Total new housing starts in Japan for April were 82,389 units, a 9 per cent increase over April 2015, and an 8.9 per cent improvement over March this year, according to the Japan Lumber Reports Friday.
As well, the 2015 Forestry White Paper has been submitted to the Diet, disclos- ing Japan’s current degree of wood self-suf ciency at 31.2 per cent, from the 30 per cent it has been for the past 26 years.
Japan 2015 Forestry White Paper
The 2015 Forestry White Paper has been submit- ted to the Diet, disclosing Japan’s current degree of wood self-sufficiency at 31.2 per cent, from the 30 per cent it has been for the past 26 years, said the Japan Lumber Reports Friday.
Use of domestic wood facilities of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games indicated possibilities of new wood utilization.
Another new move is that techniques are adopted for building of a hotel using cross-laminated timber (CLT) and four-storey wood building with two-hour fire proof materials.
Japan achieved it’s C02 target reduction of 3.8 per cent by forest absorption set at the Kyoto Protocol and is now aiming for another reduction of 2.7 per cent.
Revision of Forestry Law and Wood Self-Sufficiency
At the same session of the Diet, part of Japan’s For- estry law was approved; the basic plan shows directions of forestry policies for the next five years and other parts of the Forestry law which will take effect in April 2017.
By the new Forestry law, Japan’s new target for wood self-sufficiency is 51 per cent by 2025 (from the previous target of 50 per cent by 2020).
Wood Energy Biomass Statistics
Japan’s Forestry Agency will be starting a new wood biomass utilization survey.
The purpose is to investigate actual utilization of wood biomass through users of wood biomass fuel like wood chip, wood pellets, sawdust, and firewood for boilers and power generation.
This is in order to provide official statistics of actual demand for wood biomass fuel to use for power generation, co-generation boiler, and combined use of bio- mass with coal.
This is the first official survey and will be used by Japan’s Forestry Agency as a part of information the Forestry Agency creates each year of total wood demand statistics and forestry basic planning.
The first survey will be made through owners of power generators and boilers as of December 2015 and collected data will be disclosed once this summer then again in December 2016.
Wood and building materials manufacturers have been tackling utilization of biomass such as waste wood for power generation and heat for many years. Since then the number of biomass power generations plants has mushroomed.
This has helped with the disposal of lower grade logs and wood chips.