Kobe showcase of new Japanese green technologies

Want an eco-friendly game of Othello?
Game a product at Kobe showcase of new Japanese green technologies
Kwan Weng Kin, Straits Times 27 May 08;

TOKYO - AN OTHELLO board game made from coffee beans was among the many eco-friendly products unveiled at a fair showcasing new Japanese technologies to save the environment.

The fair was held on the sidelines of a Group of Eight environment ministers' meeting which ended in the western city of Kobe yesterday.

The environment ministers urged their leaders, who will meet in Hokkaido, to embrace a Japanese initiative calling for the halving of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

But G-8 nations - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States - still have not agreed on medium-term targets. Nor have emerging economies like China and India agreed to limit their carbon dioxide emissions.

At the upcoming G-8 summit in July, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda plans to make global warming a top issue.

Japan plans to be a global leader in this regard.

The Japanese have been focusing their research and development on the environment for many years now, and stand to gain a major share of a potentially huge global market for such technologies in the coming years.

The key theme of the exhibition, involving some 80 firms, universities and agencies, was new technologies that could slash greenhouse emissions and save the earth from global warming.

In the case of the Eco-Othello game, 60 per cent of the material used to make the game board and pieces is 'silver skin', the thin membrane surrounding the coffee bean that is removed during processing.

The silver skin is supplied by Key Coffee, a leading coffeemaker in Japan whose plant near Tokyo produces 14 tonnes of it a month.

Until recently, silver skin was mostly used for animal feed and fertiliser, or in recycled paper. Key Coffee managed to process silver skin into biomass chips, enabling the material to be used more widely in manufacturing.

Biomass refers to living or dead biological material that can be used as fuel or for industrial production.

Meanwhile, the use of solar energy is set to take off in a big way with a new type of solar cell that is light, flexible and durable.

Traditional solar cells made from silicon tend to be rigid and heavy. But a prototype leaf-shaped organic solar cell module exhibited at Kobe can be incorporated into building materials used for walls and windows of homes. It is also expected to find wide applications in apparel, household goods, leisure and outdoor equipment, and even toys.

The cell was jointly developed by Japan's Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tokki Corporation and Mitsubishi Corporation.

Another exhibitor, Kobe Steel, is able to slash carbon dioxide production with a steel-making process that vastly reduces energy requirements.

It also manufactures lighter and stronger steel and aluminium parts that improve car fuel consumption.

The four-day fair also featured products that will soon be commercially available, like a fuel cell system able to supply a major part of a household's energy needs.