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■Foreword
Let’s Pursue Innovative Ideas

01

Yoichi Kaya
Director General, Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth■R&D Activities
Research Planning Group

Strategy and Roadmap on Innovative Technology for Drastic 02
Reduction of CO� Emission

Systems Analysis Group

Development of Scenarios for Sustainable and Effective
Measures against Climate Change

07

Molecular Microbiology andBiotechnology Group

Global Trend of Biorefinery and Research Overview

11

Chemical Research Group

Our Challenges for Efficient and Industrializing CO� CaptureTechnologies

13

CO� Storage Research GroupCO� Storage Technology Development for Practical
Application

17■Topics

20■2009 Paper, Presentation and Publication

26

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Foreword

Let’s Pursue Innovative Ideas
Yoichi Kaya, Director General,
Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth

RITE was established in 1990, and will welcome its 20 th Anniversary this year. The original
objective of RITE is under the name of New Earth 21 project proposed by METI to develop
technologies for reducing CO2 emitted into the atmosphere substantially. Projects RITE launchedat that time include hydrogen production from solar energy, CO2 recycling system in which CO2
produced in industries is transported to remote area, converted to methanol utilizing solar energy
at that area and brought back by the same ship for CO2 transport, and CO2 ﬁxation via sea algae. We
frankly feel now they were a little too ambitious to be realized in practice.
Then after various trials we reached the three main projects we are conducting now. The ﬁrst is
CCS capturing CO2 from ﬂue gas and storing it into underground and else, the second conversionof cellulose into ethanol via bio-refinery, and the third quantitative system analysis of climatechange and sustainable development. The ﬁrst two deal with crucial technologies now and in near
future. They have produced a number of remarkable outputs which made RITE well known in
the world. The system analysis is the area RITE did few eﬀorts at the starting stage. As response to
climate change has been developed worldwide, however, RITE realized importance of integrated
analysis of the matter, developed quantitative models and conducted analyses actively. Due to theseeﬀorts importance of RITE analyses became well known widely.
Then how about RITE research activities in future? Present projects are still going on
and we naturally promote them further. In addition, RITE wish to develop other types ofinnovative technologies than those we are dealing with contributing to the realization of low
carbon society. One of keys toward this end is secondary energy technology. We need in future
various ways of utilizing renewable energy for decarbonizing energy, which inevitably requireconversion of renewables into secondary energy. At present it may be electric power as in thecases of photovoltaics and wind power, ethanol as transport fuel as in the case of present RITE
biotechnology project, and hydrogen as in the case of one of earlier RITE projects. We howeverstill wonder whether there may be other types of useful secondary energy, and also other ways of
converting primary energy into secondary one in substantially higher eﬃciency and/or lower cost.
RITE always looks for any idea of such technologies and will promote breeding these technologies
actively. We wish you to encourage and help us in these eﬀorts.

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R&D Activities

Research Planning Group

Research Planning Group

Strategy and Roadmap on Innovative Technology for Drastic Reduction of CO2 Emission
capture and storage (CCS) are most promising. Eﬀective utilization after capturing CO2 is also possible.
However, capture from the second emission group isvery costly, and thus absorption & ﬁxation of emitted
and diluted CO2 by living matters such as trees or grasses is considered to be promising. Not-captured CO2
from large emission sites are also included in this ﬁeld.
Sub-technologies for these two emission groups are also
shown in the same ﬁgure.
CO2 capture and storage (CCS): This technology iscomposed of CO2 capture and injection into geologicalformations or ocean in order to store or sequester CO2.
For geological storage, deep saline aquifers, coal seams,
depleted oil or gas ﬁelds are available and enhanced oilor gas recoveries (EOR, EGR) are also important. In
ocean sequestration technology, dissolution & dilution(mobile or stationary type), and deep sea storage areavailable.
Eﬀective utilization of CO2: This technology converts CO2 to useful materials through chemical or biological processes. It is composed of two technology
groups, decomposition to carbon and conversion tochemicals.
Absorption & ﬁxation of CO2 using living matters:
This technology can ﬁx CO2 using living matters. It is
composed of three groups, terrestrial storage like large
scale aﬀorestation, ﬁxation using marine plants, andﬁxation using fauna like coral reef. In terrestrial storage,
conversion of stacked biomass to energy or chemicalmaterials is included.
After evaluation of eﬀectiveness as a CO2 mitigation
option, CO2 reduction potential, rough estimate of current cost, and cost viability in 2030 of these technologies, technologies which are eﬀective from both reduction potential and cost viewpoint and should be moved
to implementation level were selected and detailed strategic scenarios and roadmaps were written on the following focused themes:■ CCS: Capture of CO2, geological storage in deep
saline aquifer, coal seem, and depleted oil & gas ﬁeld,
EOR, EGR, and ocean sequestration■ Terrestrial storage using large scale aﬀorestation:
Suitable evaluation method for CO2 ﬁxation, increase of
CO2 ﬁxation per unit area, expansion of vegetation into
arid area, vegetation expansion by industrial uses ofplant materials, and innovative biomass utilization.

1. Introduction

A drastic reduction of global CO2 emission by 50%
level by 2050 is required to stop global warming. Eﬀorts
in several ﬁelds such as energy saving or alternating chloroﬂuorocarbon have already been done to reduce green
house gas emission. But, CO2 concentration in the air isstill increasing. This fact shows that present activities are
not enough for quitting global warming and building
sustainable society. Thus, in addition to these eﬀorts, we
also have to develop ﬁxation and eﬀective utilization
technologies of emitted CO2 as possible mitigation options in future.
Among CO2 ﬁxation and eﬀective utilization technologies, “IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Captureand Storage” described that carbon dioxide capture andstorage (CCS) was one of key technology for global
warming mitigation. Furthermore, in “the Cool Earth
Energy Innovative Technology Plan” submitted by Japanese Government on March, 2008, CCS was selected oneof prioritized innovative technologies for 50% cut inglobal CO2 emission by 2050.
On considering these circumstances, RITE built up atechnology strategy on “CO2 ﬁxation and eﬀective utilization” in 2004 from medium- and long-termed viewpoint and rolls it up every year. METI also issued “Technology Strategic Roadmap 2009” on the basis of ourinvestigation and some investigations in other ﬁelds. In
this paper, I would like to introduce our “Technology
Strategy Roadmap on CO2 ﬁxation and eﬀective utilization”

2. O ver v ie w of CO 2 fixation and effe ctive
utilization technologies and prioritization

Among a variety of mitigation technologies of global
warming, we focused on “CO2 ﬁxation and eﬀective utilization technologies” which are main investigation ﬁeldsof RITE and on which RITE are expected to draw up a
strategy roadmap by METI. In energy ﬁeld, the strategy
roadmap on energy saving, fuel shift from fossil to nonfossil and sift to lower carbon fuels among fossil fuels was
also planed to be drawn. Thus, we draw up roadmap only
on innovative conversion and utilization technologies ofbiomass in this ﬁeld.
Overview of CO2 ﬁxation and eﬀective utilization
technologies is shown in ﬁgure 1. There are two diﬀerent
groups of CO2 emission sources. First group is a large
concentrative emission sources such as power plants,
iron and steel- making works etc. Another group is small
sized but large number of scattered emission sources like
automobiles and houses. For the ﬁrst emission group,

3. Strategy and roadmap on CCS

CCS is composed of capture and storage (geologicalor ocean) processes.

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Research Planning Group

Figure1 Technology Overview of CO2 Fixation and effective CO2 utilization

In capture process, target emission sites are power
plants, iron & steel making plants, and cement works etc.
As capture technologies for power plant, three processes,
post-combustion for ordinary ﬂue gas, pre-combustion
for synthetic gas derived from partially fuel oxidation
process like IGCC, and oxyfuel process in which fuel isoxidized by oxygen instead of air to produce ﬂue gas witha high CO2 concentration are known. Chemical absorption, physical absorption, membrane separation, adsorption, and cryogenic separation are available for separation technology of CO2. Chemical absorption is promisingfor ﬂue gases, and chemical absorption, physical absorption and membrane are adapted for pressured gas. Chemical absorption and physical absorption are already commercialized. But a drastic reduction in capture cost isrequired because cost reduction of CCS is required as a
mitigation option of global warming. Current capture
cost is high and estimated to be about 70% of total CCS
cost. Reduction in energy consumption in capture process is another important aspect. Power plant with CO2
capture requires 20-30 % additional energy compared tothat without capture. To solve this problem, a lot of innovative low-energy capture processes have been investigated aggressively in the world on chemical absorption,
physical absorption, membrane separation, and adsorption.
In another respect, development of capture process
has to be synchronized with development of geologicalstorage process. We have to complete the development of
low energy and low cost capture processes before thestart of implementation of geological storage. Purity ofcaptured CO2 is also restricted to be in the required levelfor geological storage.
RITE has been developing CO2 storage or sequestration technologies. Ten thousand tons of CO2 was injected
into a saline aquifer in Nagaoka gas ﬁeld, Niigata Prefecture. This injection experiment demonstrated safe storage of CO2 in deep saline aquifer which is expected to bea most promising CO2 reservoir in Japan. Injected CO2
was monitored using several kind of monitoring techniques and numeric simulation to seek long-termed migration of CO2 was examined. Besides, a lot of validity
studies, including cost or potential evaluations, that conﬁrmed CCS as a useful mitigation option in Japan, werecarried out. Safety assessment and some other investigations on regulation and public acceptance were also done.
On the basis of these investigations, issues to resolve before implementation of CCS were discussed in “CCS
Study Group” formed by METI in ﬁscal year 2007 andlarge scale demonstrations were concluded to be necessary along with R&D on cost eﬀective but safer CCS technologies and development of required regulations.
On the basis of above considerations, R&D strategy
and roadmap on CCS were built up (ﬁgure 2).

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R&D Activities

Research Planning Group

Figure 2 Strategic Technology Roadmap “CO2 ﬁxation and effective CO2 utilization”✳ CO2 capture: New PC(830MW), Amount of CCS:1Mt-CO2/yr, compression:7MPa, Steam extract from steam cycle of power plant✳ Geological storage :Cost of CO2 capture+pipeline transport 20km+injection (compression:15MPa, 0.1Mt-CO2/yr/well)✳ Afforestation: Afforestation cycle 7years(Cut down and sprout reafforestation), Biomass quantity of production 20m3/hr/yr, Cost for
afforestation management:17~31%, Cost of land lease:$50/hr∙yr

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R&D Activities

Research Planning Group

Ocean sequestration is important technology having
large reduction potential but it will take long time tobuild up international consensus to use it because biological impacts of CO2 injection have not been clear.
Thus, it is important to start the development of geological storage at ﬁrst, which is going to be recognized a key
technology for quitting global warming in the world. For
example, a vigorous promotion of geologic storage wasadopted in G8 summit and IEA, CSLF and other institutes clariﬁed problems for implementation and maderoadmaps for introducing CCS. These roadmaps in theworld show that establishment of necessary technologies
and regulatory framework are ﬁnished by around 2015.
Thus, in our roadmap we also set the year of establishment of CCS technology in Japan in around 2015. By
then, various validations or safety studies are necessary
along with developments of CCS technologies including
a large scale demonstration. On CCS regulations, the exsiting laws in Japan ﬁrstly should be considered and then,if necessary, new CCS regulatory frameworks should beestablished in accordance with international regulatory
works like in London Convention. Especially, assignmentof long-termed responsibility of stored CO2 will have to
be examined suﬃciently. Besides, we also have to promote public understanding on CCS as early as possible.
Meanwhile, we set the year of implementation of ocean
sequestration in 2030. We have to accumulate more scientiﬁc knowledge and numerical simulation data on biological impacts by then.
Regarding capture, low energy and low cost technologies have to be completed by 2015 in harmony with thestart of storage implementation. A drastic cost decrease is
expected. The more capture cost decrease, the far reservoirs from emission site becomes economically available
and then the storage potential becomes larger. Capture
cost is plausible to be about two thousand yen in 2015
and 1000’s yen/t-CO2 is required as a ﬁnal goal on considering emission trading price and competitiveness withforeign vendors. We have to develop innovative technologies to attain such cost targets and extend practical applications.
In accordance with this roadmap, Japan CCS Corp.
which was the ﬁrst company specialized in CCS, was established in 2008 and candidate sites for a large scaledemonstration have been examined and conceptual design studies are being done now. Furthermore, safety andenvironmental issues that should be observed in implementing a large-scale CCS demonstration project in Japan were discussed in the CCS study group and the report
titled “For safe operation of a CCS demonstration project” was issued in 2009. A large demonstration of CCS in
Japan is being ready to start.

4. Strategy and roadmap on terrestrial storage
using large scale aﬀorestation

Terrestrial sequestration using large scale aﬀorestation enables sequestration of emitted and diluted CO2 in
the air and should be developed together with biomass
utilization. This is only technology capable of competingwith CCS from a viewpoint of large decrease in CO2 concentration in the air. For example in the US, the cost target for R&D of environmental forestation was set in 2008.
Furthermore, development of ethanol or chemicals production from biomass becomes vigorous in the world.
The US is most active and has some projects to build
commercial plants.
Prior to implementation of terrestrial sequestration
using large scale aﬀorestation, technologies on selecting
proper sites and type of plants, system evaluations suchas water balance for forestation, environmental impact
evaluations, and estimation of absorbing amount of CO2
are required to be developed. In order to increase reduction potential of CO2, increase of absorbing amount of
CO2 per unit area and expansion of vegetation into arid
area are required. For preparing environment for promoting aﬀorestation etc, consolidating regulatory framework, making standard of CO2 monitoring, evaluating
various advantages of forest and approving genetic recombination are pointed to be important. Biotic diversiﬁcation is also a factor required to be considered. International cooperation such as co-development ofinnovative technologies, management cooperation topromote aﬀorestation, and capacity building in advancing countries also should be undertaken.
In biomass utilization, eﬃcient conversion technologies to energy or useful material and the technologies
enabling to use wide variety of biomass species are important. Various kinds of chemicals are produced on thebasis of petroleum platform now. Substitution of themfor green chemicals from biomass is eﬀective for cutting
CO2 emission and decrease of oil consumption, and thus
we need innovative technologies which can convert biomass to useful chemicals eﬀectively at lower cost. This
stream from environmental aﬀorestration to industrial
use of biomass becomes world-wide paradigm shift.
Thus, we need to carry out R&D on increase of CO2
ﬁxation per unit area, vegetation expansion into arid area,and vegetation expansion using industrial uses of plantmaterials by 2010-2015. The year of technology combination between aﬀorestation and biomass utilization is set
in around 2020. Building up of wide variety of biomass
utilization systems and large scale demonstrations arenecessary by around 2030.
The roadmap in this ﬁeld is also shown in ﬁgure 2.
Targets and milestones are follows:
Increase of CO2 ﬁxation per unit area: First, application study of the technologies without genetic modiﬁcation like molecular breeding and soil improvement05

R&D Activities

Research Planning Groupshould be started for earlier use. In technologies with genetic modiﬁcation, we have to carry out R&D to attainthe target of increasing CO2 ﬁxation by a factor of 2 andto ensure safety of genetic modiﬁed plants. On thesetechnologies, test applications should be started fromaround 2015 before starting commercial applications inaround 2030.
Expansion of vegetation into arid area: First, application study of technologies without genetic modiﬁcation
like collecting water, irrigation, and molecular breeding
are to be started for earlier use. In technologies with genetic modiﬁcation, we have to continue R&D on new
species which can make industrial forestation undersmall precipitation conditions. The target is 500 mm inaround 2020 and 300 mm in around 2030. We also haveto ensure safety of genetic modiﬁed plants and carry out
ﬁeld test in around 2015 and ﬁnish commercial application by 2030.
Vegetation expansion in harmony with bio-energy
utilization is composed of improving plants to produce
more plant materials and innovative conversion and utilization technologies of biomass as follows:
Improving plants: Double production of energy materials like fatty oil and wax from plants is a target. Field
demonstration and application study are to be started inaround 2015
Innovative biomass conversion: Production of alcohol or other useful chemicals from sugar becomes inpractical level now, but competition between energy utilization of corn or other grains and food production ispointed to be a problem. In order to avoid this, we haveto choose cellulosic materials as a starting biomass. However, it becomes another problem that conventional sacchariﬁcation of cellurosic materials is very costly. Thus,
innovative sacchariﬁcation techniques of cellurosic ma-

terials at low cost are strongly required. In the process ofusing cellurosic materials, lignin comes up as by-product. Especially, as woody materials contain much lignin,
we have to consider the eﬀective use of lignin. In theroadmap, it was described that basic R&D was to be completed by around 2010 and then application studies
should be started.
Innovative biomass utilization: We need to develop
highly eﬀective and economical production technologies
of fuels like alcohols, hydrogen and useful chemicals likepolymers which are currently produced from petroleum.
In around 2015, these utilization technologies are to be
combined with innovative conversion technologies andapplication studies on coherent production systems frombiomass to chemicals should be started.
The point of the coalition between large-scale aﬀorestation and biomass utilization is set in around 2020. As
small sized eﬀective gas conversion system, liquid fuelproduction there, alcohol fermentation, innovative utilization systems described earlier are expected to be accomplished by then, we will be able to use the biomassgrown by large scale aﬀorestation. Total biomass utilization system including gathering and transportation
should also be built up by then.

5. Conclusion

RITE publicizes this roadmap via the Internet, invites
opinion from the public, and rolls up roadmap every
year. Innovative technologies are required to stop global
warming. We have to gather more knowledge and wisdom from universities, institutes, and companies etc. On
the basis of these, purpose-ﬁtting and eﬀective developments and promotion of applications should be carriedout. We wish that our roadmap contributes to such eﬀective developments.

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R&D Activities

Systems Analysis Group

Systems Analysis Group

Development of Scenarios for Sustainable and Eﬀective Measures against Climate Change
1. Introduction

2. International comparisons of energy eﬃciency

The thirteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 13)
took place in December 2007, in Bali, Indonesia and thenegotiations resulted in the agreement of a two-year negotiating process, the Bali Roadmap, setting a deadline
for the negotiations in Copenhagen to conclude the post2012 framework on Climate Change. In the COP14 meeting held in Poznan, Poland, it is agreed that the contributions of Annex I parties to the scale of emission reductions should be informed by consideration of, inter alia,
the analysis of the mitigation potential, commitment period, base year. In December 2009, the COP 15 was heldin Copenhagen, Denmark. The Copenhagen Conference
marked the culmination of a two-year negotiating process to enhance international climate change cooperation
under the Bali Roadmap, and many world leaders attended the conference. There was concern that negotiations
ended up being broken down, but political agreement entitled the “Copenhagen Accord” was taken note in thelast minute. This event reminded us of the diﬃculty toenhanced action and international cooperation on climate change.
As Copenhagen approached most of major countries
prepared to propose individual midterm reduction targets, inter alia quantiﬁed economy-wide emission targets
for 2020. On Wednesday 10th June 2009, the Japanese
former Prime Minister Taro Aso announced that Japan
will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent from2005 levels as its midterm target for 2020. After a changeof government, Japan’s new leader Yukio Hatoyama of
the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), announced the revised Japan's mid-term target at the U.N. Climate Change
Conference to be held on September 22 in New York. For
its mid-term goal, Japan will aim to reduce its emissions
by 25% by 2020, if compared to the 1990 level, on condition that a fair and eﬀective international framework isestablished, in which all major economies participate.
The Systems Analysis Group has been conducting
studies on the climate change, which include very complex and a wide range of issues, by using systematic approaches in order to gain a big picture with paying attention details. We’ve also made eﬀorts to inform the public
about our analysis correctly and contributed to the decision making process on setting midterm target in Japanas mentioned above by providing our scientiﬁc and rational research results.
In this paper, we would like to introduce our major
analysis and their implications as a report of our research
activities.

Long term and global wide perspectives are essential
to reduce carbon dioxide emissions steadily. There isusually a time lag between climate change and carbon
dioxide emissions through human activities, addressing
climate change with the long time scale is indispensable.
Even if focusing on CO2 reducing masseuses, plants andfacilities for power sectors and energy-intensive industries usually have long lifetime, it is quite diﬃcult to makea deep cut in the short or medium term, which leads toinvolve huge cost to achieve deeper cut. The changing
global climate poses profound challenges to us. We needto take into consideration the timing of technological development and its implementation in order to reduce
emissions eﬀectively.
A global perspective is also crucial. There are huge
gaps in energy eﬃciency across countries as shown in
Figure 1. Countries with low energy eﬃciency are relatively easy to improve energy eﬃciency and have larger
CO2 emission reduction potentials. Taking eﬀective measures with global perspective is necessary to fully realize
emission reductions. Note that Figure 1 shows economy
wide energy eﬃciency in aggregate form, so speciﬁccharacteristics of national economy, such as industrial
structure, are not considered. Manufacturing industries
consume larger quantities of energy than non-manufacturing industries. Therefore, energy eﬃciency of a country like Japan with higher ratio of manufacturing in its
economy may be biased.
Technology based eﬃciency is more signiﬁcant to implement eﬀective measures against global warming. To
this end, precise assessment of energy eﬃciency on thebasis of sector or even technology is necessary. We needdetailed date for this analysis but international statistics
is not necessarily well developed. Alternatively, better
understanding of each sector helps our fair assessment ofenergy eﬃciency. Figure 2 shows energy eﬃciency iniron and steel sector across the countries. This results
show Japanese steel sector is the most eﬃcient in energy
use. Most of countries, including China and India, have
improved eﬃciency between 2000 and 2005 while somecountries like Russia have became less eﬃcient. This ﬁgure implies that there is still a lot of potential to reduce
CO2 emission globally through international technology
cooperation.

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R&D Activities

Systems Analysis Group

if compared to the 1990 level, on condition that a fair andeﬀective international framework is established, in which
all major economies participate. Overseas emission credits and the sink through forest sink are counted in thistarget. Note that we cannot make a simple comparison
between these two targets because their assumptions are
diﬀerent. Comparatively speaking with the Kyoto’s 2010
target, the former one reducing GHG emissions 15% below 2005 level (8% below 1990 level) should be comparedwith the ﬁgure of 0.6% below 1990 level (oﬃcial target)
or 3% above 1990 level (count out purchased emission
credits by private sector). On the other hand, the lattertarget to reduce emissions by 25% below 1990 level should
be compared with the Kyoto target, -6% for Japan. (Figure 3)
In any case, it is vital that we recognize how much it
cost to achieve these goals and put them in a proper perspective in the context of global fairness and equitability.
As a member of a team to investigate their validity for thegovernment, RITE engaged with the project.
Figure 4 shows the marginal abatement cost (MAC)
curves derived from the RITE model. The least cost solution involves implementation of all the measures at a
price below the marginal cost shown in Figure 4. Given
that Japan is an energy eﬃcient country and the UnitedStates has large reduction potential partly because they
are currently operating a lot of low eﬃcient coal power
plant, the shape of MAC curves are totally diﬀerent,
which imply Japan has less mitigation potential compared to the United States and the EU with the samecost.
If Japan try to achieve a target of 25% emission reduction below 1990 level in 2020 with only domestic eﬀorts,
the marginal abatement cost is estimated to be 476$/
tCO2, almost 10 times as much as the costs for the EU or
the United States to achieve their respective targets. Thishuge cost gap will incur ﬁnancial outﬂow from Japan not
only to developing countries but also to the EU and theUnited Stated in order to purchase emission credits under the Kyoto mechanism. It also implies carbon leakage
will occur, which does not to contribute to CO2 emission
reduction of the world as a whole.
All countries, at least all major developed economies,
should make the same level of eﬀorts to realize steadyemission reduction in Japan and to contribute to globalwide emission reduction. Japan’s salient target may be inappropriate from the global perspective. In addition tothat, major emitters, even major developing country
emitters, should have eﬀective mitigation targets to someextent. Otherwise, we cannot ensure long-term sustainable eﬀorts to combat climate change. Table 1 showsemission reduction targets, marginal abatement costs,
and abatement costs per GDP of major countries pledged
before the COP15 with baseline adjustment. In the “Copenhagen Accord”, Annex I Parties are requested to sub-Figure 1 Energy efﬁciency by country(Source) IEA Statistics

Figure 2 Energy Efﬁciency in the Iron and Steel sector (BF-BOF
process), 2000 and 2005

(Source) RITE

3. Assessment / Analysis of Japan’s midterm target
and emission reduction targets around theworld

The Systems Analysis Group has developed the highresolution DNE21+ model, in which various technologies to reduce CO2 emissions in each sector are included.
This model enables us to analyze emission reduction
measures backed by technological practicability. Thismodel is also capable of estimating mitigation costs on a
global basis, which allows us to compare emission reduction target of each country. Our modeling results oﬀer
the basic data necessary for climate change negotiations
domestically as well as internationally.
The Japanese government announced that by 2020 Japan will try to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent from 2005 levels as the midterm target. Overseas
emission credits and the sink through forest sink were
not counted in this target, which was supposed to achieve
only domestic eﬀorts. Incumbent prime minister Yukio
Hatoyama of the DPJ announced the revised Japan's
mid-term target to reduce its emissions by 25% by 2020,08

R&D Activities

Systems Analysis Groupmit individually or jointly the quantiﬁed economy-wide
emissions targets for 2020 and Non-Annex I Parties arerequested to submit their mitigation actions. Promotionof having ambitious targets for all Annex I countries andestablishment a fair and eﬀective international framework would be imperative to achieve the 25% emissions
reduction target of Japan.

4. For sustainable and effective measures against
climate change

We only have ten years left by the year 2020. Within
the time span, we need to implement existing technologies more widely and make steady development for innovative technologies. We have, however, various options
to reduce GHG emissions in the long run. It would bepossible to make deeper cut if we could enhance the solidarity of the international community over the issue of
global warming. In conclusion, we would like to suggest
three important points for sustainable and eﬀective measures against climate change. First, a collaborative relationship among industry, government and academia andinternational cooperation would be essential to accelerate RD&D for innovative technologies, which drasticallyreduce cost and emissions. Second, we need to integratevarious technologies, social infrastructure and social system, so that we can reduce costs substantially in a systematic manner. Our challenges are not limited to global
warming, so we need to link climate change issues to other challenges in order to produce a better solution for
maximizing social welfare. Finally, we need to change oursociety into an environmentally sustainable one in whichmeasures taken against climate change could increase theutility of consumers, fostering greater environmental
awareness. For this purpose, not only environmental education but also steady economic growth is crucial.
The Systems Analysis Group intends to continue precise analysis and review on measures to reduce carbon
emissions, and would like to propose truly eﬀective policy and measures for society against global warming, sothat our research could help solve the problem confronting humankind ultimately.

Figure 3 Mid- and Long-term Emission in Japan

Figure 4 Marginal Abatement Cost Curve by country, 2020

(Source) RITE
Marginal Abatement Cost: Relationships between tons of emissions
abated and the CO2 price. A Metric of costs of complying with thetarget for reducing greenhouse gases.

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Systems Analysis Group

Table 1 Mid-term Targets by country[Notes for Table 1]*1 Any target for aggregated Annex I countries is not proposed, but it is estimated here by aggregating the targets ofcountries in Annex I. The marginal abatement cost and the per-GDP cost are estimated assuming that the least costmeasures are taken over the aggregated Annex I countries.
*2 The marginal abatement cost is estimated assuming the least cost measures over the aggregated Annex I countries, that is,
the marginal costs are equal among all Annex I countries.
*3 The per-GDP costs are conditioned to be equal among all Annex I countries.
*4, *5 The targets of China and India are declared to be only for energy-related CO2 emissions, and therefore, the estimation
was considered accordingly.

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R&D Activities

Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group

Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group
Global Trend of Bioreﬁnery and Research Overview

less dependence on crude oil has resulted in half of all
new car sales in Europe being powered by diesel. The Directive set a reference value for a market share of biofuels
at 5.75% by the end of 2010, although each country sets
its own national target. Nonetheless, the EU is a net importer of biodiesel since its domestic productivity cannot
meet demand (ca. 8M ton). Inevitably issues concerning
environmental degradation and competition with foodoils in biodiesel-exporting countries have surfaced. The
coming into force of the Euro 6 standard in 2014 is projected to trigger an increase in the price of new cars, witha concomitant increase in bioethanol production in 5 to
10 years' time.
In Japan, the government set an annual target of
500,000 KL bioethanol by 2010, and demonstration
plants constructed in Hokkaido have been operating
since last year. The plants have a combined annual capacity of 10,000 to 30,000 KL utilizing non-standard wheator sugar beet as feedstocks. With regard to cellulosic ethanol, a few small-scale pilot plants are now getting online
in Japan. Thus Japan lags other developed countries inthe bioreﬁnery ﬁeld, however, the incoming administration is committed to huge reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions and wants to raise the proportion of renewableenergy in the primary energy supply to as much as 10%
by 2020. Further support of the government is expected
for the development of technologies in the bioreﬁnery
ﬁeld.

1. Global trends and the Japanese situation

Since world energy demand has been increasing every year, we have to make eﬀorts for a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and realize a sustainable and lowcarbon society to prevent global warming. In this respect,recent heightened interest in renewable resources including solar, wind, and biomass can help address the overdependence on fossil fuels that is the primary driver of adverse climate change. With regard to biomass, growing
plants sequester CO2 and release it only when they burn,contributing no net changes in atmospheric CO2. A bioreﬁnery concept, proposed to use biomass in place of fossil fuels in future energy production systems, can facilitate environmentally-friendly commercial production ofchemicals and biofuels.
Soaring grain prices in 2008 were blamed on the diversion of food crops to bioethanol production in the
U.S., attracting attention at the 2008 G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit. A consequent global economic downturn
triggered a steep decline in crude oil prices, with severe
adverse eﬀects on the economic performance of the U.S.
bioethanol industry in 2009. Nonetheless, with the“Green New Deal” program of the incoming Obama administration, ﬁnancial support for bioreﬁnery development through the Stephen Chu-headed U.S. Departmentof Energy (DOE) was enhanced.
The 2007 U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) program, targets an annual production of 36 billion gallons
of renewable biofuels by 2022. Considering that the 2009
U.S. bioethanol production of 10.5 billion gallons consumed as much as 30% of total U.S. corn produced thatyear, diversiﬁcation into non-food and cellulosic biomass
resources is imperative. Though no ﬁrm targets are set
yet, the RFS2 roadmap calls for production of up to 100
million gallons of cellulosic ethanol by 2010. Accordingly, the DOE and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
allocated $564 million of Recovery Act funds to spur 19
bioreﬁnery projects in cellulosic ethanol plants, powerfrom biomass feedstock, biodiesel plants, etc, in 15 states.
Moreover, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) has mulled increasing the arbitrary ratio of ethanol blended in gasoline from E10 to E15 (15% ethanol to
85% gasoline). This has been an incentive for the several
commercial-scale (over 10 million gallons per year) cellulosic ethanol plants that are scheduled to go on line in
the U.S. after 2010.
In contrast to the U.S. counterpart, the European biofuels industry is dominated by biodiesel made from rapeseed oil. The European Union (EU) Biofuels Directive
2003/30/EC that came into eﬀect in 2003 to encourage

2. Research activities

We aim to develop an eﬃcient biomass utilization
technology based on the characteristics coryneform bacteria. The process was named “Growth-arrested bioprocess (RITE Bioprocess) ” , and it has so far enabled elevated productivities in organic acids and biofuels. It is a
global pioneer technology for simultaneous utilization of
mixed sugars from cellulosic biomass in bioreﬁnery settings. In collaboration with Honda Motor Company, weapplied it in a production system of ethanol from cellulosic biomass, earning the Grand Prize at the 18th Nikkei
Global Environment Award (see RITE Today 2009). The
key to the high productivities of the process lies largely inits separation of microbial growth from production oftarget compound. This property enables productivities,
expressed as space-time-yield (STY), that so much exceeds those of conventional bioprocesses as to be comparable to those of chemical processes. The Growth-arrested bioprocess therefore continues to receive much interest
from both domestic and international industry players.

11R&D Activities

Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology GroupWe are developing technology for the production of
biofuels and green chemicals from non-food cellulosic
biomass resources by using the novel “Growth-arrested
bioprocess” . In the process, mixed sugars (C5 and C6
sugars) derived from cellulosic biomass are utilized simultaneously and converted to biofuels or platformchemicals, then they are modiﬁed to the targeted green
chemicals by using suitable chemical processes. To develop technologies for the production of biofuels andgreen chemicals, we hope to carry out collaborative research with industry in the future.

3. Future development

Production of green chemicals as well as biofuels derived from non-food biomass is a core technology for the
reduction of GHG emission and achievement of a lowcarbon society (Figure 1). The targeted green chemicals
include commodity plastics such as polypropylenes, engineering plastic, special polymer like carbon ﬁbers, etc.
Japanese makers producing these special polymers command a sizable share of the world market. If these chemicals are produced from cellulosic biomass and used asmaterials or parts, they will help boost competitiveness ofJapanese industry. Major foreign chemical companies
such as DuPont and Dow Chemical also plan to produce
the green chemicals as a core business, and have alreadystarted research and development.

Figure 1 Application of “Growth-arrested bioprocess” in the biorefinery
ﬁeld to achieve a low carbon society

12

R&D Activities

Chemical Research Group

Chemical Research Group

Our Challenges for Eﬃcient and Industrializing CO2 Capture Technologies
Next is about our membrane. We have discovered an
excellent membrane material for the separation of CO2
from H2-containing gas. We are engaged in the development of the structure of a new membrane composed ofthis material and are developing the membrane module
in order to demonstrate with practical coal gasiﬁcationgas.
Reentry we ﬁnd two unique materials for CO2 capture
under high pressures. One material is chemical absorbent and the others are adsorbent. We try to evaluate theperformance of the process with those materials now.
Above all, we are developing not only innovative technologies for foundation for next generation technologies
but also practical and acceptable technologies for the industries on the view of evaluating various new technologies world widely.

Discussions about a new global framework to reduce
CO2 emission is progressing, because China and India
addressed the target of CO2 reduction. The economical
issue that advanced countries and developing countries
how to invest CO2 reduction in future is tough choices.
We think that economical countermeasures will help theﬁnding the coincidence answer in countries.
CCS (CO2 capture and storage) will be one of economical promising countermeasure. It is estimated thatthe cost of CO2 capture from CO2 source s is about 60 %of the total cost of CCS, so the reduction of CO2 capture
cost for CCS is important for CCS deployment.
Conversion technologies of fossil energy are going toprogress, and we consider the power generation systemof a boiler steam turbine evolving into a combined cyclewith a gas turbine for power generation and a combined
cycle with a fuel cell. Then, there are various CO2 capture
technologies such as chemical absorption, physical absorption, membrane separation, and the oxy-fuel method. Progress in these technologies will result in the best
combination between fuel conversion processes and CO2
capture processes, so we should technically pursue theCO2 capture technology that have the highest economic
beneﬁts in future on the basic view of Fig. 1. Our chemical research group studies on various CO2 capture technologies, with a special focus on chemical absorption andmembrane separation methods. We accomplished COCS
Project of which target was reduction of CO2 capture costin ironworks by chemical absorption that had developed
innovative chemical absorbent to reduce the CO2 capture
cost for ﬂue gas in an ironworks to 3000 JPY/ton-CO2.
We continue to develop a chemical absorbent to reduce
this CO2 capture cost to 2000 JPY/ton-CO2. Moreover,
we started the collaboration with foreign institutes.

Development on CO 2 capture technology bychemical absorption system

CO2 capture by chemical absorption has the potential
to be used in practical applications for large stationary
point sources of CO2 in the near future, and a ﬁve-year
project to this end was started in 2004 in collaboration
with four Japanese companies.
The objective of this project is to reduce the CO2 capture cost to half that of the existing technology for the
ﬂue gas (blast furnace gas) stream in an integrated steel
works. The main objectives, shown in Fig. 2, are the development of new absorbents to enable the capture of
CO2 with less energy use, and the development of a heatutilization technology to use waste heat at steel works to
supply low cost steam for regenerating CO2.

Fig.2 The Outline of cost saving CO2 capture system(COCS project)

Fig.1 Vision of power plant and CO2 capture

13

R&D Activities

Chemical Research Groupsince 2007. In general, amine solvents can easily reactwith CO2 under atmospheric pressure condition independent of reaction temperature. But we have conﬁrmedthat some amine solvents , nevertheless they do not react
under atmospheric pressure, react with CO2 depending
on reaction temperature under high pressure condition(Fig. 4). We have proposed a new CO2 capture system inpressurized point sources of CO2 with these absorbents.

RITE mainly develops new absorbents. The most desirable characteristics for new absorbents are: a lower
heat of reaction with CO2, fast CO2 absorbance, and easy
separation from CO2. If this is achieved, CO2 can be captured from a gas stream with a lower energy input. Amongthe solvents tested for CO2 capture, amine solutions haveshown the best performance.
As a ﬁrst step for the screening and development of
new absorbents, the reaction characteristics, such as thereaction rate of CO2, the amounts of CO2 absorbed andthe heat of reaction with CO2, of almost 100’s samples ofcommercial amine solvents selected were analyzed using
laboratory apparatus. Furthermore, compound amine
solutions, that can compensate for deﬁciencies in theamines, were prepared and their performance was investigated.
From these investigations, several type of high performance absorbents (RITE-3,4 series), that showed diﬀerent characteristics, were developed. In succession, newabsorbents (RITE-5,6 series) has been developed throughthe basis of our experimental database and theoreticaldesign of molecular structure of new amine compounds
using the quantum analysis approach. As the result ofbench-scale test, the energy for CO2 capture of the best ofthese absorbents is estimated to be 2.5 [GJ/tonne-CO2].
This value is very low compared to the 4.0 [GJ/tonneCO2] for a standard MEA (mono-ethanol amine) solution, so we have conﬁrmed the accomplishment of the
project target (Fig. 3).

Fig.4 Reduction of CO2 capture energy by new absorbents

The second step of the project has also been carriedout, in which new types of amine compounds, designed
and prepared based on the current knowledge, are evaluated by a similar method. Furthermore, research on the
optimum conditions for the chemical absorption system
has been carried out, so that the best performance can beobtained from the new absorbents. Currently, the aim of
the project is to reduce the CO2 capture energy down to
the target value.

C O 2 an d H 2 s e p ar at i on w it h a p ol y m e r i cmembraneJapan’s government has declared the reduction of CO2
emission to half by 2005 as “Cool Earth 50”. One promising means of dimidiating CO2 emission is the development of an integrated coal gasiﬁcation combined cyclewith CO2 capture & storage (IGCC-CCS). In the processof IGCC-CCS, CO2 separation membranes will play animportant role of reducing CO2 capture cost. The cost estimates indicate that CO2 capture cost from the pressurized gas stream with a membrane might be 1500 JPY/tCO2 or less.
We are currently developing a CO2 molecular gate
membrane with the goal of producing a new, high-performance separation membrane. Fig. 5 shows the basic
outline of the CO2 molecular gate function. The pathway
for gas molecules is occupied solely by CO2, which acts asa gate to block the passage of other gases. Consequently,
the amount of N2 or H2 permeating to the other side of
the membrane is greatly limited and high concentrationsof CO2 can be obtained. The RITE dendrimer having excellent CO2/H2 selectivity is ﬁxed stably in a cross-linked
polymer matrix to form the separation membrane. Fig. 6

Fig.3 Development of new absorbents

The fruits of this project has succeeded to a new project of “COURSE 50” aiming at a drastic reduction of CO2
emission in an integrated steel works. A development of
new absorbents with a higher performance and application study by pilot-scale plant is scheduled hereafter.
Furthermore, based on the current knowledge on CO2
absorbents, a development on new absorbents suitablefor high pressure gas stream has also been carried out
14

R&D Activities

Chemical Research Groupshows conceptual diagram of the PAMAM dendrimer incorporated material and its CO2/H2 separation properties
along with the data reported in Science and others. Our
PAMAM dendrimer incorporated material shows theworld largest CO2/H2 selectivity of 30 or more.

(CSLF), University of Texas at Austin and Norwegian
University of Science and Technology.

Fig.7 Conceptual module design
Fig.5 Conceptual diagram for the CO2 molecular gate

A d v a n c e d C O 2/ H 2 s e p a r a t i o n m a t e r i a l s
incorporating active functional agents (GCEP)The RITE had conducted the developmental work
“Sub-nano structure controlled materials: developmentof innovative gas separation membranes” from the Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) of Stanford University, USA. In a succeeding project, advanced CO2/H2
separation materials incorporating active functional
agents is on going.
In the theme of advanced CO2/H2 separation materials incorporating active functional agents, supercriticaland subcritical CO2 works as a structure directing agentof CO2 aﬃnity materials. Fig. 8 shows the schematic image of the concept. Excellent CO2 separation membrane
will be obtained by strict morphology regulation in molecule scale. In the ﬁgure, supercritical CO2 regulates theCO2 aﬃnity materials of membrane material in the preferable morphology for CO2 permeation (State A). Afterremoving supercritical CO2, the preferable morphology
would be held to form an excellent CO2 separation membrane.

Fig.6 Dendrimer incorporated membrane and its performance

In developing the commercial membrane modulewith the PAMAM dendrimer incorporated material,
RITE involves recently four major membrane companies,
Daicel Chemical Industries, Ltd, Kuraray Co., Ltd., Nitto
Denko Corporation, and Toray Industries. Fig. 7 showsconceptual module designs of the membrane, hollow ﬁber type and spiral wound type. RITE and Nippon SteelEngineering Co., Ltd. will test the trial membrane modules with newly developed simulator and demonstrate
the availability of the membrane module for capturing
CO2 from a pressurized gas stream such as coal gasiﬁcation.
In developing this CO2 molecular gate membrane, the
RITE conducted joint research with many foreign partners such as the US Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) as a recognizedproject of the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum

Fig.8 Concept of supercritical(sc) CO2 structure directing method

15

R&D Activities

Chemical Research GroupCO2 adsorption capacities of 13X zeolite and newly
synthesized adsorbents were shown in Fig. 9. It was conﬁrmed that the adsorbent synthesized in our study had ahydrophobic property and adsorbed considerable
amounts of CO2 under high CO2 pressure. It was also
conﬁrmed they adsorbed CO2 even in the presence ofwater vapor.
From the CO2 separation experiment using CO2-N2
and CO2-H2 mixed gas ﬂow, it was conﬁrmed that the
new adsorbent was eﬀective for the CO2 separation fromthe gas ﬂow in the presence of water vapor. Evaluation of
the process cost is now in progress using two tower typecontinuous adsorption-separation experimental apparatus.

Development of an energy-saving CO 2 -PSA
process using hydrophobic adsorbents

In this project, newly prepared hydrophobic adsorbents have been proposed as CO2 adsorbents for the separation of CO2 from high pressure gas. They can overcome such obstacles to adsorption processes.
Hydrophobic adsorbents have an advantage over traditional adsorbents such as activated carbon and zeolites
because they can adsorb CO2 in the presence of water vapour, which is usually present in ﬂue gases from fossil
fuel combustion. Furthermore, vacuum pump can beeliminated for the adsorption process from high pressuregas.

Fig.9 Development of an energy-saving CO2-PSA process using hydrophobic adsorbents

16

R&D Activities

CO2 Storage Research Group

CO2 Storage Research Group

CO2 Storage Technology Development for Practical Application
tion demonstration test in Nagaoka for eight years.

CO2 Geological Storage Project

The CO2 geological storage technology is a technology for safely and securely trapping CO2, a greenhousegas, into subsurfaces instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. There are various methods for storage, including
EOR, which injects CO2 into depleted oil ﬁelds and recovers the enhanced oil; isolation of CO2 in depleted gas
ﬁelds; ECBM, which injects CO2 in coal seams and recovers methane; and CO2 storage in highly porous sandstone
aquifers containing formation water.
RITE has been working on geological storage, whichenables stable CO2 storage over long periods because
there is a gas- and water-impermeable sealing layer on
top of the aquifer where CO2 is stored. Since the technology of underground natural gas storage can be applied,
this method is thought to be the most immediately eﬀective and closest to practical use.

Fig.2 Nagaoka demonstration test site

RITE has supported large-scale demonstrations of
CO2 geological storage since 2008. Since there is a strong
possibility that reservoirs under sea bottom are the place
for CO2 geological storage in the future in Japan, we needto develop new fundamental technologies such as monitoring methodology etc.
RITE has been working on evaluation of CO2 storage
performance, CO2 behavior evaluation in reservoirs andmonitoring technologies of long-term CO2 behavior inreservoirs. In the evaluation of CO2 storage performance,
we have researched the development of geological structure analysis methodology and the evaluation technology
of CO2 storage amount to prove a stable CO2 geologicalstorage. In the CO2 behavior evaluation in reservoirs, wehave studied the monitoring technology of CO2 behavior
such as a seismic survey, its alternative monitoring technologies and the CO2 behavior prediction technology including model simulation. In the monitoring technologies of long-term CO2 behavior in reservoirs, we haveadvanced the analysis of CO2 storage mechanism in res-Fig.1 Concept of CO2 geological storage“R&D project of CO2 Geological Storage Technology”
supported by METI was launched in 2000 to scientiﬁcallyverify the feasibility of CO2 storage in subsurface aquifers
in Japan, focusing on its eﬀectiveness as global warming
countermeasures. In particular, for the CO2 injection
demonstration test conducted at the test site in Nagaoka
City, Niigata Prefecture, 10,400 tons of CO2 were injectedin the aquifer of 1,100m depth below the ground during
the period from July 2003 to January 2005. The underground behavior of CO2 was observed by cross-well seismic tomography and well loggings, and a behavior prediction simulator was developed, based on the observation
data. In 2007, we measured the behavior of stored CO2 in
the reservoir using several monitoring techniques, and it
was clear that the CO2 had been kept safely stored in theaquifer.
The passable possibility of the implementation of geological storage in Japan was indicated by the CO2 injec17

R&D Activities

Chemical Research Groupervoirs and the development of low-cost long-term monitoring technologies. Moreover, we have conducted theelastic wave measurement using rock core samples andthe threshold pressure measurement for safety of the caprock as a fundamental study supporting some technicalissues of the CO2 geological storage.
We intend to research and develop the technical issues found out in the large-scale demonstrations in progress and to work aiming at commercialization of CO2
geological storage in the future.

ternational Zero Emission Coal) project since FY 2007.
The major subjects are (1) Collecting and sorting information regarding zero emission coal power generation
projects all over the world; (2) Collecting and sorting information regarding zero emission/CCS initiatives of thenations concerned and international organizations; (3)Promoting and enlightening public awareness of zero
emission coal power generation through operating “IZEC
Symposium”, “IZEC Forum” and so on.
We are conducting the current status surveys of morethan 48 demonstration and pilot projects mostly in EU,
U.S. and Australia. Furthermore, we have investigated
the initiatives, policies and strategies of EU, Britain, Norway, Holland, Germany, U.S., Canada, Australia and soon. In FY 2009, we conducted a survey on the current
status and criteria of capture ready especially in Britain
and Germany.
For propagation and enlightenment, we have prepared a web site for IZEC and update the databases of theInternational Zero Emission Coal projects, the initiatives
in the world, the current status of clean coal in each nation and so on. In addition, we will hold “IZEC Forum”
which informs the related industry of the collected information and “IZEC Symposium” which invites representatives of projects overseas.
Through these activities, our objective is to contributeto determine comprehensive strategy for the practical use
of zero emission coal power generation in Japan.

IZEC (International Zero Emission Coal) Project

Fossil fuels account for approximately 80% of global
energy sources and the long-term use of coal is expectedin the future. Clean coal power generation in particular
attracts a lot of attention. From the perspective of global
warming, the combination of high-eﬃciency coal power
generation technology and CCS technology that separates, captures, and stores the CO2 emitted from high-efﬁciency coal power plants receives attention and has beendeveloped in the world.
As such combined technologies, Post-Combustion,
Oxy-Fuel and Pre-Combustion are speciﬁed (See Fig.3).
At present, many zero emission coal power generation
projects such as FutureGen in U.S. are planned all over
the world.
In Japan, some plans such as “Innovative Zero Emission Coal Gasiﬁcation Generation Project” supervised by
NEDO have also started.

China CCS-EOR Project

CCS, the technology to capture and store CO2 fromfossil fuel, is essential as the countermeasures against
global warming until 2100. In particular, CCS-EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery) which can bring commercial advantage of increased oil production is expected to be realized at early stage.
In the United States, CCS-EOR which utilizes natural
CO2 has already been developed in a 60 million-ton scalea year. Moreover, its application to the coal-ﬁred power
stations which emit a large amount of CO2 is expected.
In the recent years, the amount of CO2 emission in
China has been increasing and becomes the largest in theworld. Japan also emits a large amount of CO2 which corresponds to the 4th largest. Therefore, the cooperation
between China and Japan in CCS-EOR study has a verysigniﬁcant meaning from the viewpoint of global warming prevention internationally.
RITE has started technical exchanges including CCSEOR, energy conservation, environmental preservation
and GHG reduction with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). This year, we held CCS-EOR Workshop at Beijing in September and exchanged the technical knowledge shown below:➢CO2 Capture Technology (Chemical Absorption, Physical Absorption and Membrane

Fig.3 Process of Zero Emission Coal Power Generation

To demonstrate zero emission, consolidation of abroad range of technologies and strong ﬁnancial resources are required. Thus, investigating the current status ofzero emission coal power generation projects all over theworld from viewpoints of both technology and development, and promoting and enlightening public awarenessof the zero emission coal power generation are of greatsigniﬁcance in considering our comprehensive implementation strategy for its practical use in Japan.
Reﬂecting the above, RITE has conducted IZEC (In18

R&D Activities

Chemical Research Grouptechnical knowledge of CT scan application in the CO2
storage basic research.
From now on, we will carry forward technical exchanges and implement the practicability study of CCSEOR based on the technical exchange results, so as tocontribute realization of low-carbon society and ensure
energy security.

Separation)➢CO2 Storage Basic Research➢CO2 Monitoring➢CO2 Simulation➢EOR➢Total System
We also sent researchers to China and exchanged

Fig4. Outline of CCS-EOR

19�������
Symposium on Innovative Environmental Technologies
Research Planning Group

Symposium on Innovative Environmental Technologies was held November 4, 2009 at
Mielparque-Kyoto supported by Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Kyoto
Prefecture and Kinki Regional Countermeasure Promotion Meeting on Energy and Global
Warming, attended by 245 delegates from various ﬁeld including industry, academia andgovernment.
The advanced information on CO2 ﬁxation and eﬀective CO2 utilization were presented
by researchers from RITE and other institutions to provide the importance of environmental
technologies and the strategies of developing technologies. Active discussion was carriedout among the participants to expand the collaboration with industry and academia, and tocontribute to devise the Technology Strategy Map.

Kyoto Eco Festival
Research Planning GroupRITE participated in “Kyoto Eco Festival 2009” held in Pulse Plaza on November 21 and22, 2009 to present how RITE has dedicated to the mitigation of global warming and topromote understanding of its activities to the public.
“Kyoto Eco Festival” is held every year and the exhibitors are from NPO, educational
institutions and private sectors based in Kyoto. Each exhibition was designed to enjoy,
experience and learn environmental issue and technologies. “Kyoto Eco Festival 2009”
attracted 28,000 visitors in two days.
RITE exhibited posters about its research activities and a model of CO 2 geologicalstorage. A video on CO2 geological storage was also shown to the visitors during the period.

20�������IIASA-RITE International Symposium 2009
Systems Analysis GroupThe IIASA-RITE International Symposium 2009 was held at Keidanren-Kaikan inTokyo on March 3rd, 2009. This symposium was co-hosted by the International Institutefor Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the Japan Committee for IIASA, and the ResearchInstitute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) with support from the Ministry of
Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan (METI).
We are honored to have a variety of leading experts in the ﬁeld of climate change andenergy issues, including Prof. Winterfeldt, the new director of the IIASA, Prof. Nakicenovic
and Dr. Amann from the IIASA, Prof. Misono, the president of the National Instituteof Technology Evaluation (NITE), and Mr. Sugiyama, Senior researcher of the Central
Research Institute of the Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI). They introduced latest researchdevelopments and discussed how to create a sustainable social economy and exchange views
on necessary measures.
We had an attendance of 230 people, such as participants from industries, ministries,
and universities, leading people to build a sustainable social economy and individuals who
commit themselves to environmental issues locally. Their active discussion motivated us to
dedicate further eﬀorts to our research and development.

21�������
Many Visitors to BioJapan2009 (World Business Forum)
Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology GroupWorld Business Forum organized by BioJapan Organizing Committee and Nikkei Business Publications Inc. was held at Paciﬁco Yokohama from October 7 to October 9, 2009.
Director, Dr. Hideaki Yukawa moderated the seminar of Bioreﬁnery summit [Energy /Chemicals production from sustainable biomass]. We also displayed the highly eﬃcient bio-conversion technology, ‘RITE-Bioprocess’, along with posters and a video presentation, whichallowed to introduce our group activity. Also our collaborative companies joined the exhibition and their panels were displayed in the same booth. We would like to take this opportunity to express our thanks for coming to BioJapan2009. We are planning to give a presentation and exhibition this year too, and we hope to show our latest works at the next
BioJapan.

Mr. Chiaki Takahashi, left, parliamentary secretaryof Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, stopped
by our exhibition booth.

RITE exhibition booth in BioJapan 2009.

22�������CSIRO-RITE Science & Technology Symposium-Amines for Post Combustion CaptureChemical Research GroupThe CSIRO-RITE Science & Technology Symposium -Amines for Post Combustion
Capture- was held at the Kyoto International Conference Center on May 26 (Tue), 2009.
This symposium was co-hosted by the Commonwealth Scientiﬁc and Industrial Research
Organisation (CSIRO) and the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth(RITE), under the auspices of the Australian government.
The symposium ended in a great success with 121 participants from the Australian
Embassy, Tokyo, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT), the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO),
as well as universities and private companies from around the world.
The following speakers delivered lectures to participating experts on the subject of
research & development results of amine-based CO2 capture technologies and the current
performance assessments of pilot plants in the world:-Professor Gary Rochelle (The University of Texas, the United States)-Professor Akira Miyamoto (Tohoku University, Japan)-Professor Hallvard Svendsen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
Norway)-Professor Paitoon Tontiwachwuthikul (University of Regina, Canada)-Mr. Cai Ming (Thermal Power Research Institute, China)
Researchers of CSIRO and RITE also provided lectures, helping participants increase theunderstanding of amines exhibiting higher CO2 capture capacity. For further details on the
symposium, please visit the “Events” page of RITE’s website.

Kyoto International Conference Center23�������
International Zero Emission Coal-ﬁred Generation
IZEC Symposium 2009
CO2 Storage Research GroupThe IZEC symposium 2009 -International Zero Emission Coal-fired Generation- washeld at Hotel Pacific Tokyo on 19th November 2009. This symposium was supported by
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, New
Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, and Japan Coal Energy
Center.
Measures against CO2 issues are required that Coal-ﬁred generation keep playing a roleof major source of electricity in the future; CCS (Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage) has
a key role.
Stakeholders are invited from European Commission, the regulatory agency of EU
member nations, suppliers of power generating plant, and so forth for this symposium.
The current status of CCS was introduced as well as the status of FutureGen project
promoted by US DOE and the activities of GCCSI (Global CCS Institute) which received
attention as the promotion of CCS by Australian government.
The effort for supporting the CCS demonstration project networks in EU was
introduced. Carbon Capture Readiness (CCR, a way to address the practical issues thatwill enable CCS facilities to be installed at a later date) regulated by the U.K. government
ahead of the EU Directive on CCS was explained that it is valuable preliminary step towards
CCS in order to avoid “carbon lock-in”. Additionally, suppliers in EU provided a detailed
explanation of technical development on CCS demonstration projects including CCR.

IZEC Symposium, Hotel Paciﬁc Tokyo24�������
4th Japan-China Energy Conservation ForumCO2 Storage Research GroupOn November 8th 2009, 4th Japan-China Energy Conservation Forum was held at Beijing
Great Hall of the People hosted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)
and the Japan-China Economic Association together with the National Development andReform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic ofChina gathering round 500 related persons from Japan and China respectively.
On the Overall meeting, after speeches were made by Masayuki Naoshima, Minister of
METI, Akio Mimura, Vice President of the Japan-China Economic Association, Li Keqiang,
Vice Premier of People’s Republic of China, Xie Zhenhua, Vice Chairman of NDRC andso on, exchange of 41 Agreement Documents regarding Japan- China energy conservationand environmental cooperation were carried out successfully. Agreement of Japan-China
CCS-EOR cooperation between RITE and International Department of China National
Petroleum Corporation was included in 41 Agreements.
Moreover, fruitful discussion was made on the seven section meetings of top- runnersystem, economic circulation, conversion of sea water into fresh water, automobiles, power
generation/coal, chemicals and long term trade.

Agreement Document Exchange of Japan-China CCS-EOR Cooperation25

2009 Paper, Presentation and Publication

Systems Analysis Group

Systems Analysis Group

26

2009 Paper, Presentation and Publication

Systems Analysis Group

27

2009 Paper, Presentation and Publication

Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group

Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group

28

2009 Paper, Presentation and Publication

Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Group

29

2009 Paper, Presentation and Publication

Chemical Rsearch Group

Chemical Rsearch Group

30

2009 Paper, Presentation and Publication

Chemical Rsearch Group

31

2009 Paper, Presentation and Publication

CO2 Storage Research Group

CO2 Storage Rsearch Group

32

2009 Paper, Presentation and Publication

CO2 Storage Research Group33

Notes34

Research Institute of Innovative
Technology for the Earth
9-2, Kizugawadai, Kizugawa-Shi, Kyoto
619-0292 JAPANTEL. +81-774-75-2300 FAX. +81-774-75-2314

URL http://www.rite.or.jp