The challenge of Hachinohe, as a city blessed with the ocean - Toward a creation of a resource-recycling-based community -

Hachinohe City formulated its "Ocean City Plan" in 2003, in order to make not only the port area, but also the whole city more attractive and vibrant by fully utilizing the appeal of the ocean. "Aomori Eco-Town Plan" and "Hachinohe Recycling Port," which have been promoted as core projects for creating a recycling-based community, as well as efforts for new energy projects, etc., are as follows.

Borne of the sea, Hachinohe looks to sea for development

The sea near Hachinohe abounds with treasures. The scenic Tanesashi Coast where natural turf and precious coastal plants grow was selected as one of 100 notable coasts in Japan with white sand and green trees. Kabushima Island is a national monument and designated as a breeding ground for black-tailed gulls. The Port of Hachinohe is blessed with fresh and delicious seafood such as sea urchins and abalone. Its fish haul is greater than many other ports in Japan and its catch of squid is the largest in Japan. A number of companies with advanced recycling technology are located mostly in waterfront industrial areas and form the largest industrial concentration in the northern Tohoku area. The Port of Hachinohe plays an important role in economic activities as the largest base for international container trade in the northern Tohoku area. All of these are Hachinohe's treasures and come from the sea, making the city famous throughout the country.
Taking as its philosophy, "Borne of the sea, growing with the sea," Hachinohe City formulated its "Ocean City Plan" in March 2003 to make the port area and the entire city more attractive and energized by fully utilizing the appeal of the ocean.
In December 2002, Hachinohe Station on the Tohoku Shinkansen Line opened and since then Hachinohe Yatai Village - which is well known as a "slow food" mecca - and other tourist centers have combined local cuisine with the use of fresh, abundant food from the ocean and mountains to attract local and national attention in tourism circles.

Hachinohe's challenge of zero emissions

After Hachinohe City was designated as a new industrial city in 1964, its industrial infrastructure was reinforced, and basic material-related and life-related industries involving paper, pulp, steel, nonferrous metals, smelting, and food concentrated mostly in waterfront areas. The shipment value of manufactured products was approximately ?430 billion in 2000, roughly one third of the prefectural shipment value of manufactured products, and the city has become the largest industrial area in the northern Tohoku area.
Against this background, the "Aomori Eco-Town Plan," which was approved by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and the Ministry of the Environment in December 2002, has been promoted as a core project for creating a recycling-based community. The plan aims at the complete elimination of emissions through technology that has been built up over many years in the smelting and other basic material-related industries for the complete separation of metals from other materials, along with technology to remove dioxins and other toxic substances from waste.
An example of this recycling project is the scheme for complete recycling that has been initiated by the following three companies. Facilities for recycling incinerated ash and scallop shells were established in the Hachinohe plant of Pacific Metals Co., Ltd., where waste scallop shells collected in Aomori Prefecture and ash incinerated in Hachinohe City are mixed and melted in order to produce fish banks and manmade gravel. The resulting fly ash discharged from the plant and also from Tohoku Tokyo Steel K.K. is then received by Hachinohe Smelting Co., Ltd., which collects lead, zinc, cadmium and other metals from the fly ash and produces slugs, which are used as cement material. Through this process, the project is intended to establish a system that does not discharge any industrial waste in the region.
In addition to the Aomori Eco-Town Plan, the Port of Hachinohe was designated as a Recycling Port by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in April of 2003. We can therefore expect that infrastructure will be improved for the creation of new industries in the environmental and recycling-related fields.

Project for making water flow into electricity:Special district project for new energy

In addition to the promotion of the Aomori Eco-Town Plan, the city has also been working hard on new energy systems. In particular, "an experimental study on local new energy sources" was entrusted to the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and approved in May 2003 as a special project in the special zone for the creation of environmental and energy industries in Aomori Prefecture. The study has been drawing considerable national attention.
The project is designed to generate electricity and heat (Ship & Ocean Newsletter No.85 February 20, 2004) with the use of methane gas generated from wastewater and sludge at the sewage treatment plant in the eastern part of Hachinohe City, to supply electricity by private cables to nearby elementary schools, junior high schools, the city government office, and the water supply authority, and to utilize the generated heat to promote fermentation of wastewater and sludge. As discharged sewage sludge is used to supply electricity to the water supply authority, which supplies clean water, the project is called "a project for making water flow into electricity." This is a leading-edge project with photovoltaic power generators and windpower generators established at the sewage treatment plant, the elementary schools, the junior high schools and the city government office, with a number of natural energy systems being combined. This is also the world's first microgrid project (self-supplied power system) and takes advantage of the partial deregulation of the Electricity Utilities Industry Law. The system will begin operating in 2005, and various experimental studies on system control, the assessment of the quality of electricity, and other facets of the actual performance of microgrids are planned to be conducted in the five years to 2007.

Efforts for offshore windpower generation

Hachinohe City has been actively working on the creation of new industries and communities in harmony with the environment through the introduction of new energy, such as the implementation of NEDO's project for establishing a "new energy vision" at the local level in 2003. The city has been focusing particularly on windpower generation. In order to explore the possibilities of offshore windpower generation in the region as a project in 2003, the city entrusted the Research Institute for Ocean Economics to conduct a feasibility survey on offshore windpower generation in Hachinohe. At present, the city is preparing a proposal for a schedule for (1) the understanding of the conditions of coastal waters in the use and characteristics of wind, (2) a study on infrastructure, including the size and layout of facilities and the connection between electrical lines and systems, (3) a questionnaire survey among the private sector and others, (4) identification of legal, technical, and environmental issues, and (5) a study on an implementation system and commercialization.
In addition, in order to commercialize offshore windpower generation, a society consisting of industry, educational institutions, the government, and the private sector in the region was established in August 2003 for the study of offshore windpower generation in Hachinohe. To date, the society has held two meetings and has been conducting a feasibility study on the selection of a suitable site, a study on the awareness of businesses and a study of an allocation system.
With initiatives such as these, the city is promoting "the concept of natural energy generation at the Port of Hachinohe" with an emphasis on offshore windpower generation as the symbol of a city blessed by the ocean. With regard to the use of newly-generated electricity, the city plans to conduct investigations and research on the use of electricity for port facilities, such as lighting in open spaces and waterfront areas, the lighting up of bridges, the supply of electricity for plants and refrigerating chambers for seafood processing in waterfront areas, and the generation of hydrogen for fuel cells.

Toward the creation of a resource recyclingbased community

Owing to the wisdom and efforts of our ancestors, Hachinohe City has developed into the hub city of the northern Tohoku area, as the foremost industrial center, as a major base for land, sea, and air transportation with the introduction of the newly opened Tohoku Shinkansen Line, and as a provider of various urban functions for a wide area. I believe that it is the responsibility of the current generation to further improve such industrial concentration and urban functions, and to hand down to the next generation a rich natural environment of seas, mountains, and rivers, as well as a tradition and culture that have been carefully protected and nurtured. With "a city blessed by the ocean" as one of its slogans, Hachinohe City would like to continue to make every possible effort to promote environment and energy-oriented projects in the future.

Hachinohe City's industrial promotion plan using the sea