NEWS

Outcome of Workshop on Sustainable University Development with Focus on Renewable Energy at ICU (SUDre2017) & Biomass Energy for ICU Case Study

Dear ICU Alumni,

Thank you so much to the ICU Alumni Association for successfully publicizing the first workshop on Sustainable University Development with Focus on Renewabke Energy SUDre2017, and to all alumni who actively participated in the workshop on May 27 this year. We had nearly 120 participants. In the meantime we have collected the first nine speaker contributions for the online proceedings preprints, and we started to edit and publish the presentation videos. More preprints and presentation videos will be published in the near future. So please keep checking.

Furthermore, I would like to inform you about the promising results of a year long study on biomass energy use for ICU as a source of renewable energy for the Mitaka campus. The study was carried out jointly by four ICU professors from education, business, physics and politics. We recently published a summary of the results as an open access preprint.

Please refer to the items listed below.

With kind regards,

Eckhard Hitzer (Senior Associate Professor, ICU)


1) First nine SUDre2017 proceedings online preprints [4 English, 5 Japanese]:

https://sudworkshops.wordpress.com/2017/09/03/sudre2017-proceedings-preprints/

2) SUDre2017 online video presentations [Japanese]:

https://sudworkshops.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/sudre2017-presentation-videos/

3) Prospects of Modern Wood Gas Cogeneration Renewable Energy Supply in Japan − Case Study of ICU

Authors: Eckhard Hitzer, Mark Langager, Nobyuki Miyazaki, Takashi Kibe
Abstract: In this article we introduce scalable modern commercial wood gas cogeneration technology of micro scale, beginning at 35-45 kW electric power, scalable up to 800kW electric power, as offered by several international companies. Cogeneration means to use both electricity and heat, which leads to an overall efficiency of converting the chemical energy in wood of up to 90%. We discuss aspects of technology, systainability, forest ecology, local and international fuel quality standards, long term cost efficiency, potential for attracting various forms of official financial support and potential risks involved. In particular we make the general study concrete in the form of a case study on renewable energy supply for the International Christian University campus in Mitaka, western Tokyo. Changing scale parameters in order to adapt to the local energy demand, we expect that this case study can be transferred to other schools, universities, institutions, businesses and buildings in Japan. We further try to address the question as to what contribution this technology can make to the future national renewable energy supply in Japan.
Comments: 16 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, 2.5 pages of references.
Open Access Download: http://vixra.org/pdf/1710.0009v3.pdf