According to The Nikkei Asian Review, Japanese telecommunications group Nippon Telegraph & Telephone will enter the country's market for renewable energy, investing more than 1 trillion yen (US$9.3 billion) by 2030 to boost capacity and establish its own transmission network, Nikkei has learned.
NTT aims to generate 7.5 million kilowatts of electricity -- the equivalent of 12% of the nation's renewable-energy capacity as of 2019.
The former state telecom monopoly becomes the first company with the ability to operate on a national scale to enter Japan's power distribution market since it was fully deregulated in 2016. As renewable energy gains momentum worldwide, the entry of deep-pocketed NTT alters the competitive dynamics.
Investing close to US$1 billion a year until 2025, NTT will expand its current power generation capability 25-fold. Once complete, the company would have more generating capacity than regional provider Shikoku Electric Power, which powers all of Japan's smallest main island.
NTT will sell directly to customers. Most of the company's 7,300 telephone exchanges nationwide will be used as "mini generators" and be equipped with storage batteries for renewable energy. From there, power will be provided to factories and offices nearby through existing grids or NTT's own lines.
NTT will team up with Mitsubishi Corp. to serve more than 14,000 convenience stores operated by Lawson, a subsidiary of the trading house.
NTT will also develop large solar and offshore wind power plants. Group electricity unit NTT Anode Energy will lead and expand the operations.
Japanese regional utilities have priority for use of existing transmission lines, creating a barrier to entry. NTT will get around this by creating its own transmission network.
NTT sees new business opportunities from combining existing communications data with data on electricity use. Renewable energy also offers a new pillar of business at a time when its mainstay communications operations face slow growth.
The target of 7.5 million kilowatts of renewable energy significantly exceeds the 2 million kilowatts to 3 million kilowatts that Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings plans to develop by the early 2030s. NTT's current generating capacity is 300,000 kilowatts.
Meeting NTT's target would help Japan toward its goal of having renewables make up 22% to 24% of its power generation mix. It may disrupt the dominance of existing electric companies and ultimately lead to lower energy costs.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/NTT-to-join-Japan-s-renewable-energy-sector-with-9bn-investment
 
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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/ntt-1.html?lang=ja
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According to The Australian Financial Review, the NSW government will expedite four priority projects across greater Sydney in the next eight weeks to create more than 66,500 jobs and build 50,000 homes through the newly created Planning Delivery Unit (PDU).
Planning and Public Spaces Minister Rob Stokes said the PDU would focus on reducing bottlenecks in big development applications, State Significant Developments and planning proposals so that decisions could be made faster.
PDU, led by former Liverpool City Council CEO Kiersten Fishburn, will prioritise four big projects initially and also help to push ahead with individual proposals, over the next two months.　
This includes the Parramatta Road Corridor Strategy, which will begin accepting planning proposals and development applications to build 27,000 homes along Parramatta Road.

https://www.afr.com/property/residential/nsw-to-speed-up-projects-to-add-more-jobs-and-homes-20200630-p557or

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/4766883.html?lang=ja 
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According to The Nikkei Asian Review, lettuce and other vegetables grown in plant factories have become a hot commodity in Japan, as consumers fearful of contracting the coronavirus seek out foods that were raised in sanitary environments and prepackaged before hitting stores.
Those vegetables are pricier than conventionally grown varieties, but their prices have come down. And the factories' ability to maintain consistent quality and stable production volume has added to their appeal as the pandemic disrupts food imports.
Supermarket operator Kidaya Shoten in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, set up its first vegetable factory seven years ago, with its three facilities now producing 34,000 heads of lettuce and other products a day.
Vegetable orders from restaurants have fallen at Kidaya amid the pandemic. But its online retail sales of vegetables doubled in April and May, while shipments to supermarkets increased 20%.
Kidaya's pesticide-free lettuce comes in relatively small packages that are popular with customers who live alone. "People are also liking that they are individually packaged" for hygienic reasons, especially amid the pandemic, the company said.
At 128 yen (US$ 1.20) per 80-gram bag, Kidaya's lettuce is on the cheaper end of factory-grown vegetables. It is more expensive than conventionally grown lettuce, which could go for as little as 20 yen for the same amount, but is gaining more interest thanks to consistent quality and volume.
Japan had 386 plant factories nationwide as of February, according to the Japan Greenhouse Horticulture Association. Many of them are smaller, experimental facilities with overly sophisticated equipment, and 40% are in the red.
But "we are starting to see signs that businesses are turning a profit," said Yasufumi Miwa at the Japan Research Institute.
Companies have built up know-how over the years that helps them cut costs and scale up. Kidaya has increased its productivity since figuring out the right intensity of grow lights. Energy-saving LED lights have become cheaper as well.
Kyoto-based Spread brought its second lettuce factory online in 2018. It is one of the world's largest such facilities with a daily output of 30,000 heads, and is 70% automated.
The suggested retail price for Spread's lettuce is 158 yen, about 40% less than in 2008. The company is now working with Nippon Telegraph & Telephone to conduct an artificial intelligence analysis of collected data to further bring down the price.
Spread has also adopted a franchise model for its vegetable factories, and is assisting oil distributor Eneos build a facility by the end of 2020.
Meanwhile, Plants Laboratory offers a cheap, largely plastic factory system that costs a third of conventional vegetable factories, developed jointly with the University of Tokyo. Its factories are now being used at certain locations of Walmart-owned supermarket chain Seiyu. It is also working with East Japan Railway to grow food under elevated rail tracks.
There is a compelling reason for Japan to increase plant factories.
Those facilities can guarantee consistent output regardless of weather and with limited manpower and space, helping to bolster Japan's food sufficiency. The country produces less than 40% of the food it consumes, and its farming population had shrunk 35% in the five years to 2019 -- bringing the average age of the Japanese farmer to 67 years old.
The coronavirus exposed further issues with current supply chains after vegetable shipments from China froze, and the foreign interns many Japanese farmers rely on for labor were unable to leave their countries.
Factory-grown vegetables are seen attracting more demand not only for retail but for commercial uses as well, because they tend to be uniform in size and do not need to be washed for dirt and germs. Restaurants and convenience stores can start using factory-grown lettuce in their salads, for example.
Plant factories were responsible for about 3%, or 17,000 tons, of all lettuce shipped in Japan in 2019, according to research company Fuji Keizai. They are expected to top 10% of the market around 2030.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/Factory-grown-veggies-comfort-Japan-s-germophobic-shoppers
 
​If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/8914840.html

According to The Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s first clinical trial using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells to treat cancer patients is expected to start in August, raising hopes for a breakthrough against the leading cause of death in the country.
Chiba University, Riken, a government-affiliated research institute, and other entities announced the plan.
Clinical trials are a required procedure in gaining regulatory approval for the manufacture and marketing of a medical product and device.
In the trial, patients with cancer of the head and neck will receive injections of immune cells known as natural killer T (NKT) cells derived from iPS cells.
NKT cells have the ability to attack cancer cells and activate other immune cells. But they are extremely difficult to put into practical use because they make up only 0.01 percent of blood.
Under the project, researchers will generate iPS cells based on NKT cells taken from blood samples of healthy individuals.
After increasing the volume of iPS cells, they will transform them into NKT cells to treat the cancer patients.
Researchers say creating iPS cells first will make it easier and more efficient to generate a huge amount of iPS cells that can remain in a stable condition.
Then, the iPS-derived NKT cells will be injected into an artery near the cancerous area in the patient.
The clinical trial, which will last for two years, will involve four to 18 patients whose cancers have returned after standard care, such as surgery and chemotherapy.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13502659
 
If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/ips3492280.html
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According to The Australian Financial Review, lower long-term oil and gas prices – predicted by global majors BP and Shell – should be good news for domestic gas pricing, but major gas suppliers and retailers are still failing to pass on cheaper rates, say big chemicals companies Incitec Pivot and Qenos.
Since oil majors BP and Shell have slashed their forecast long-term price of Brent crude from $US55 and $US60 per barrel respectively down from $US70 or more
But the major gas retailers and producers in Australia are sticking to high prices, offering Incitec Pivot and Qenos long-term gas contracts at between $8-$9 a gigajoule when the spot prices have dwelled around $5 earlier this year.
Jeanne Johns, chief executive officer of Incitec Pivot, said the spot price reductions don't mean much for business as they need long-term contract prices to make investment decisions.
"If the LNG price is going to be low for the next four years, this lower price should inevitably be reflected in more competitively priced long-term contract offers for domestic gas.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/high-gas-prices-for-long-term-east-coast-contracts-persist-20200701-p557zc

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/2495485.html
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According to The Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese new study is brightening the outlook for a prospective chemical engineering process that could one day lead to greener energy alternatives than fossil fuels by harnessing sunlight to produce mass quantities of hydrogen.
The research results, published in the journal Nature, could help light the path toward establishing a hydrogen economy in the future.
The team of scientists for the study improved the technology involved in a process called “water splitting,” which essentially uses light to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen with the help of a newly developed photocatalyst. Sunlight and water are renewable resources and hydrogen is a potential clean alternative fuel source.
The team of scientists reported they created an almost perfectly efficient photocatalyst for ultraviolet light. A photocatalyst is something that absorbs light and causes or accelerates a chemical reaction, in this case for changing water into oxygen and hydrogen gases.
It is currently still an impractical technique for creating large amounts of hydrogen at an industrial level because the photocatalyst works efficiently only with ultraviolet light with certain wavelengths. This means it is not economically viable yet.
In the past, other photocatalysts have mostly registered around 10 percent or less for solar energy conversion efficiency, known as their rate of quantum efficiency. In some of the better cases, a few surpassed 50 percent.
But this photocatalyst can convert ultraviolet light at nearly 100 percent efficiency, the study reported.
The researchers from Shinshu University, the University of Tokyo and other institutions in Japan noted they have only been able to achieve such a high level of efficiency for ultraviolet rays--unlikely to sustain large-scale hydrogen production.
But if the same principles can be adopted to use other parts of the light spectrum at a relatively high quantum efficiency, that could be a major step toward enabling the creation of a solar-hydrogen industry.
“Visible light is available in large quantities, so an efficiency of 30 percent or so would likely be sufficient to allow practical implementation of hydrogen production by using this method,” said one of the team leaders, Shinshu University special contract professor Kazunari Domen.
The research team achieved the promising results by adding aluminum to particles of strontium titanate, which is a semiconductor material, to create the photocatalyst. They used cocatalysts strategically to improve generating hydrogen and oxygen.
They achieved a quantum efficiency of nearly 100 percent for ultraviolet rays with wavelengths of 350 to 360 nanometers. A nanometer is one-millionth of a millimeter.
“We will conduct further studies to broaden the range of available wavelengths,” said the other research team leader, Shinshu University specially appointed professor Tsuyoshi Takata.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13443670

​If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/1783902.html
 

According to The Australian Financial Review, a $650 million power station project in South Australia that will utilise gas and solar power to deliver 422 megawatts of dispatchable power into the electricity grid has been given the green light by South Australian authorities, with construction to begin next year.
The Summerfield Hybrid Grid Firming Power Station is to be built on farm land at Tepko, about 60km east of Adelaide by privately-owned company SAPGen Pty Ltd, after gaining approval from the SA Planning Minister Stephan Knoll.
It would be the third largest power station in the state behind AGL Energy's Torrens Island station and Engie's Pelican Point operation in Adelaide's industrial north-west suburbs.
SAPGen managing director Ben Lee said the Summerfield project would create about 700 jobs during construction, which was earmarked to begin next year.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/650m-hybrid-power-project-in-sa-gets-green-light-20200618-p553u5

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/7714251.html
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According to The Nikkei Asian Review, Working from home and being cut off from the visual and other cues co-workers give and take every day can cause stress, but online services are popping up to help colleagues reconnect. 
As remote work takes hold, more employees are dealing with a range of emotions. There is more family time and added freedom from not having to commute. But there is also the stress and uneasiness of trying to work far from one's colleagues.
The face to face problem-solving that used to take place among co-workers now must be conducted via text messaging.
This is the void some Japanese startups are stepping into, bringing solutions that encourage better communication and understanding among colleagues.
It's Friday evening, early June, and the employees of Uridoki, a dealer of secondhand items in Tokyo's Shibuya are having drinks together. At least they would be if the pandemic never hit. But COVID-19 is a reality, one that chased these workers out of their office and into their homes, so their bonding session is being held over Zoom. Crayons are involved.
They are taking part in a picture-drawing workshop. As an emcee guides them along they draw pictures about something delicious they recently ate, what they imagine while listening to their current favorite songs or how they while away their stay-home time.
"It's the first time in 30 years that I have used crayons!" one participant says.
Uridoki CEO Yasuo Kogure, who expresses his enthusiasm for business in his crayon work of art, explains, "We have rookies and new members but we're losing our communication. I wanted to make up for this and strengthen the connections among us."
Play Life, a Tokyo-based operator of an Internet site for sharing leisure information, devised the Zoom workshop. The name of its online event service, Bazukuri, is Japanese for "creation of venues."
CEO Taichi Sato describes the service as a substitute for the corporate Japan tradition of in-house drinking parties. Remote work has broken down connections between employees and cut down on the conversations that used to be part of daily office life. Play Life says its programs bring colleagues closer together through the sharing of a single experience.
Its menu lists more than 100 programs, including a cooking workshop in which the same ingredients are delivered to everyone's homes and participants share the experience of making a pot of curry. There are also muscle-training and board game programs, each of which is moderated by Play Life employees so participants, the company says, won't be bothered by the sense of distance inherent in online interactions.
A total of 500 people have joined a shared experience since the service was rolled out at the end of May.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Startups/Japanese-startups-ease-the-loneliness-of-working-from-home

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/9756327.html 
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According to The Asahi Shimbun, Robots built by a Tokyo-based company designed to kill the flu virus using deep ultraviolet rays eliminated novel coronavirus on walls and floors in an experiment at a Tokyo university hospital.
Farmroid Co., which developed the robots, plans to market them from early July.
The robots, called UV Buster, irradiate surfaces with deep ultraviolet rays said to render 99.9 percent of the flu virus inactive when it is exposed to the rays for 2.46 seconds within a 10-centimeter distance.
Unlike normal ultraviolet rays, deep ones have shorter wavelengths, which makes their radiation more damaging.
The hospital, located in the capital's Itabashi Ward, where Farmroid is also based, confirmed the robot eliminated the coronavirus after using it to irradiate the virus on surfaces.
Yasuhiro Gon, a professor of pulmonary medicine at Nihon University School of Medicine, said the facility was keen to use the robots as a measure against infection from the novel coronavirus even though the nation's state of emergency has already been lifted.
Gon said the school wanted to "thoroughly prevent the spread of the virus and prepare for a second wave.”
Farmroid intends to sell the robots, which are built to order, to medical institutions, airports and commercial facilities.
As deep ultraviolet rays can have harmful effects on the human body, the robots can only be used only in places where people are not present. The company has no plans yet to sell them to the public.
Farmroid representative Kazuki Iimura said the robots would be priced to compete with expected rivals.
“We want to provide our products at a cheaper price than foreign companies that make similar products,” Iimura, said.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13491999

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/1029098.html 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, Maple Development Group, an arm of Chinese developer Peng Bo, has been given planning approval for its largest residential project yet, a $200 million apartment tower in central Brisbane's Quay Street precinct.
The Rothelowman design for the mixed use project comprises 255 apartments, a five-star serviced apartment building, commercial offices and podium-level shopping and dining across two 30- and 35-storey buildings.
"Brisbane has in recent years experienced a period of evolution and significant growth, primarily focused on quality riverfront amenity and experiences, which make the most of the city’s climate and riverine landscape,” Maple's group development manager, Gilbert Zhu, said.
Maple, a subsidiary of Hebei Province-based developer Peng Bo, has been pursuing a series of residential and commercial projects in south-east Queensland over the past five years. Two years ago, it launched Arcadia Apartments, a boutique 29-unit project in Indooroopilly.

https://www.afr.com/property/residential/maple-plan-ticked-for-brisbane-s-quay-street-20200622-p554yc

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/1193444.html 
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