KUDOH Yuki

My research analyses the role of various technologies in energy systems to investigate their effective implementation in our society from the viewpoint of system engineering and life cycle assessment (LCA).

Since being a car enthusiast, I have been involved in many research projects related to energy saving and global warming measures in the automotive sector, primarily by introducing motor-driven "electric vehicles" such as battery electric vehicles. I have been worked on Well to Wheel (WtW) analysis and LCA of vehicles for more than 25 years since I was an undergraduate student.

After joining AIST in 2004, I have started to conduct technology assessment for various energy technologies from the perspective of LCA. One of my research topic was biomass energy, which is a carbon-neutral energy source and plays an essential role in GHG mitigation worldwide. I have been studying the environmental properties such as life cycle GHG emissions and the requirements for its sustainable use, including all the positive and negative impacts on the environment, the economy (value-added creation, etc.), and society (employment creation, etc.)

Since the mid-2010s, Japan has started to move towards the realisation of a hydrogen economy. Accordingly, I have started to work on the LCA of hydrogen and its energy carriers and analyse the role of hydrogen in the future energy system using an energy system model.

My recent research topics are to analyse scenarios for the social implementation of various clean energy sources and technologies inevitable to achieve carbon neutrality and study the direction of technological development and the system design to enhance their social deployment.