Japan's Plan for Ubiquitous Green ICT

Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) released an "Digital Japan Creation Project Outline" 17 March 2009. Also known as the ICT Hatoyama Plan, this is a three year growth strategy for ICT industries, aiming for "several trillion yen" and up to 400,000 new jobs. It includes Ubiquitous Green ICT with Green Cloud Data Centers. Here are some excerpts:

(7) Development and Implementation of Ubiquitous Green ICT
ICT can contribute to improving energy use efficiency, reducing the transport of people and goods, raising production and consumption efficiency, and enhancing environmental measurement and forecasting technologies. For example, estimates indicate that environmental measures using ICT (known as “ubiquitous green ICT”) can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by the equivalent of 38 million tons in 2012, about half of the 6% reduction from 1990 specified in the Kyoto Protocol. Consequently, the MIC will support the use of ubiquitous green ICT to spur low-carbon innovation.

(a) Supporting the development of energy-saving networks
In response to rapid growth in the development of broadband environments and the use of video and other programming, collaboration between industry, universities, and government will be promoted to create energy-saving networks by developing energy-saving network control technologies that can be used for the Internet, eco-Internet technologies for performing traffic routing control, and photonic network technologies that are both high-speed and energy saving.

(b) Developing Green Cloud Data Centers
Network use is increasing rapidly, and in response the development of Green Cloud Data Centers will be promoted to reduce data center energy consumption by locating them in cold regions, utilizing wind and solar power, employing low-loss direct current, and using tunnels and other underground sites with strong earthquake resistance and stable temperatures. Also, this concept will be employed to support the construction of the Kasumigaseki Cloud Data Center (tentative name) as infrastructure for government information systems, such as the Kasumigaseki Cloud.

(c) Adopting environmental measures using open sensor networks
The MIC will support the development of open sensor networks that collect comprehensive environmental data, such as information on sudden downpours, traffic congestion, and landslides, from sensors that use IPv6 technology installed over wide areas. The collected data will be used to plan and implement environmental measures, such as electric power control at public facilities, and to develop green ICT services for the private sector.

(d) Quantifying household CO2
The MIC will test an “environmental household account book” that automatically calculates carbon dioxide emissions generated from purchasing and consumption activities in the day-to-day lives of consumers by using ASP and SaaS to encourage responses to environmental problems by individuals. Such a system will make household carbon dioxide emissions more apparent.

(e) Supporting new work styles using telework
Model businesses will be implemented to support new working styles using information and communications technologies and services that achieve high levels of both security and convenience to increase telework and thereby lower environmental impact by reducing the transport of people, increasing paperless offices, and raising the efficiency of office space use.