최근에 자원, 에너지문제, 환경문제, 도시문제등 인간생존과 번영을 저해하는 문제가 속출하고 있어 이러한 제 문제를 해결 할 수 있는 혁신적인 기술 개발이 요구되고 있다. 농업생산에 있어서 에너지 절약 및 대체에너지(자연에너지, 바이오에너지 및 폐기물에너지)의 기술개발은 화석에너지 사용에 따른 지구환경 악화 방지 뿐만 아니라, 자연과 조화된 고품질, 고부가가치의 농축산물 생산활동에 크게 기여 할 것으로 사료된다.(중략)

In this study, we evaluated the energy production from plant-microbial fuel cells using representative indoor plants, such as Scindapsus aureus and Clatha minor. The maximum power density of microbial fuel cell (MFC) using S. aureus (3.36 mW/m2) was about 2 times higher than that of the MFC using C. minor (1.43 mW/m2). It was confirmed that energy recovery is possible using plant-MFCs without fuel. However, further research is needed to improve the performance of plant-MFCs. Nevertheless, plant-MFCs have proved their potential as a novel energy source to overcome the limitations of the conventional renewable energy sources such as wind power and solar cells, and could be employed to a power source for the sensor in charge of the fourth industrial revolution.

The increase in environmental loads and energy consumptions has resulted in the need of developed new forms of energy for a sustainable use for the society. Recently, the viability of using unused energy has attracted a great deal of attention. From the view point of using unused energy, the most critical problem can be referred to as the distance between the heat source/sink and heat demand area. The water resource in the city water system was used to solve this distance problem with unused energy. The calculation method of the potential use unit was used to survey the potential of the water resource in the city water system. The amount of theoretical unused energy and energy savings in the model city were estimated using this method. It is estimated that the amounts of energy savings and CO2 reduction correspond to 131.3 GWh and 29280[t-C], respectively, per annual basis.