Energy / Climate Change

August 15, 2010

 

SHIN-IDEMITSU to Construct World's First Commercial Plant to Produce Hydrogen from Wood Chips

Keywords: Energy Conservation Environmental Technology Non-manufacturing industry 

JFS/SHIN-IDEMITSU to Construct World's First Commercial Plant to Produce Hydrogen
Copyright SHIN-IDEMITSU Co.


SHIN-IDEMITSU Co., a major Japanese oil distributor with marketing name IDEX, announced on June 2, 2010, that it had officially signed an agreement with Omuta City, Fukuoka Prefecture, in western Japan to construct a plant in Omuta Eco-Town that will produce hydrogen from biomass. This contract followed the decision of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to grant a subsidy to the world's first commercial plant project to produce hydrogen from wood biomass through gasification.

In the project, IDEX Eco-Energy Co., a completely IDEX-owned company, will construct the plant to produce hydrogen using Blue Tower Technology, a technology that produces hydrogen from bio-mass, which is owned by Japan Planning Organization, Inc. After designing and constructing the plant, the company plans to conduct trial operations in fiscal 2011, and later start commercial operation.

The raw materials will primarily be wood chips, such as scrap and waste wood from local timber mills and construction. From 15 tons of dried wood chips, 7,200 cubic meters of high purity hydrogen will be produced per day. According to estimates, carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 75 percent as compared with conventional hydrogen production from liquid natural gas. By not relying on partial oxidization, but rather gasification under reduction conditions, and the use of ceramic balls as a heat medium, the new technology produces little of the tar that has been a bottleneck for other technologies.

IDEX intends to develop similar projects in the future throughout Japan, while forming partnerships with local governments. Furthermore, as both the raw materials and finished products are supplied locally, these plants exemplify the concept of local production, local consumption.

Posted: 2010/08/15 06:00:15 AM

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