"The Social Significance of the Black Pellet Business: Pathways Toward a Sustainable Energy Transition through CO? Reduction"

Abstract

This study provides a comprehensive assessment of the social, technical, and economic significance of the black pellet business as a core pathway toward sustainable energy transition under Japan’s Green Transformation (GX) strategy.
Focusing on the Katsurao Village project in Fukushima Prefecture—a former nuclear evacuation zone revitalized through biomass innovation—the paper evaluates the production process, CO₂ reduction potential, and regional employment creation, while extending the analysis to international deployment (Vietnam, Canada) and wildfire residue utilization (Ofunato, Japan; British Columbia, Canada).
Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) results indicate a GWP100 of 0.22–0.30 t CO₂-eq per ton of black pellets, representing a 90–94% reduction compared with coal. The Katsurao plant achieves approximately 45,000 t CO₂/year reduction and creates 26 direct jobs under a half-subsidized financial structure.
Chapter 7 introduces an innovative approach that converts wildfire residues into black pellet feedstock, integrating disaster recovery, carbon sequestration, and regional resilience into a unified GX framework.
This paper concludes that black pellets should be regarded not merely as an energy commodity but as a co-evolutionary social infrastructure that bridges technology, policy, and community in the post-fossil era.

KEY WORDS

Black Pellets; Green Transformation (GX); Carbon Neutrality; Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA); Biomass Energy; Regional Revitalization; Wildfire Residues; Carbon Credit; Sustainable Energy Transition; International Collaboration; Fukushima Reconstruction; Renewable Energy Policy; Decarbonization Strategy; Circular Bioeconomy; Disaster-to-Energy Model