Geothermal Power, Cheap and Clean, Could Help Run Japan. So Why Doesn’t It?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Geothermal has a lot of potential in Japan, but as the article points out it's a political nightmare.
The data and research ahas been done. There are plenty of real-world examples of geothermal plants operating in Japan for years with no impact on local hot springs. Opposition from hot spring operators is real and it's been going on for decades.
A big part of the problem is that the developers are not just negotiating with local governments and the population as a whole, but effectively with families individually. The way things are structured, just one family can usually stall negotiations.
"Well yes, we've seen your fancy science and heard your promises, but grandad isn't convinced. It's just not worth taking the risk of putting our onsen out of business."
To be fair, these people generally are not trying to extort money from the developers, and seem to be sincere in their beliefs.
In recent years, the Japanese government has started allowing limited development on national lands to combat this. Despite it's technical promise, most of the time geothermal is not worth the political effort required.
So they have to prove a negative? A tough one. NIMBY'ism is not just a Western phenomenon.
In New Zealand (North Island) I went on a river kayak trip up a river that came out of a hot zone. It had a waterfall that was the perfect temp for a hot shower, so you could lean back and have way more water rushing over your head than any house would ever have.
Why hasn’t the government simply run large scale testing and looked at countries like Iceland to determine if there is any truth to this? You’ve got one guy installing his own “monitoring equipment” who also has a clear bias against geothermal.