Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I'm a researcher in biomass.
I guess the word "biomass" is unfamiliar to you.
However, my first name must be more unfamiliar to you.
I guess those of you laughing speak Japanese and understand how unfamiliar my first name is.
Since this talk is broadcasted all over the world, let me ask you a question.
Please raise your hand if you think my first name is a typical masculine name in Japan.
Nobody.
Then, please raise your hand if you think my first name must be a feminine name.
Thank you.
My name produced many anecdotes.
When I was a 4th grade student,
I ordered a sewing box through the school.
Kabuto' was printed on boys' boxes,
and 'temari' on girls'.
What arrived to me was,
as you might guess,
a box with temari.
The next is indoor shoes.
When I was a 6th grade student,
my shoe size was as big as 27cm.
In April, at the beginning of new school year,
I ordered indoor shoes,
but it never arrived to me.
I asked my teacher the reason why my shoes didn't arrive,
he said it was under production.
Several days later, 27cm-large red shoes (for girls) arrived to me.
I considered using the shoes,
but eventually I asked my teacher to have blue shoes (which is for boys).
Most people might think I dislike my name
because of the bad experiences.
In fact,
however, this is a good name
because Many people remember me at once, as "femininely named Igarashi".
This is my family tree.
Rather than my name,
please take a look at names of children of mine
and my brother's.
heir names end up with "日子 (hiko)."
Most of Japanese people take these names for women's,
and they don't to name their son such names.
However, I appreciate my name,
and my brother does,
so he named his son these names.
Furthermore,
the reason why my father named my brother and me in this way
is that he also appreciates his name ending with hiko.
Since 3 generations have "hiko" names,
you might think they are historic.
Please take a look at my grandfather's name.
Since he's already passed away,
I show you his real name.
Yes, my grandfather's name doesn't end up with hiko.
This means that he started to name in this way.
When I was young,
I always wondered why I was named in this way.
I want you to notice another thing on this family tree.
Many of the names of women end up with "子 (ko),"
including my daughters and wife,
since I had decided to marry woman whose name ends up with ko.
Interestingly, however,
in my brother's family,
only men's names end up with ko.
Furthermore,
my grandmother, who started the hiko tradition,
doesn't have the name with ko.
Now, as a scientist,
I'm driven to analyze the situation.
I inputed the top 10 names of newborn babies
surveyed by Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance
to the spreadsheet and analyzed the trend.
Then, I have found the very interesting fact.
The number of names with ko increased suddenly in 1900s,
and it stayed high for decades.
However, after 1974, it decreased to be almost zero.
What this means is that,
although you think names with ko must be feminine,
it's no longer popular.
Names with ko were feminine only for 60 years.
You may know that names with ko were masculine in ancient times,
"Ono no Imoko" for instance.
They were feminine only in decades which I was born in,
so I was often mistaken to be woman.
The reason why I had such introduction is
that I want to tell you that common knowledge
that names with ko is feminine has ended 40 years ago.
Common knowledge has freshness date.
Now the long introduction is over.
I'm studying biomass.
I guess most of you are unfamiliar with biomass.
The word biomass consists of "bio" and "mass."
Those of you who know this word might think biomass only refers to trees and plants,
but it also refers to animals.
For example, your body is biomass,
since it consists of materials in nature.
Everything produced biologically on the planet is biomass.
In this approach,
we realize there are various biomass around us.
I'm studying applications of the biomass.
This illustration,
drawn by Mr. Kudo, a science communicator in Rikkyo university,
expresses my study.
To make use of biomass in order to put material-cycle society into practice,
I'm focusing on enzymes.
Trees and plants, especially trees in my case,
can be decomposed by very few creatures.
Among these creatures,
mushrooms have many enzymes that decompose trees.
My goal is to use these enzymes to convert biomass for application.
I can't tell you the detail of my research in this talk,
so please go to the exhibition on the upper floor.
While I'm encouraging people to make use of biomass,
I also mentioned that we already have various biomass around us.
Indeed, we use biomass for many purposes.
For example, your shirts,
whether it's cotton or wool, are made of biomass.
Cotton is biomass itself.
Wool is also biomass since sheep eat plants.
Clothes has a bread deal to do with biomass.
How about food?
Sashimis, shrimps,
crabs, rice and sake,
all sorts of food-stuffs are biomass.
Next is house.
Houses are often made of wood in Japan.
Wooden houses are biomass.
Then, why do we have to try hard to make use of biomass?
Biomass is already used in fundamental areas.
Let's carry on.
For example, components of medicine are often made of oil.
How much biomass is used to make tablets?
Almost zero.
Buildings and traffic.
These are necessary for cultural life.
I mean that we take medicine to live longer.
We use computers and smartphones for convenience.
We construct roads to travel further.
We build skyscraper so that more people can live in a small space.
We use oil for these purposes
and these are closely related to the civilization.
his is what makes things difficult.
We're studying how can we use biomass in these areas.
Petrochemistry has 150 years of history and today we can use oil conveniently.
How can biomass produce a change?
It's very difficult for biomass
to deal with large consumption and to surpass the convenience of oil.
Today, I've brought this as an example.
This is a PLA bottle,
or polylactic acid, made of corns,
developed by Dr. Iwata who studies bioplastics at Todai.
It's not a PET bottle, or polyethylene terephtalate.
This bottle is displayed at the exhibition,
so please take in you hand and see the difference.
We can use this bottle in the same way as PET bottles.
We have to make choice whether we replace oil with these things.
You might think you can replace from today,
but we have some problems.
Since this bottle is made of corns,
it conflicts with food.
Do we really make plastic from food?
Corns, as well as rice and other crops,
are cultivated over a year.
In contrast, how long is this bottle durable?
The aspect of time becomes very important.
We have the annual harvest of rice in autumn.
If we consume more than harvested in one year,
rice runs out.
The same thing happens in biomass.
It's awkward if we made a product that doesn't last a year from plants cultivated over a year.
How about trees?
It takes 20 years for trees to grow up.
If we use trees, we have to respect the years of growing.
Therefore, growing biomass is as important as using it.
The reason why I'm approaching this topic from agricultural background
is that agriculture supports the biomass after all.
Having problems and difficulties,
do we really need to use biomass?
We have new resources like shale gas these days.
Oil and coal, the resources we are consuming today,
are made over 300 to 500 billion years.
We are consuming these resources
at the rate of about 300 years, million times faster than production.
This is comparable to consuming annual plants in 30 seconds.
This is why we are trying to make use of biomass.
Do you know what oil and coal are made of?
It is said that oil is made of animals and coal is made of plants from the ancient times.
I stated that everything produced biologically is biomass.
After all,
biomass in ancient times has become fossil resources over a long, long time.
People are taking about whether they should use biomass or how to deal with fossil resources,
but it doesn't make sense.
From aspect of time,
we should think how long it took to make one resource and how fast will we consume it.
People say utilization of biomass takes too long,
but I believe that we have to take time to learn how to use biomass.
To conclude, I want you remember,
"Biomass becomes fossil resources over time."
Thank you very much.