I'm Uemura from the Produce Department. The project " Google Innovation Tohoku " that we in the Produce Department are involved in aims to further accelerate the reconstruction of Tohoku, and we support various local players who are working on regional revitalization. In 2015, one event was born from this project.
The creators of the event are Junichi Hasegawa of Hakoneyama Terrace in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, and Kohei Izutsu of Awakura Onsen Motoyu in Nishiawakura, Okayama Prefecture. They are front-runners in promoting wood biomass in their respective regions, tailored to their local characteristics. The two met through Innovation Tohoku and hit it off, saying, "Let's talk about the right kind of energy for our region, in a dinner party kind of atmosphere!" The event " WoodLuck " was born, with the concept of "a gathering for wood biomass and delicious food."
Rikuzentakata city and Nishiawakura village, two small places in the east and west of Japan, more than 700 km apart, are gathering together to eat delicious food and talk. From there, a huge vortex of energy is beginning to spread across Japan.
Although I didn't know the first thing about biomass, I ended up attending the first event, which was held from November 5th to 7th. I would like to share my honest thoughts on what I felt after spending the three days there.
The first venue was Hakoneyama Terrace, a lodging facility in Rikuzentakata. As its name suggests, the spacious wooden terrace overlooks Hirota Bay. The cafe and bar, which is the base for organizer Hasegawa's wood biomass business and where guests gather, has a large pellet stove.
"Woody biomass" is far away.
The three-day, two-night event consisted of a tour of a biomass site on the first day, a workshop on the second day where participants presented their impressions of the tour and their own activities, and a final day looking back on the three days.
In between, the important "delicious meals" await you.
The first thing I did was, as I'm embarrassed to admit, to search for the keyword "wood biomass." However, no matter how much I searched, the results I got were "forest resources," "carbon neutral," "renewable energy," and other words that were far removed from the world of someone living in Tokyo.
However, I can't just go there empty-handed,
- Burning fuel made from wood to produce heat, electricity, and other energy
- There are three types of wood biomass fuel: firewood, pellets, and chips.
With just these very basic things in mind, I headed to the event armed with only a cypress bow and cloth clothing, which was rather unreliable equipment.
This is a pellet stove. It produces almost no smoke, so it can be installed in urban homes. This stove makes a pleasant clanging sound as the pellets fall.
It was autumn, and people in Tokyo were just starting to pull out their coats, but when we got off at the meeting point, Ichinoseki Station, it was already cold enough to make us feel winter in Tohoku. After a brief exchange of greetings between the participants, the first day of the biomass site inspection began.
Although the actual order may differ, we were able to tour the entire process from upstream (production) to downstream (consumption), from cutting down cedar trees in the mountains, sawing them into lumber, producing scraps, and turning these scraps into pellets that can be used in boilers and stoves.
The sight of trees being cut down with wedges and chainsaws reminded me of the movie "WOOD JOB!", and the participants cheered nonstop as they touched the hot, freshly made pellets.
The most memorable moment for me was when we passed a mountain on the way to a logging site.
"Look closely at that dark mountain and remember this. You can't cut down too many trees, but if you don't cut them down too much, as they grow the sunlight doesn't reach the ground and the trees get thinner and thinner."
I was deeply shocked by these words from the organizer, Mr. Hasegawa.
I grew up hearing, "Let's take care of trees," and I thought that taking care of trees meant not cutting them down. However, not caring for trees actually makes the trees thinner and loses their value as lumber, and the mountains end up being abandoned...
If you think about it carefully, it may seem like a simple thing, but when I heard that story while looking at the pitch black mountain in front of me, where you can't see even 5 meters ahead, I really felt it. I knew I would never forget that dark mountain for the rest of my life.
It's an amazing machine that grabs felled trees and cuts them with a blade attached to the tip. The participants cheered and watched as the machine moved so skillfully it was like their own limbs. This high-performance attachment that is attached to the tip of the heavy machinery is apparently as expensive as the heavy machinery itself.
Local resources,
Use in the local area
The process we inspected this time is taking place in a nearby, neighboring region.
Grow trees → Cut down trees → Process wood → Make pellets from scraps → Use the pellets as fuel for stoves and boilers. This "local production and consumption of energy" is the "great potential for the region" that wood biomass can realize.
Kerosene (a fossil fuel) is widely used in stoves and boilers, and most of it is imported from overseas, so the more we consume it, the more money goes out of Japan. However, by creating a system of local production and consumption using resources that are already in the region, not only will the cost of purchasing fuel be paid within the region, but new jobs will be created in the processing, delivery, and sales of fuel, leading to an increase in employment.
In a country blessed with such abundant forest resources, cutting down a certain amount of trees helps to keep the mountains healthy. Furthermore, producing and consuming wood energy locally creates an economic cycle within the region and even creates new jobs. In other words, the initiative to create an energy cycle of local production and consumption using wood in Japan makes a lot of sense.
These are wood pellets. Cat owners are familiar with the wood pellets used in cat litter. They are made from wood and scraps that would have been thrown away as garbage. In addition, various pellets have been developed to suit the characteristics of each region, such as rice husks, waste mushroom beds, and chicken manure (!).
As I continued my tour, I heard many such stories from people working on the front lines and gained a deeper understanding of the relationship between wood biomass and the local community. At the same time, putting aside economic rationality and energy self-sufficiency for the moment, a thrilling, tingly feeling began to well up inside me: "Great! Wood biomass is just so great!"
Next to it is "woody biomass"
It becomes my own business.
With that same uneasy feeling in my heart, I attended the second day of the workshop.
Each of the eight participants will be given 10 minutes to give a presentation about themselves and then speak frankly about what they felt during the first day's tour.
The participants were all different. Some had been promoting wood biomass for over 10 years, some worked in forestry, some were just starting to get interested in putting a pellet stove in their home, and some, like me, were asking "What is biomass?" The topics they discussed ranged from technical terms to basic questions and even their own thoughts. But that's what makes this event so exciting.
"WoodLuck has made it possible for 'ordinary people' to talk about biomass. This is truly amazing, and I feel that the biomass industry has reached the next stage."
Izutsu, one of the creators of the event, said this after the workshop.
Even if you don't know much about wood biomass, the main purpose of the workshop is for you to talk about it in your own words, based on your own experiences and feelings. For those on the front lines, these honest opinions and questions can also serve as hints for "communicating more clearly and correctly."
With numerous breaks (though the conversation continued here and there during breaks with coffee in hand), the workshop lasted a whopping eight hours.
For dinner after the workshop, everyone made pizza together using a homemade pizza oven (fired with firewood, of course). They kneaded the dough while chattering, put the toppings on with a laugh, and worked together to bake the pizzas one after another. After enjoying the delicious meal that was in line with the concept, including paella topped with plenty of seafood and pot-au-feu with chunks of vegetables, the evening session of WoodLuck had already started before we knew it.
This pizza oven was handmade by the organizer, Mr. Hasegawa and his team, from the foundation to the brickwork. The pizzas were a big hit with the participants, and were quickly eaten up. Pizzas that were kneaded by hand, topped with your favorite toppings, and baked over a wood fire were especially delicious.
It's strange, but when you eat from the same pot and sleep in the same place for three days, an indescribable "sense of camaraderie" is born. The participants formed several small groups and talked candidly around the pellet stove about everything from wood biomass to their own life advice, as if they were old friends.
On the other hand, there was a group that was silently drinking around the fire, sharing a quiet moment, and I joined the latter group, and before I knew it, I had been burning firewood for five hours straight, barely saying a word.
As someone once said, "people become honest when faced with a fire." I focused only on making sure the firewood was burning and raking the ashes, and it was the most intense night of my life, where I laid bare everything that was in my head and heart and reorganized it, reexamining the new values I had discovered, as well as my own lifestyle and the environment around me.
What remained with me throughout these three days?
What I gained from this event was the unparalleled "experience" of my life: I got to see what was happening with my own eyes, feel the warmth of the pellet stove on my own skin, hear the soothing sound of the pellets falling with my own ears, and above all, have the time to reflect on myself by continuing to burn firewood with my own hands.
Through this experience, I became so interested in "wood biomass" that it even surprised me, and even now, more than three months after the event, my enthusiasm shows no signs of cooling down.
A world I had never known before was suddenly and truly thrust upon me, and my values changed completely. I still can't quite put into words the feeling I had, like a door opening.
This is a secretly taken photo of me as I silently continued to burn firewood. I wasn't burning anything, just burning firewood, raking out the ashes, and thinking about things for five hours. I wonder how many years it's been since I've gone so long without touching my PC or smartphone.
In fact, when writing this article, I rewrote it many times (sorry, Editor-in-Chief), and each time I did so, the approach and what I wanted to convey changed. I think this is because I am still in the process of digesting the experiences of those three days.
Recently, I also participated in WoodLuck #2, held by Izutsu-san, another creator, in Nishiawakura Village, Okayama Prefecture. I visited a thinning site unique to Nishiawakura Village, got up at 6am to watch a firewood boiler being lit, and ate rice cooked with firewood. By experiencing a "lifestyle of living with firewood," I was able to get a new feel for the benefits and hassle of firewood, which is different from pellets, and the realization of wood biomass rooted in local life.
The next WoodLuck #3 will be held in Akiha-ku, Niigata City. I'm sure that if there are 100 regions, there will be 100 different ways to use wood biomass that are unique to each region.
Gathering around the fire, warming your body on a cold day, and losing yourself in front of the fire.
Rather than thinking about difficult global energy issues such as our reliance on fossil fuels or reducing carbon dioxide emissions, we simply think about the energy that feels comfortable within a 5m radius of ourselves. This event will spread across Japan, and participants will continue to have experiences that make them feel like they are part of it, and this idea makes me really excited.
Now that I have experienced this excitement, I don't know yet whether I will be in a position to promote biomass, or a consumer who enjoys installing a pellet stove in their home, or whether I will be in a position to support activities to promote it. In 2016, I intend to be honest with my desire to know more, learn what I want to know, see what I want to see, experience what I want to experience, and explore my own way of getting involved.
- Click here to learn more about WoodLuck’s efforts
- Click here to participate in WoodLuck #3 (April 15-17, Akihabara Ward, Niigata City)
Kami