several hundred meters under water or underground in permafrost zones, for example in Siberia, Canada and Alaska. So far about 100 sites have been confirmed. Large volumes are said to exist under the sea floor in marine areas adjacent to Japan, and the amount stored in this form is supposed to be equal to Japan's annual gas demand for a hundred years. If methane hydrate could be practically utilized, this would secure stable long-term gas supply, which would also contribute to our energy security by increasing Japan's energy self-sufficiency. Our company is now zealously investigating what kind of technologies could be used to effectively recover and gasify this highly pressurized, sherbet-like methane hydrate. We believe more time will be required before methane hydrate can be actually rendered useful on an economic basis. Aside from this, there is also a theory that immense volumes of methane gas exist deep in the earth.
This concludes my explanation about Tokyo Gas and the present status of natural gas. Rather than simply supplying an energy source, providing overall suggestions on energy use, including soft components will continue to be an important part of the work assigned to the energy industry. Also, rather than limiting the application of comprehensive technology aimed at high-efficiency natural gas use to Japan only, extending it to a wide array of other Asian countries will be important from the point of view of protecting the global environment.
PAGE TOP
Towards Building a Sustainable Society
The curtain has now been lifted on the 21st century. Among corporations, certification under the "ISO14001", a set of international standards for environmental management systems is becoming more prevalent, as are independent management practices that take environmental matters into consideration, such as information disclosure through the publication of environmental reports. A great many more corporations are making environmental issues, together with issues concerning corporate social responsibility, a basis for management decisions. We aim to develop as an "energy frontier industry." By making environmental protection one of the most important issues for management on an everyday basis and aiming to make a contribution to improving global environmental problems by becoming one of the top companies in the field of environmental management, the Tokyo Gas Group, which includes its associated companies, is now actively developing a wide array of environmental protection projects.
Now I would like to present three aspects of our corporate group's efforts as a leader in the field of environmental management. These are: (1) development of environmental conservation activities; (2) strengthening of environmental partnerships; and (3) environmental business challenges.
PAGE TOP
(1) Developing environmental conservation activities
Under the first topic, "developing environmental conservation activities," Tokyo Gas aims to conserve energy and reduce the environmental impact by putting to their best use the low-environmental-impact qualities peculiar to natural gas. With respect to waste materials generated from our business activities, we aim to reduce, reuse and recycle them in order to contribute to building a sustainable society. Specific measures are being taken to combat global warming, to reduce NOx emissions and the production wastes, as well as other activities in a variety of fields such as social contribution and environmental communication activities.
PAGE TOP
(2) Strengthening environmental partnerships
Under the second topic, "strengthening environmental partnerships," in an effort to strengthen environmental partnerships in the local and international communities through a wide variety of activities that range from participation in local environmental initiatives to international environmental technological cooperation for combating global warming, our company is developing environmental projects based on detailed cooperative exchanges with other companies as well as with governments, citizens and environmental NGOs. In 1992, we set up "Gas Malaysia" as a joint venture with local companies in Malaysia, and developed city gas operations. We provided technical support for provision of district air conditioning systems in a project to renovate downtown Kuala Lumpur, as well as for Kuala Lumpur's new international airport, which started operation in 1997. These projects aimed to transfer our company's natural gas utilization technologies. The air conditioning system at Kuala Lumpur international airport's cogeneration facility was presented as a project case study at the "10th Asia-Pacific Seminar," hosted by Japan's Ministry of Environment, and was widely discussed and very well received by many seminar participants. The scale of Malaysia's total present district air conditioning systems amounts to approximately 60,000 refrigeration tons, which is about the same as is provided by the Shinjuku Subcenter (Skyscraper Town) system.
PAGE TOP
(3) Environmental business challenges
With respect to the third topic, "environmental business challenges," in addition to developing operations centered around natural gas, our company hopes to actively develop environmental businesses with the natural gas utilization technologies, energy efficiency technologies and the various other environmental protection measures we have so far cultivated as the core factors.
PAGE TOP
a. Energy conservation services
First, we have "energy conservation services," which came into being in order to meet the needs of customers who want to use energy more efficiently, and which deal comprehensively with their energy issues. This is a new type of service, and expectations are high for its future growth. The energy services performed by our company aims to provide service for a diverse range of equipment and facilities.
PAGE TOP
b. Soil cleanup services
Next we have "soil cleanup services." In response to potential soil pollution problems at former town gas production sites, and with the guidance of the Ministry of Environment, our company has been taking preventive measures against the pollution of soil and groundwater well in advance of the time. We hope to put to good use the original soil cleanup technology and know-how that our company has cultivated, and with the establishment of Soil Contamination Countermeasures Law and the resulting expansion of soil rehabilitation work, we are looking into how to develop the soil cleanup business using heat and biological methods.
PAGE TOP
Message to students inheriting the planet in the 21st century
I have a message about my dreams and expectations that I would like to convey to you, students who will be inheriting our planet in the 21st century. As we meet the 21st century, we are encountering unprecedented situations in politics, in the economy, in society and in every other field, and I believe that the coming years will be ones of even more extreme changes. In other words, in a context of new value systems and a situation of chaos searching for order, we will somehow have to move in a direction that will bring us toward the light. Some people consider this age as a new turning point comparable to the Meiji Restoration. In this context, those who will form the central group on which this progress will depend are, I believe, the students like you who are here today. So, to help you survive through your lives to come, there are three things I would like to ask you to take on with a firm will.
First, there has never been an age which demands more individuality and independence. That is, with the progressing diversification in values about every aspect of life, such as politics, the economy and society, the multiple choices for solving problems will become more complex and complicated, and so you will have to carefully examine what is your real duty, and what lacks true correspondence with reality. If you fail in this, I fear you may be swallowed up and washed away in the swelling tides of the era.
The second thing I would like you to do is set a goal for yourself and do
your best in society. In any event, it is said
that there is a strong trend of "too much
talk and too little action" in our present
society. Most particularly in times like this,
each and every one of you needs to have a goal
and faith in yourself as you work to achieve reforms
that aim for a new age. In particular, dealing
with the environment involves global-scale issues,
and I do not think it is an exaggeration to say
that we face unprecedented challenges which will
affect the survival of the world's political,
economic and social systems as well as the lives
of every member of humankind living on the planet.
Third, to do these things, a level of expertise that incorporates cutting-edge knowledge, technology and body of experience is needed in every field. New actions are required at a speed that makes anything from the past obsolete. Whatever entities that cannot keep up with that pace could be forced to cease to exist. In this sense, I hope you will develop your own strengths and your unique identity with a high level of expertise in your chosen fields.
PAGE TOP
|
 |
