Masayuki Ichinohe

Cost-effectivess of subsidization to photovoltaics in Japan from the viewpoint of carbon dioxide emission reduction

Publisher Summary This chapter analyzes the cost-effectiveness of subsidies to photovoltaics (PV) in Japan through an electricity buy-back program from reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions point of view. For this analysis, the energy system of Japan is modeled using MARKAL, which is one of the energy system model based on multi-objective linear programming. With national PV capacity targets in mind and an assumed carbon tax, PV system sales price and electricity buy-back rates necessary to make PV cost-competitive with other energy technologies is estimated. The results show that, under the expected carbon tax of 6000 JPY/t-C, PV require continuous subsidies via buy-backs even if both fuel savings and green credit are taken into account. Annual revenue of the assumed carbon tax is sufficient to finance the estimated total annual subsidy. Estimated cost-effectiveness of the subsidy ranges from about 33000 JPY/t-C in around 2020 to zero in 2030. It is anticipated that the analysis will provide decision making support for prioritizing and optimizing subsidies to new energy technologies.

Development of a Production Information Management System to Support Environmental CSR Activities for Process Production

Recently, awareness of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been raised and various environmental regulations have spread in many countries. Under this situation, manufacturers of process production, production information management systems are required that can archive and retrieve data not only of final products and raw materials but of chemical substances contained, intermediate products and wastes generated, and energy consumption during the production. However, management systems and product models currently used for assembly production do not fit the above requirement. To solve the problem, first, an object-oriented process-product model was designed which can represent these data and can be easily implemented on commercial ORDBMS. Second, traceability functions of explosion and implosion covering chemical substances, intermediate products, wastes and energy were developed on the ORDBMS. Third, a generic environmental law model was designed which can represent restrictions of various environmental regulations in a uniform way. Finally, a conformance checking function for environmental regulations was developed by combining the generic environmental law model with the process-product model. The effectiveness of the models and functions was verified by applying them to full-scale production data of functional polymer films and checking its conformance to RoHS and EuP directives.Copyright