Wednesday, January 2, 2013

No. 138: Nittsu’s Grass-roots activities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in Asia (January 2, 2013)

Business trend:
Beginning in 2013, Nippon Express (Nittsu) that is Japan’s largest transportation company will give guidance to truck drivers about energy-saving driving in Vietnam to reduce CO2 emissions by 7%. The company plans to expand the grass-roots activities to Indonesia and Thailand and ultimately wishes to apply the energy-saving driving to hundreds of thousands of trucks it operates worldwide. It will use the reduced amount as its emission allowances. It reckons that it will be able to reduce about 950,000 tons of CO2 that it emitted in Japan in 2011 to nearly zero should it introduce the energy saving driving to 200,000 trucks.

The guidance about energy saving driving is under way in Malaysia. Based on the results in Malaysia, the company reckons that it will be possible to reduce 5 tons of CO2 emissions per truck per year in Vietnam if the energy-saving driving technique becomes widespread. Vietnamese drivers will be instructed to stop idling while waiting for the green signal. In addition, trucks will be loaded with the latest driving control system that tells where the driver made a hard stop and sudden acceleration besides showing fuel consumption of each driver.  

The green letters show that the driver is 
traveling in the energy-saving mode. 

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

No. 137: A technology to recycle liquid crystal display TVs completely (January 1, 2013)

Technology:
Sharp developed a technology to recycle used liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs completely in alliance with Osaka Prefecture University. They successfully created zeolite by reacting pulverized glass in the alkaline solution. Zeolite is expected to enjoy stable demand because it can be used as a soil improvement agent. 

Glass of LCD panel is hard to recycle because it has a protective film on it, and LCD TV makers provide it to recycling manufacturers as a cement material for virtually free. The LCD TV is subject to Home Appliance Recycling Law, and consumes share the cost for recycling. They pay about 2,800 yen for each larger-than-16 inch LCD TV. It is estimated that 600,000 LCD TVs were discarded in 2011. The number of discarded LCD TVs is estimated to increase to 2,600,000 units in 2015 and 5,000,000 units in 2020. Sharp plans to put the technology into practical use in 2015 and provide it to other home electronics companies. 

Recyling LCD TVs
Sharp developed a technology for 
complete recycling of LCD TVs