The athletes’ village for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo will be a futuristic “hydrogen town” where electricity and hot water are generated from the abundant element, the Yomiuri Shimbun said yesterday.
Tokyo Metropolitan Government planners want to use the opportunity of hosting the summer sporting festival as a boost to so-called “clean” energy, the Yomiuri said.
The city wants to build hydrogen stations and pipelines that would send the gas to accommodation units, athletic facilities and restaurants, it added.
Fuel cells installed at facilities would then use the hydrogen, in combination with oxygen from the air, to produce power and heat water.
Buses ferrying athletes around would be fueled by hydrogen and refilled from special stations.
The report comes after Toyota Motor last month rolled out the world’s first mass-market fuel cell car in Japan.
Hydrogen power is classed as clean energy because it produces only water as a by-product at the point of use.
The athletes’ village is to be located in Tokyo’s Harumi waterfront area and would be a temporary home to about 17,000 people during the Games.
Once the Games are over, it is set to be converted into a town with a population of about 10,000, the Yomiuri said.
The contract for planning the village will be awarded to a private company by the end of March, with the use of hydrogen a condition for application, it said.
Despite its abundancy, hydrogen does not occur naturally as a gas and needs to be extracted from compounds. The Yomiuri added that production of a large quantity of hydrogen was challenging.
“Realization of a hydrogen-based society is an important goal for resource-poor Japan and would lead to curbing of greenhouse gases,” Hitotsubashi University commerce and management professor Takeo Kikkawa said.
“There are not a small number of technical tasks, but the Tokyo Olympics is a big chance to realize it. As the athletes’ village is built from scratch, it would be an ideal large-scale experiment,” he said.
The Tokyo government said it was not immediately able to confirm the report.
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