Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CIVILIZATION
Takashi Yabe
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Tatsuya Yamaji
binWord Inc., Japan
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Preface vii
Epilogue 131
Afterword 137
Index 139
This is it.
It was a short stick made of a beautiful green-colored material
like jade that the professor placed on the table. And a plastic bag
filled with small metal flakes in silver-white color was placed next
to it.
This green stick and the silver-white metal will change the
world.
If someone told you that, what would you think?
The green stick was a chromium co-doped neodymium yttrium
aluminum garnet (YAG) laser medium. It is a magic stone that
converts sunlight into a direct laser beam. The silver-white metal
is not such a rare thing. It is magnesium, a lightweight and durable
metal.
About a few years ago I (Yamaji) heard for the first time about the
research of Professor Takashi Yabe at Tokyo Institute of Technology.
The professor said that he could smelt metal magnesium with laser
generated by sunlight. It is magnificent research, but how on earth
can such research be realized? I clearly remember that that was what
I thought.
Was the research really advancing? I visited Professor Yabes
laboratory by coincidence and found out that in fact they were
steadily getting results from their research there.
Even with the bad weather conditions in Tokyo, the chromium co-
doped neodymium YAG laser medium oscillates laser from sunlight.
And a powerful laser smelts the magnesium. Metal magnesium can
be smelted from a compound instantly by irradiating laser. Professor
Yabe says that we can drive a car and operate a power station by
using as fuel magnesium produced in this way.
It wont take us that long to reach the end of the jackpot (a big win)
period that we human beings have been temporarily experiencing.
After the Industrial Revolution, which began in the 18th century,
we have consumed abundant fossil fuels to enrich our lives and meet
our material needs. It started with the use of the steam engine in
the textile industry. Heavy industry such as the steel industry greatly
progressed, and the steam locomotive and steamship made great
strides in the area of public transportation. In the 18th century, coal
was the main source of fossil fuels; however, oil recovery started in
the latter half of the 19th century.
And in the 20th century, the world was changed dramatically
by oil. The raw materials from oil facilitated mass production of
industrial products, and the fuel from oil made mass transportation
of people and supplies possible. The electricity from burnt oil
brought electric appliances to our homes, and information and
communication services flourished.
The use of fossil fuels creates a major problem, not only because of its
limited capability for meeting the energy demand, but also because
of its probability for causing destruction of the environment.
At the Beijing Olympics of 2008, air pollution in China became
big news. Perhaps many of you were shocked at the smoggy picture
of the city with polluted air.
In the developing countries where growth is remarkable, forests
turn into factories and pollutants flow into rivers and contaminate
water necessary for life. The use of fossil fuels leads to the drying up
of aquatic resources.
And the keyword for the impact on the environment is global
warming, which there isnt a single day we pass without hearing
about. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
pointed out, in its fourth evaluation report, that the use of fossil fuels
by human beings mainly caused the increase in atmospheric carbon
dioxide and the activities of human beings after 1750 brought about
global warming. The report warns that if greenhouse gases, including
carbon dioxide, are emitted at the same level as they are now or at a
higher level, they may have a great impact on the climate.
Some people still seem skeptical about global warming, but I think it
is very likely that the use of fossil fuels causes drastic environmental
changes. Fossil fuels such as oil and coal are the accumulation of the
energy from the sun (light and heat) and the earth (terrestrial heat
and crustal movement), which has been stored over several billions of
years. Human beings have consumed energy in very large quantities
in just a short period of 200 years. The atmosphere and seawater on
the earth are in a delicate balance, and a slight change in the surface
temperature of the ocean in an area causes an ocean current change,
and that determines the climate of countries far from there. There
is no doubt that the huge consumption of fossil fuels has some role
here.
We are not in a position to say that we will stop using fossil fuels
because they possibly promote global warming. It is important to
reduce the waste of energy, but it is just not possible to scale down
economic activities. Blocking the creation of jobs and production of
wealth drives people into crises.
The policy deliberated in various countries is the Green New
Deal, which doesnt destroy the environment and at the same time
sustains economic growth. U.S. President Barack Obama announced
that he would invest 150 billion dollars in renewable energy,
including solar energy, and create several million jobs with energy-
saving measures.
Assuming that with solar cells we are able to extract 30% of the
3,650 MJ/m2 solar energy, to get 560 billion 44 MJ of energy, the
area needed is 560 billion 44/(3,650 0.3) = 22,500 million m2 =
22,500 km2.
Because one can find a hydrogen tank that can bear 700
atmospheric pressure, some might think that we should use that, but
in this case the load becomes 7,000 tons/m2. It might be possible to
build a small hydrogen tank for a car, but it is easy to figure out that it
is impossible to build a tank that can store energy for general use.
Then a question that naturally comes to mind is, why has no one
been using it so far if it is that ideal as fuel?
It is because magnesium is precious. To smelt 1 ton of metal
magnesium, 11 tons of coal needs to be burned. There is not a single
person who merely burns the magnesium made this way as fuel
just like there is no one who burns paper money to warm his or her
body.
In our common sense, metal is a precious thing. Resource
deposits are limited, and it takes a great deal of energy and cost to
smelt magnesium. Magnesium exists in the form of compounds, such
as magnesium oxide and magnesium carbonate, in nature, and it is
necessary to smelt these to extract pure magnesium.
The price of metal magnesium was approximately 200 yen/kg
until around the year 2006, but it changed to 400600 yen since
then. Under the influence of the economic crisis of the latter half of
2008, most metal prices, except those of gold, dropped suddenly;
magnesium was not an exception, but it is still at 250 yen/kg. From
this point of view, magnesium cannot be used as fuel in a casual way.
Summary
When you hear about laser, what does it remind you of?
A laser beam is often used as a classic tool in science fiction
movies, and we cannot think of our lives without lasers.
The most familiar examples of its use would be CDs, DVDs, and
laser disk players and recorders, including Blu-ray. By focusing a
laser into an extremely small place, it becomes possible to read data
Lasers are used in many fields, but in the first place, what is laser
anyway? What is the difference between normal light and laser?
Light has the nature of a wave, and the period of this wave is
called wavelength. The characteristic difference between lights is
the difference in their wavelengths. In addition, the strength of light
is determined by the amplitude of the wave.
Lets look into a laser. Laser, a light created artificially, does not exist in
the natural world. Unlike natural light, it synchronizes wavelengths,
in addition to the timing of the peaks and troughs of the waves. In
its original state the beam diverges as it propagates, but a narrow
low-divergence beam can be collected at a very small area by using
a convex lens.
When you push your cheek slowly with your full palm, you dont
feel even the slightest pain.
Next strike your cheek in one quick motion. Surely you feel
considerable pain this time. This explains what energy concentrated
in time is.
How do you feel when you push your cheek with a pointed pencil
instead of your full palm? Of course, it hurts. This explains what
energy concentrated in space is.
Furthermore, if someone sticks a pointed pencil to your cheek in
a quick motion, certainly you would be injured seriously.
Though the same amount of energy is added, the action will be
totally different because of the concentration of energy in time and
space.
I think nuclear fusion is the energy of the space travel era. Visiting
Mars or Jupiter or going to outer space in a spaceship might use
nuclear fusion for propulsion.
This does not mean to vaporize the water by laser to gush it out
as steam.
The laser output I used was weak, just 5 watts. When I irradiated
the laser toward the airplane tank, aluminum evaporated instantly
and pushed away the water in the tank vehemently. The speed of the
water gushing out reached 320 km/hr when I measured it.
It was a small airplane of 300 mg in weight, but what I was able
to make was accomplished with a 5-watt laser output, and that was
met with amazement. A 5-watt power is the same as what we have
in a flashlight, but it enables a model airplane to fly if laser is used.
The success of this experiment was published on the front page of
the New York Times.
I was not the first one who thought about converting sunlight
into laser directly. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory experimented
with laser oscillation by sunlight 40 years ago. The technology itself
continued to be there, but it was too inefficient for practical use.
The flash lamp light was converted into laser by using a solid-
state laser medium until the 1990s.
Though the medium is smaller than the tip of the little finger, it is
transparent green and possesses beauty like a jewel.
The frame used for fixing the device was made from a broken
telescope that was already there.
In the experiment of 2005, the output for the laser generated was
on the order milliwatts and that did not seem to be of any use, but
at least I figured out that the basic principle was not wrong, so I
gained confidence. Anyway, the initial stage of research is always
like this. That made me think that if I could manage increasing the
light collection performance and improving the laser medium, the
conversion efficiency could rise and a practical level of output would
be reached.
I applied to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science
and Technology for funding in 2006 to make a bigger laser generator.
Fortunately, I was able to obtain 6 million yen in funding, so we could
have a Fresnel lens 1 m 1 m in dimensions and a laser medium
that is much bigger and longer. Furthermore, I had a device with a
sensor for automatic tracking of the solar movement. I started the
experiment with the high expectation that a 2030 W laser should
The plan that started in Japan suddenly became bigger, and the
original plan with 15 million yen in personal funds turned into a
large-scale plan with 50 million yen.
A laser device is not usable during the night. Then floating a power
station and a laser generator in the outer space where the sun
appears all the time might be a good idea. It sounds like science
Summary
Until about 2006, the going price for magnesium in the world
was stable at around 200 yen/kg. However, the prices soared in 2007
because of higher demand and growing Chinese monopoly. It saw a
sudden drop with the world recession of the latter half of 2008, but
it is still at around 250 yen/kg.
Metals we need do not exist in the natural world in pure form. Iron
exists as iron oxide in iron ore, and aluminum exists as aluminum
of Dr. Koichi Tanaka, who won the Nobel Prize, is especially famous.
With a laser, Dr. Tanaka, for the first time in the world, succeeded in
the ionization and analysis of protein without breaking it.
Our quick calculation shows that by using 300 lasers, we can smelt
approximately 50 tons of metal magnesium a year. Now, 50 tons a
year is a small amount, but I think a smelting facility of this scale can
be built for 100 million to 200 million yen (i.e., 1 million to 2 million
U.S. dollars). Because the solar-energy-pumped laser generator that I
introduced in Chapter 2 costs 500,000 yen at the trial manufacturing
stage, 100 million to 200 million yen for 300 lasers will not be such
an unrealistic aim.
However, the smelting facility must be on a larger scale to succeed
as a business. We install 300 solar-energy-pumped laser generators
altogether as one smelting furnace and expect to make 200 of this. In
other words, 60,000 laser generators in total will be built with 300
200 laser generators. Then, the annual metal magnesium production
will be 10,000 tons. Because the mass production effect comes into
play if it is 60,000 laser generators, it would be around 6 billion yen
for the construction cost.
You might think that it is large scale when you hear 60,000 laser
generators, but the area necessary for one laser generator is around
4 m2. The land necessary for 60,000 lasers would be only 500 m
500 m.
For the smelting facility, the desert, which has so many sunny
days, is suitable as the construction site to oscillate the lasers
efficiently. Japan will import magnesium smelted at an overseas
smelting facility.
Then how about the laser smelting method? It costs 6 billion yen,
as I mentioned earlier, to build a smelting facility with an annual
production capacity of 10,000 tons. This is more expensive than
electrolysis, and the construction expense part of the cost price
becomes 21 yen/kg according to a quick calculation.
abroad and import the product. It seems that in the future most of
the metal smelting would not be performed in Japan.
In Chapter 2, I wrote that I was going to conduct a solar-energy-
pumped laser experiment in Mongolia because it has many sunny days,
but that was not the only reason. In the Mongolian desert, precious
mineral resources remain abundantly unexploited. Including copper
and molybdenum, it is just a gold mine of rare metals.
For extracting these mineral resources, it would be behind the
times to use a conventional smelting facility that consumes large
amounts of coal. There would be tremendous benefits for the
producing country if it can perform low-cost metal smelting that
uses only the energy from the sun.
Originally I conducted laser fusion research, but now I also deal with
metal smelting and fuel cells as well as solar-energy-pumped laser.
At first look, these research areas seem to have nothing to do with
each other, but in fact they are connected through laser research.
Not only the laser generator but also the related technologies
were advanced by laser research. For example, Dr. Yoshida, mentioned
in Chapter 2, developed many important technologies as well as a
chromium co-doped neodymium YAG laser medium.
In the past, at research institutes in the United States, irradiating
no more than 100 times was the limit for high-power laser. The laser
medium did not have any problem, but the soot attached to the flash
lamp that generates the pumping light shortened the life of the device.
You might think that this is a small matter, but this was the problem
that made the worlds solid-state laser researchers suffer for many
years. Dr. Yoshida improved the electrode of the flash lamp with his
original idea and developed a flash lamp that endures 10,000 times
of irradiation and named it the Osaka trigger method. Research
institutes in the Unites States adopted this method all at once and
made global high-power laser research advance remarkably.
A by-product of laser research is applied to a field that seems
irrelevant to laser. Dr. Yoshida and I developed a technology called
anti-reflection coating. Using this technology if we coat the surface
of glass such as a lens, the surrounding view is not reflected on the
glass, and we can watch the screen more easily. A major car company
is going to adopt this anti-reflection coating in their dashboards. I
was told that Subaru Telescope might adopt it, too. Furthermore,
there is a possibility of its being adopted in future for cell phones
and large-screen televisions.
In fact, this anti-reflection coating was developed for the lenses
of high-power lasers. For a lens that has to concentrate laser at one
point, anti-reflection coating is necessary to pass through an oscillated
laser as much as possible. With conventional coating, small pieces of
debris that get trapped between the coat and the lens surface burst
when they are irradiated with laser and damage the lens. The anti-
reflection coating that we developed is porous, and even if the debris
bursts by irradiation the lens is not damaged, because air escapes
through the holes.
Summary
Burning Magnesium
First I will summarize the trends for the development of the next-
generation car. All of you already know how intense the competition
is for the development of the next-generation car, which is expected
to replace the current gasoline car. The hybrid car Prius from Toyota
was quite brisk to reach the top of the sales ranking. News about the
electric vehicle (EV) often appears in newspapers and the television,
although the overall automobile sales are falling.
The next-generation car is often called an eco car. Whatever
the type, the eco car positively emphasizes lighter load on the
environment by reducing the consumption of fossil fuel. The
consciousness of the consumer has also changed greatly because of
environmental awareness and concern about stable supply of oil.
As for a realistic eco car solution, it will be the hybrid car for the time
being.
The hybrid car has several types. For example, the main power
source for Prius is a gasoline engine, and it uses an electric motor
secondarily. Hybrid cars refuel at a service station as other gasoline
engine cars do. The gasoline consumption of hybrid cars is 2030%
less compared with gasoline engine cars because the former have
adopted a mechanism that converts kinetic energy into electric
energy when the car is slowing down. Prius possibly runs using only
a motor when it is at low speed.
The plug-in hybrid is a hybrid car that was developed to be closer
to the electric car. It can be charged from a power outlet at homes and
runs only with the electric motor for short distances. The problem
with a pure electric car is that it can run only short distances, and for
long distances we need a gasoline engine.
The hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars realize a gas mileage increase
that cannot be achieved by a gasoline engine car. On the other hand,
a high production cost is inevitable. Because the hybrid car carries
both an internal combustion engine, like the gasoline engine car, and
an electric motor, the vehicle weight will be high. Because of that,
developing hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars is limited to a few major
car companies.
The internal combustion engine car, including the hybrid car, has
problems with both the supply of fossil fuel and the exhaust gas.
The shift to cars with an electric motor would be unavoidable in the
future.
Controlling an electric motor is a lot easier than controlling a
gasoline engine. An exhaust system is not necessary, as is the case
for the gasoline engine car.
Various companies, including electrical equipment manufac-
turers, will join in the development and production of cars with an
electric motor, and I predict that we will see a totally different indus-
try map compared with what we have now.
The only reason for the shift to the electric motor car not
happening so easily is that the performance of the power supply
parts is still insufficient.
In terms of the power supply method, cars with an electric motor are
categorized into two: a battery car, which is charged with electricity
for running, and a fuel cell car, which generates electricity by using
fuel.
If all the electricity necessary for electric cars to run is generated
by thermal power stations, the overall energy efficiency of these cars
would be around three to four times that of gasoline engine cars.
Output control for an electric motor is easy, and complicated systems
such as a gearbox are unnecessary.
It is the battery that becomes the problem for the electric car.
Because the performance of the battery that stores electricity has
traditionally been bad, the mileage was low and the car could not run
long distances. However, as the hybrid car becomes more widespread,
battery performance will advance largely, so that practical use is
within reach. A nickel hydride battery is used for the current hybrid
car, but a lithium ion battery, which has higher energy density, will be
adopted for the electric car.
The electric car has many advantages, but at the same time it has
many problems. Although the performance of the lithium ion battery
is improving, the driving mileage remains around 160 km. It requires
several hours for a lithium ion battery to be charged, and it still takes
30 minutes even when a special rapid battery charger is used.
The infrastructure for battery charging must be expanded in
order to realize the convenience that the gasoline engine car has.
Even if the entire country were saturated with infrastructure for
battery charging, charging an electric car would take a lot more time
compared with refueling a gasoline car.
In addition, even if the body of the car becomes low in cost, the
battery itself will still be expensive. The battery has a shorter life
than the car body and needs to be changed frequently.
Although the performance of the battery is getting better for
practical use, this scenario works for a regular-size car. If a large-
size truck or bus were replaced by an EV, most of the body would be
occupied by the battery. A bus might run with electricity by using a
grid as a trolley bus does, but it would be difficult for a truck to run
with electricity.
One heard frequently of the fuel cell car a while ago, but hardly hears
of it these days. Why?
First I will explain the structure of a fuel cell car.
Even though it is called a battery, a fuel cell does not store
electricity like a dry battery or a rechargeable battery. It is rather
a kind of generator that produces electricity by a chemical reaction
when fuel is added.
As for the fuel cell, a hydrogen fuel cell, which uses hydrogen, is
the most typical. Electricity is generated by the reaction of hydrogen
and oxygen. The reaction used is the opposite of the one used in
electrolyzing water, and it releases only water. It has the merit of
having a lighter load on the environment.
Among hydrogen fuel cells, a type called polymer electrolyte
fuel cell is advancing toward practical use. This method involves a
design for holding an ion-exchange membrane with a pair of catalyst
electrodes. An oxidizer (oxygen) is supplied at the positive electrode
(the air electrode), and hydrogen, which serves as fuel, is supplied at
the negative electrode (the fuel electrode). Electricity is generated
from the reaction of oxygen and hydrogen. Platinum is used as an
electrode. Platinum is superior to other metals in both catalyst
performance and durability.
The hydrogen fuel cell is superior in terms of environmental
performance, but it will be no exaggeration to say that most car
manufacturers have lost interest in it. This is because the hydrogen
used as fuel becomes the obstacle in the same way as it does in a
hydrogen engine car. Fundamentally, the problems in transportation
and storage are not easily solved.
The problems related to engineering and safety cannot be ignored
either. A hydrogen molecule is very minute and has the nature of
permeating metals and making materials fragile.
Moreover, platinum, which is used in a hydrogen fuel cell, is
expensive. Ladies might feel indignant hearing that the precious
I mentioned the types of the next-generation car, but each has its
advantages and disadvantages. The shift from an internal combustion
engine to an electric motor is not stoppable anymore, but there is
uneasiness with the electric car in terms of the performance of the
battery, cost, and infrastructure maintenance.
How can I realize the next-generation car that rates high in
running performance and low in infrastructure maintenance and
does not release greenhouse gases? I think I can realize the car that
meets the conditions mentioned above by using magnesium as fuel.
However, if you use the electrode 100 times, the efficiency of the
battery is
The more you use it, the closer it gets to the amount of energy
that the metal (the electrode) itself has.
The amount of energy contained in the magnesium will determine
the performance of the car, in the same way as the performance of
the gasoline engine car is determined by the energy of the gasoline
itself.
It is possible to make a car that runs with magnesium as fuel by
replacing the magnesium as if it is the same as pouring gasoline into
the car.
The energy density of the zinc air cell is 500 Wh/kg, and therefore
the article is not referring to that. Because the energy density of
magnesium is 1,500 Wh/kg, the article indeed points to a magnesium
air battery.
The candidates for the next-generation car with the electric motor
drive have been considerably narrowed down. The hydrogen fuel
cell will not be a candidate for reasons I stated earlier. It would just
be a contest between the electric car and the magnesium air battery
car.
Here, I will compare both categories by assuming that magnesium
prices fall to a level that makes its use as fuel affordable.
Because they both use an electric motor, the running performance
will be about the same except for the battery weight.
According to the roadmap of New Energy and Industrial
Technology Development Organization (NEDO), in 2020 the mileage
of the lithium ion battery car will reach around 200 km at 80 kg
weight.
The magnesium air battery has more than 7 times the mileage
of the lithium ion battery. Conversely, with the mileages being the
same, the weight of the magnesium air battery will be one-seventh
of that of the lithium ion battery. This fact can be used for increasing
passenger or load capacity. Judging from the weight of the battery,
it is not realistic to put a lithium ion battery in large-size vehicles
Because more than 900 million cars are running in the world
now, 7,800,000 tons of lithium would be necessary to equip every
car with a lithium ion battery. However, the lithium reserves are 11
million tons (proven reserves are 4,100,000 tons), and that is not
enough even if lithium is used only in cars (data from the United
States Geological Survey).
The annual production of lithium ore is 25,000 tons, but it is
expected that the demand will increase rapidly in future, and an
intense competition has already begun in production sites of the
world, such as South America and China. If the lithium ion battery
becomes more common, lithium will certainly become a more limited
resource than oil.
In addition, they say that recovering lithium from used lithium
ion battery costs more than producing it from scratch.
Lithium is contained in seawater, and research on lithium
extraction is in progress, but the fact that the amount is less compared
with magnesium is problematic. The concentration of magnesium in
seawater (3.5% salt) is 1.29 g/kg, but that of lithium is 1.7104 g/
kg. The amount is only around 1/10,000 of the magnesium amount.
Currently, the cost of extracting lithium from seawater is estimated
to be 10,00020,000 yen/kg, and it is necessary to lower this cost
substantially to enable practical use of lithium.
Actually, research on the metal air battery has been progressing
not only with zinc, which I mentioned earlier, but also with aluminum
and lithium, and magnesium had a late start in this field. In addition,
because the energy density of lithium itself is higher than that of
magnesium, if the lithium air battery were able to be realized, it
would certainly have a higher output than a magnesium air battery.
But the lithium reserves become the limiting condition for the
lithium air battery as well as the lithium ion battery, and a large
amount of electricity would be necessary to recover the metal lithium
from used lithium compounds. With the magnesium air battery, fuel
can be recycled at low cost with the solar-energy-pumped laser, and
we deal with resources that are easy to obtain. I think magnesium is
It is not only for a car that a magnesium air battery is available. There
is a possibility that it can be used in all transportation modes that
currently use electricity or oil.
The present railroad supplies electricity with a power transmis-
sion line and drives the motor, but the magnesium air battery can
replace this. The railroad in the past used a fuel that could be carried,
as it can be in a steam or diesel locomotive. Transformation from a
system supplying electricity with a power transmission line to mag-
nesium feels like returning to the old basics.
If trains start running with the magnesium air battery, the
familiar power transmission lines and pantographs will disappear.
The difference from a steam locomotive is that the magnesium air
battery or a steam locomotive driven by magnesium combustion
does not release carbon dioxide or other gases.
Because the train would have its own fuel and power source,
large-scale infrastructure, including a national grid, would become
unnecessary, and this can largely lower the construction cost of
the railroad. I think that it can be an effective solution for mass
they can realize capacities more than double the lithium ion battery
capacity. The inflammability of methanol was a problem, but its
portability was improved by solidifying it and making a cartridge.
The magnesium air battery has higher energy density than the
methanol fuel battery, and if the weights are the same, it has an output
that is 7.5 times that of the lithium ion battery. If battery operation
time becomes 7 times longer, the use of the electronic equipment
would spread more, and it would be reasonable to expect that cell
phone units would evolve more.
If metal magnesium is made in the shape of a replacement
cartridge, the same convenience we have with a current dry battery
can be obtained. If the used cartridge is returned to the battery store,
it is possible to recycle magnesium oxide.
For the cell phone business, zinc air batteries with a capacity
larger than conventional batteries are expected. With a principle that
is different from the air battery, the development of a small fuel cell,
where the reaction of aluminum and water produces electricity by
generating hydrogen, is in progress. Such batteries are not popular
yet, but it is not so difficult to make a low-cost battery with high
output if metal prices become lower.
Summary
seawater?
Let me try to list starting from the top. In 1 kg of seawater with
3.5% salt, there is 19.35 g of chlorine, 10.77 g of sodium, 1.29 g of
magnesium, 0.904 g of sulfur, 0.412 g of calcium, 0.391 g of potassium,
and so on. We can see that the magnesium content is large.
Global water shortage makes the market for the water business
develop rapidly. The water business includes making freshwater from
seawater by desalination, recycling the drainage, and maintaining the
water service infrastructure. It is estimated (by Toray Industries, Inc.)
that the market for the water business will increase from 60 trillion
yen currently to about 100 trillion yen by 2025. In Arab countries, a
large number of seawater desalination plants are already operating,
and China invests trillions of yen for sewage water treatment and
desalination.
If I enter the business of desalination of seawater, it would be
quite profitable and at the same time could secure the material
for metal magnesium. That is my estimation. However, it does not
make sense if desalination of seawater costs a great deal. In the
first place, the electrolysis method (refer to Chapter 3) of smelting
the magnesium in seawater is not cost effective compared with the
Pidgeon method.
If I am a newcomer to the desalination business, will there be a
winning chance as I expect?
rather small facilities are enough for it. The Japanese are superior in
the technology for the reverse osmosis membrane method, and in
membranes Japan has the top share in the world.
That means 1,500 billion tons annually, and that is 4,100 million
tons of a new daily demand for freshwater. We must build 20,000
desalination plants with a capacity of 200,000 tons per day to meet
this demand.
We would need 9 trillion kWh of electricity in a year to operate
20,000 plants of 200,000 tons per day. This is an enormous amount
of electric energy, equivalent to half of the worlds electricity
consumption in 2005, 18 trillion kWh (Ministry of Internal Affairs
and Communications Statistics Bureau).
The reverse osmosis membrane method needs electricity to
generate the reverse osmotic pressure of 60 atmospheric pressure.
Furthermore, there are disadvantages in the reverse osmosis
membrane method. Additional energy is needed for frequent
prefiltering to remove the debris before the actual filtration, and
this procedure enlarges the facilities (still smaller than the other
methods). Even with the reverse osmosis membrane method, which
has the highest energy efficiency among desalination technologies,
I have to say that realistically it is difficult to solve the future water
shortage.
Summary
I think if the magnesium price becomes less than 150 yen per
kilogram, the magnesium-recycling society would be realized
naturally by economic rationality.
However, the low birthrate of Japan will continue in the future,
and China and India are gaining strength in science technology, too.
What should Japan do in the future to keep the country comfortable
to live in and at the same time maintain its competitiveness in the
world?
The problem of staying away from science is pointed out in the
field of education, and voices demanding the expansion of the science
education system are often heard. An education environment that
does not crush the talents of excellent researchers and encourages
them to grow is surely important.
At the same time it seems like what Japan is missing today is
getting all people to become interested in and to enjoy science.
It does not mean unnecessarily increasing math and science
classes and teaching more advanced classes. The math and science
classes taught now at school already have enough high-level content.
In fact they are rather difficult. I think it is not necessary to force
everybody to study such high-level material. If they feel that they will
have to learn things that are too difficult, most people would just
refuse science education.
In addition, I think people reach high positions in research
organizations or in scientific administration because they merely
had good grades in math and science, not because they liked these
topics.
I conducted research for a while at a research institute in the
United States, and the attitudes of the researchers were impressive.
Sometimes they played with science.
For example, when I visited the nuclear fusion research facility, the
control room was designed just like the bridge deck of the Enterprise
I wonder what kind of impression you had after reading this book.
Many of you might have thought, Is it true? or I have never heard of
this; besides, it sounds like it is fake, or How come other countries
are not doing this? or Why does the government not pay attention
to this if it is that good? and so on.
Strangely, we have a habit of labeling things that nobody did
before fishy. A famous Japanese scholar once grieved that in our
country there are excellent horses but no horse dealers. A horse
dealer is a person who raises horses. In terms of science, it means
that there are advanced researchers who have the potential to be
scientific leaders in the world, but there is no environment available
for nurturing them.
A new idea does not look so good at first. Therefore new research
is an easy target if someone is trying to criticize it because it might
have many weak points. However, incremental research looks fine
because the base research has already been improved by many
people.
When a young scholar gives a research talk, influential figures,
who brag about being scientific leaders in Japan, ask trick questions
that the young scholar cannot answer, so that they can show what
great scholars they are. For the influential scholar things are over
at that point and nothing is left behind from this experience, but the
shock the young scholar experiences is great and spoils his or her
potential.
In that respect I have a strong and rare nature; no matter how
I am criticized, I can forget it in a few days. What I experienced
30 years ago is a good example. I developed a new computational
technique, but the response was exactly the same as what I wrote at
the beginning of this epilogue. I heard from a scholar overseas that
the cycle possible with such low efficiency? meaning, I told you
so. In the current Japanese environment, this is a typical example of
denying an idea of a student in the middle of research.
That reminds me of an example from more than 20 years agothe
opinion of a group of professors from a famous university: The solar
battery will never work because the large amount of energy needed
to make it cannot be collected from the sun during the lifetime of
the battery. I remember that I said at that time, We do not need
to be that pessimistic, because the technology will advance. This
became true; they say that in three years a solar battery can collect
the energy that was needed to make it. This is a good example that
we should keep in mind. Unless a technological problem is related to
an absolute limitation, such as solar light not being able to generate
more than 1 kW/m2, it will one day be solved.
Furthermore, we are receiving domestic and international
business proposals and support, and the funding is becoming
abundant. Some pieces of the whole system have already become
part of the business world, and the disagreeable comments are
becoming meaningless.
In this case, the encounter with Tatsuya Yamaji, a writer/editor,
was good fortune. I found the perfect partner who can describe
our technology to the world from the viewpoint of liberal arts. In
addition, Shoichiro Kishi, of PHP Publisher, offering to publish the
book just at the right time is something more than a coincidence.
Besides I felt a mysterious connection when I found out later that
the logo of PHP Publisher is Pegasus, the same as the symbol of our
desalination device (Pegasos in Greek).
I had many such lucky encounters in the past. This is greatly
related to the career path I had chosen.
I graduated from Tokyo Institute of Technology and became an
assistant. If I had stayed there, I might not have had any hardship in
my career. At that time, I was attracted to the laser fusion research
performed at Osaka University, and during a conference I said to
Takashi Yabe
laser 1723, 25, 27, 2945, 47, 49, laser output 36, 44, 5657, 68
51, 53, 55, 57, 59, 61, 6573, high-power 61
75, 77, 9798 laser research 21, 30, 47, 55,
amplified 98 7677
induced 98 laser research funds 44
mainstream 37 laser smelting 20, 75, 101, 11819,
oscillated 77 12223
pulse 34 laser smelting method 6667,
pumped 115, 118 7375, 79, 81, 119, 122
semiconductor 30, 3738 laser surgical knife 22
small 72 laser technology 9798
weak 98 laws 98
laser beam 21, 27, 98 leaders, scientific 131
infrared 49 lenses 5152, 55, 5759, 67, 77,
laser device 54, 137 9798
laser disk players 21 light 5, 2225, 27, 2930, 37, 41,
laser energy 18, 2021 4955, 98
laser experiment 47 incident 29, 37, 49, 98
solar-energy-pumped 76 natural 25
laser experts 37 strong 16, 49
laser facility 98 light wavelengths 50
laser fusion 13, 22, 3032, 7778, limestone 63
134 lithium 1314, 32, 9496
laser fusion research 31, 133 lithium air battery 95
Laser Fusion Research Center 134 lithium ion battery 40, 85, 9195,
laser generators 2931, 4142, 99, 123
44, 4648, 5457, 59, 73, 76, lithium ion battery costs, used 95
9798, 113, 118, 126 lithium reserves 13, 95
laser irradiation 7071
laser magnesium smelting,
explained 75
laser medium 2930, 3738, 41
43, 4849, 51, 5354, 5759, magic mirror 98
76, 118, 134, 137
magnesium 1621, 30, 3940, 61,
co-doped neodymium YAG 53, 6471, 7375, 79, 81, 8798,
5859, 76 100107, 10911, 113, 115
efficient 51 16, 11820, 12226, 137
groundbreaking 38 cheap 17
neodymium YAG 4951 cost price of 74
solid-state 30, 37 extracted 110
laser medium improvements 57 final 74
laser oscillation 37, 42, 48, 5455, gross weight of 18, 104
118