Production efficiency and cost reduction potential of biodiesel fuel plants using waste cooking oil in Japan.

Biodiesel fuel (BDF) is a potentially carbon-neutral fuel that could play a potentially important role in preventing global warming. However, its high production cost poses a challenge for many BDF producers. To establish an efficient method for BDF production and increase its cost competitiveness, the production efficiencies of 35 BDF plants in Japan, which produce BDF from waste cooking oil, were evaluated.

Impacts of productive efficiency improvement in the global metal industry on CO emissions.

This study focused on 14 metal sectors of the 40 countries that are the largest CO emitters and developed a new analysis framework to estimate CO reduction potentials based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol through efficiency improvement of the inefficient metal sector of these countries. The analysis framework was developed by combining a multi-regional input-output database with data envelopment analysis. We found that there were 20 inefficient countries in the basic iron and steel sector, which is the largest CO emitter among 14 metal sectors, and their efficiency improvements can contribute to reducing CO emissions by 354 Mt, accounting for 1.

Isolation and structural analysis of efficient autonomously replicating sequences (ARSs) of the yeast Candida utilis.

The industrially important yeast Candida utilis is widely used in production of food and medical materials, but its host-vector system has not been well developed. We screened for compact and efficient ARSs to construct practically useful vectors. The C.