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Japanese town blazes trail in clean energy
Kuzumaki, Japan (AFP) July 23, 2008 Here in the mountains of northern Japan, wind, sun and even cow dung are being turned into electricity as part of efforts to turn a whole town into an experiment in renewable energy use. The town is a sprawling laboratory for the whole of the archipelago, which has almost no fossil fuels of its own and is seeking to diversify its energy sources to reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil. It was at the end of the 1990s that Kuzumaki, under its then-mayor Tetsuo Nakamura, made the push into clean energy. "Global oil stocks were getting scarce. Energy was going to become the issue of the 21st century," Nakamura recalled. The urgent task was to safeguard Kuzumaki's finances in the face of rural depopulation. The mayor set three priorities: the forest industry, dairy farming and clean energy. At the time Kuzumaki had only three windmills, but it was also home to the biggest semi-public dairy farm in Japan with 3,000 cows, as well as a wine-growing industry, launched by the city with help from private companies. Now even the cows are doing their bit as the town produces electricity in part from methane that comes from the manure of 200 of them. According to a 2006 UN report cattle-rearing produces more greenhouse gases worldwide than vehicle traffic largely through methane, a heat-trapping gas. The 37 kilowatts of power the cows here help to produce is modest and costly but the goal, as with the windmills and solar power, is to test a technology fresh out of the laboratory. The state provided half of the 5.7 billion yen (53 million dollars) investment for the town's clean energy project, almost matching private companies. Kuzumaki invested 45 million yen (420,000 dollars). The result: 12 additional windmills were constructed, raising the town's wind power to 22,200 kilowatts -- enough to supply 16,900 homes with electricity, far more than the 2,900 households in the city. "Some said that the windmills would ruin the landscape. But it was the best possible choice, from both an economical and ecological viewpoint," said the former mayor. Built at a blustery altitude of 1,000 metres (3,280 feet), the windmills overhang only pastures and no dwellings. Home to 8,000 people, Kuzumaki is lucky enough to have a territory of 400 square kilometres (154.4 square miles), an area the size of Yokohama with its 3.6 million residents. Wind is not the only natural energy the town is seeking to harness -- solar panels supply one quarter of the electricity used by a local school. At the national level, use of solar panels has suffered since the end of public subsidies in 2005. Sharp Corp. -- once the global industry leader -- has been dethroned by a German rival, but the government of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is eyeing a resumption of the subsidies. A small research site for fuel cells, a future source of clean energy for cars and houses, has also been set up here. Authorities hope the forest industry will also help tackle global warming. Japan, despite being the birthplace of the Kyoto Protocol, is far behind in meeting its obligation to cut greenhouse gas emissions by six percent from the 1990 level by 2012. "Abundant wood in Japan was an important energy source until the 1950s, before being put to one side," said Nakamura. The Japanese government is counting on an expansion of its forests to reduce its net emissions of greenhouse gases by 3.8 percent. To meet the goal, the forestry ministry estimates the industry needs annual subsidies of 100 billion yen (930 millions of dollars). Only 73.5 billion yen was provided in 2007. With help from the state and its own finances, Kuzumaki has subsidised tree planting, forest maintenance and the sale of wood for construction or domestic use. A total of 190 hectares (469.5 acres) of forest was replanted in five years. If the state does not follow the lead by providing more funding, the city will have difficulty continuing, said Nakamura. Through a mixture of clean energy and reforestation, the city reduced its carbon footprint by 39,000 tonnes to just 6,000 tonnes a year. And Kuzumaki, which presents itself as "the city of milk, wine and clean energy," now attracts 500,000 tourists a year, helping to spread the message. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Share This Article With Planet Earth
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