How will the environmental and economic concerns be changed by the transition from fossil to renewable resources?
Carbon neutral
Circular economy
IOA
Increasing movements toward sustainability necessitate the reduction of fossil consumption and the shift to renewable resources, including biomass. The use of biomass, a resource derived from plants and animals, is expected not only to contribute to sustainability but also to create a regional economy circulation by revitalizing the agricultural and forestry industries. We asked Dr. Yasunori Kikuchi, who is involved in evaluating products using renewable-based materials such as cellulose nanofiber (CNF), about the environmental and economic impacts of the shift from fossil resources to renewable resources.
菊池 康紀KIKUCHI Yasunori
Professor, Institute for Future Initiatives, The University of Tokyo
The influence of integrating new technologies into the social framework on the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources is assessed through simulation.
My original expertise is chemical systems engineering. Based on this knowledge, our group models technologies, constructs mathematical models of the process implementing target technologies, simulates the processes, and designs/assesses whole chemical plants.
Furthermore, by expanding the scope to regions, countries, and the entire globe, we also simulate and analyze how to lower environmental burdens and what socioeconomic and sociotechnical mechanisms are necessary for supporting sustainability. The social transformation requires sophisticated simulation and examination before large construction because decision-making could affect social performances for over 10 years. Simulation-based decision-making is strongly needed for such a situation.
The main theme of our research is “how to reduce the consumption of fossil resources”. Fossil resources are used not only as a source of energy but also for various other purposes, such as raw materials for plastic products. If the use of fossil resources is discontinued in the future, it will be necessary to combine renewable resources, such as biomass, as well as solar and wind power. We are also deploying activities to support the development of technologies to utilize renewable resources and to implement them in society.
In addition, to produce plant resource-derived products, it is a requirement that the agriculture and forestry industries be sustainable (Fig. 1). However, as they are now, both agriculture and forestry are facing challenges and are difficult to sustain. For plant resources such as biomass to become a truly renewable, we must also consider how sustainable agriculture and forestry should be. The project aims to assess not only the environmental impact but also the socioeconomic impact, which will eventually lead to revitalizing Japan’s agriculture and forestry industries.
Figure 1: Overview of life cycle of products derived from plant resources
Agriculture and forestry must be sustainable for the production of products derived from plant resources.
Environmental Impact of Transitioning from Fossil Resources to Renewable Resources
What is LCA for products made from renewable resources?
LCA visualizes the environmental impacts of a product or service in the product’s resource mining, manufacturing, use, recycling, and disposal. In our research, we assess the environmental impact of shifting from fossil resources to renewable resources. Still, in fact, LCA for the use of fossil resources has not yet been fully done either.
How exactly do you perform LCA?
There may be successful demonstrations at the laboratory level for products under development, or patents may have been obtained for new technologies. Therefore, we investigate university and corporate research laboratories to collect data by asking them to share their experimental data and measure the data. From the data collected in this way, we first understand what happens as a phenomenon on a small scale at the laboratory level.
Then, when the technology is introduced into society, the process and the technology itself will change due to the scale-up resulting from mass production. Methodologies for simulating these changes have been developed in various engineering fields, such as chemical engineering, so engineering knowledge is combined to simulate what would happen if what was done at the laboratory level were introduced into society. This is a time-consuming part of the research.
Once this simulation is completed, the case in which this technology is introduced into the process is simulated on a computer, and the environmental impact and other aspects of the envisioned future society are assessed. In other words, we create a part of the future society in a virtual space, simulate the life cycle of the product there, and evaluate the environmental impact.
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