Panasonic sees light after darkness of disaster

Um, Japan is one BIG boiling pot of water, yet these idiots use other methods to boil water to make steam to spin a turbine to make power. Why not tap the tea kettle the country is sitting on to generate power?! Too simple and I'm sure much cheaper than current methods but I guess Japan Inc. wouldn't make nearly as much money so that must be the reason. Either that or onsans are the only use for hot water bubbling up from under Japan.

Knowbetter, I asked the same question to my students who work for Tohoku Electric Power company, and they said that Geo-thermal is not realistic here as the temperature of the water is not nearly high enough to create steam to turn a turbine. The water would have to be heated and it would almost use the same amount of energy that is needed now to run a thermal power plant. I guess Iceland's volcanoes are much more active and hotter that here. Beppu in Oita have some of the hottest natural spring water, and they do have a Geo-thermal plant there, but it is a small one.

Such changes impacted by market demands and other nature of renewable energy potentials.

either way, there's huge biz opportunities after the quake. All those people are gonna need new TVs, washing machines, digital cameras etc. etc. etc.

This is an innovative company. There was another article on JT today about M. Son starting up power grids. Panasonic and SoftBank should get together and work as partners.

The 'opportunity' in this article is not defined, but be sure that it is the 'opportunity' to make profit-profit out of disaster! The benefit won't be for the Japanese worker as the company opens up new factories in China where workers are on a tenth of the Japanese workers' salaries.

hachmike66, I wonder your students haven't heard about things like Stirling engines, Kalina cycle, organic Rankine cycle, etc?