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ENGLISH ISSUE BIOGAS JOURNAL | AUTUMN_2023 Shikaoi Hydrogen Farm: Biogas plant at the local environment center. JAPAN Milk, Manure, Hydrogen Tokyo Biogas has not played a major role in Japan’s energy mix so far. But that could soon change. In addition, some innovative concepts are being tested in the Land of the Rising Sun. Author: Klaus Sieg Covering an area of 83,000 square kilometers, Hokkaido is Japan’s second-largest island. But the island is mostly off the beaten track for most people, except for those who come to ski. And yet, in 1972, the Winter Olympics were held on Hokkaido. Located in the far north of Japan on a par with Vladivostok, temperatures on the island are frosty throughout the long winter. And there are heavy snowfalls. Despite this, a significant portion of the food produced in the country is grown in Hokkaido. The agricultural center lies in the Tokkachi region near the city of Obhihiro. Nowhere in Japan is the countryside so vast and flat. If it were not for the mountain ranges on the horizon, you might mistake this place for northern Germany. Corn, potatoes, onions, beets, and cabbage thrive in the fields. Enormous farms produce meat and dairy products, which are sold as far south as the fourth largest island state in the world. It comes as no surprise that Japan’s largest concentration of biogas plants can be found here. Out of approximately 220 facilities in the country, one hundred operate using substrates from agriculture. According to a study by the ECOS Institute from Osnabrück for the EU-Japan Centre, seventy of these are located in Hokkaido Biogas Plant for Manure from 20,000 Cows “We particularly had to find a solution for the great amount of manure,” says Yoichi Abo. “In our community Shikaoi, there are 5,500 people and 20,000 cows.” So, with the support of the Japanese government, the community invested in an environment center headed by Yoichi Abo. The centerpiece of the environmental center is a biogas plant that started operating in October 2007. Every day, trucks fill its digesters with more than 130 tons of manure. Added to this are small amounts of organic municipal waste and wastewater. The 3,900 cubic meters of biogas produced daily are utilized by two combined heat and power plants (CHP) generating 6,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, enough to power 600 households. “Moreover, we have significantly re- PHOTOGRAPHS: MARTIN EGBERT 46
BIOGAS JOURNAL | AUTUMN_2023 ENGLISH ISSUE Shikaoi Hydrogen Farm: The hydrogen is obtained through steam reforming. Yoichi Abo has brought the remote island of Hokkaido into world events with his Shikaoi Hydrogen Farm. International guests come almost every day to visit the biogas plant’s hydrogen filling station. duced odor pollution in the area,” Yoichi Abo adds. Yoichi Abo and his team have also demonstrated how a problem can become a solution. They are planning a second plant with an absorption capacity of 200 tons of manure per day. That could enable the community to operate with autonomous power supply. Above all, the environmental center aims to demonstrate the possibilities offered by biogas technology. The residues from the facility are sold as fertilizer, and the waste heat from the two CHP plants is used to heat three greenhouses, where mangoes and sweet potatoes are cultivated. A small sturgeon farm also uses the waste heat from the CHP. Biogas caviar will soon be available. In the future, Yoichi Abo also wants to market the CO 2 from the plant for the production of dry ice. His latest achievement, however, is a methane-powered hydrogen filling station that outshines everything else. “We are the first filling station in Japan to produce hydrogen from methane obtained from manure,” says Yoichi Abo. Apart from ours, there is only one other methane-hydrogen filling station that recently started operating in Fukuoka on the southern main island of Kyūshū, using wastewater fermentation. “We are the first filling station in Japan to produce hydrogen from methane obtained from manure” Yoichi Abo The Shikaoi Hydrogen Farm draws visitors from all over the world to the environmental center. “Just recently, we had the ambassador from Chile here, and tomorrow, a group of visitors from Thailand is scheduled to arrive,” Yoichi Abi proudly says. Today’s visitors, a group of Japanese businessmen wearing black business suits, are part of the daily route on the Shikaoi Hydrogen Farm. Just now, they are strolling past the filling station, where a white hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai is parked. The first mass-produced hydrogen car, made five years ago, belongs to Yoichi Abo. This model can travel 500 kilometers on a full tank, while the successor model can cover 650 kilometers. “To cover 500 kilometers, we need 60 cubic meters of hydrogen, which we produce from 25 cubic meters of methane. However, with larger quantities, we can increase the efficiency to a ratio of 1:4,” explains Yoichi Abo. Each Cow Provides Hydrogen for 10,000 Kilometers per Year Hydrogen out of methane is obtained using so-called steam reformation, which is a less expensive process than electrolysis. In this process, methane and water vapor react under high heat and pressure to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen. “Each cow produces 23 tons of excrement per year,” explains Yoichi Abo, “from which we can produce enough hydrogen for 10,000 kilometers, equivalent to the average distance a Japanese person travels privately in a year.” However, there is not much activity yet at the hydrogen filling station. On some days, besides Yoichi Abo’s car, the only vehicle is the environment center’s forklift truck that comes to the spotlessly clean station to refuel. Fuel cell cars are twice as expensive to acquire. “Currently, there are only 50 fuel cell cars on the whole of Hokkaido, but hopefully, that will change soon,” says Yoichi Abo. As it is a pilot project, Abo doesn’t have to worry about making a profit for now. For the past nine years, he has been responsible for sales, installation, and maintenance of biogas plants at Tsuchiya Dairy Equipment & Systems. The business area has grown substantially at the agricultural machinery company, which now employs 150 people. “Biogas is becoming more and more important for us. We have already set up 62 plants with a capacity of 13 megawatts. Most of them are in Hokkaido,” Bussacker explains on the drive to one of the plants. Crows perch in the bare trees along the roadside, where meter-high wooden posts with red and white arrows mark 47
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Autumn 2023 EN

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