Ministry proposing plan to rev up Biomass Town Program

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan has put together the draft of a plan to accelerate the nation’s Biomass Town Program to promote more efficient regional utilization of biomass. The plan, which lists 12 specific action steps, calls for the overall improvement of facilities for biomass conversion and utilization and the establishment of regional resources-recycling systems. It also proposes to fully leverage private-sector initiatives, from the financial and technological perspectives, while advocating the promotion of collaboration with other Asian countries. The Biomass Town Program targetshaving 300 municipalities implement the comprehensive and appropriate use of biomass by 2010. The plan’s 12 action steps include strengthening the flexible support of government and municipalities to facilitate the utilization of private-sector funds; developing mobile, small-scale processing plants to lower costs; improving technologies for the collection and transport of raw materials; and setting up more-efficient systems. (March 26, 2009)