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ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTIONS
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The
JFE Group is promoting customer-oriented businesses
targeted at environment-related and eco-energy
areas, while drawing upon the Group's collective
strength.
The needs of national and local governments
and private companies in the fields of the
environment and environmentally friendly energy
sources are growing. In this situation, the
JFE Group is developing its environmental
solutions business by taking advantage of
its collective strength as well as its technology
and expertise. Within JFE Holdings, we have
created the Environmental Solutions Center
as a Group-wide organization to maximize synergies
within the Group. This Center's mission is
to explore environmental needs, plan and propose
solutions, and at the same time create new
kinds of environmental solutions businesses.
We, at the JFE Group, aim to cultivate our
environmental solution business into a next-generation
business that contributes to maximizing the
Group's earnings. |
 INITIATIVES
FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
A prime example of our leading-edge environmental
solutions is our efforts to work with local
governments in environmentally conscious urban
planning activities. JFE takes an active part
in local governments' environmentally conscious
urban planning programs from the initial stages.
Drawing on the proximity of our steelworks
to recycling markets in large cities and the
technology possessed by our steel and engineering
businesses, we are actively involved in operations
to recycle the waste products generated by
other corporations and local communities.
Specifically, our activities involve recycling
waste plastic as feed in our blast furnaces,
utilizing plastic from containers and packaging
in making board for concrete forms, recycling
vinyl chloride, PET bottles and household
appliances, gasifying and melting combustible
wastes, developing a bio-gas business based
on food waste, and using recycled materials
as resources in steelmaking.
Furthermore, through alliances
with nearby companies, we promote resource
recycling and the reuse of energy in the industrial
complexes where our steel mills are located.
We are actively engaged in creating new forms
of cooperative businesses that will help contribute
to a recycling-oriented society.
DME
PROJECT: NEW CLEAN FUEL FOR THE 21ST
CENTURY
People are beginning to take a closer look
at DME (dimethyl ether) as a clean fuel for
the 21st century. DME can be manufactured
from a variety of hydrocarbon source materials
and has very low impact on the environment,
emitting no sulfur oxide (SOx) gases or particulate
matter (PM) when burned. DME is non-toxic,
with superior handling characteristics, and
can be used in a wide range of applications,
from electric power generation (thermoelectric,
cogeneration and fuel-cells) to transport
applications (in diesel engines and fuel-cell
vehicles), household fuels (as an alternative
to LPG) and as a raw material in the chemical
field.
Based on our proprietary technology
for the direct synthesis of DME in large volumes
at low cost, the JFE Group and its partner
companies established DME Development Co.,
Ltd. in December 2001. Since July 2002, we
have been making advances in research and
development with support from the Ministry
of Economy, Trade and Industry's Agency of
Natural Resources and Energy. In January 2004
we succeeded in our test operation of one
of the world's largest demonstration plants
for this technology, with a daily production
capacity of 100 tons (completed in November
2003 as a scaled-up version of a previous
test plant which had a daily production capacity
of five tons). Over the next three years,
we will continue to focus strongly on research
and development with the aim of building a
commercial-scale plant with a daily production
capacity of about 3,000 tons, conducting repeated
test runs and verification tests.
In April 2004, a group of seven
companies including JFE established a DME
Promotion Center, which actively promotes
the early introduction and popularization
of DME.
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| 100t/day DME Demonstration
Plant |
NEW
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE ENERGY BUSINESS
The JFE Group is actively engaged in various
energy businesses. These include businesses
related to wholesale and retail sales of electricity
using high-efficiency self-generation electric
power facilities, as well as a thermal recycling
business which employs RDF (refuse-derived
fuel). We are also involved in wind power
generation using a farm of 124 wind turbines
with a total power of 91,850 kilowatt.
In addition to these businesses
which are already in operation, we are actively
engaged in the development of the next-generation
clean fuel DME, as well as its applications
such as environmentally friendly, high-efficiency
power generation facilities, and in the development
of solid-oxide fuel-cells. By creating customer-oriented
businesses based on our expertise and technologies
in new electric power and energy fields, we
expect to be able to develop unique energy
businesses which take advantage of our collective
strength.
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