Hot spring baths block Japan's geothermal potential

Hot spring baths block Japan's geothermal potential

Because spring bath is part of Japanese culture, no matter desperate Japan really need for energy source that bath should be there forever.

"It seems that the fears of onsen owners are just based on rumors", she said, explaining that geothermal projects tap into deep rock or sediment that holds groundwater.

And there is the essence of it.

Hot spring spas and national parks have blocking geothermal power development for decades. The crazy thing is, every spa has the capability to also produce electricity. They only need to be converted. They don’t need to be shut down. Of course, they could only produce small amounts of electricity but it’s better than nothing.

 given sufficient will. 

Not to mention, money!

Go nuclear then. Uranium is abundant and relatively cheap and, unlike rare metals or oil or natural gas, can be mined and imported from various countries in the world. Moreover, you can extract plutonium from used uranium fuel bars and use it in reactors again.

No they do not. They bring a lot of revenue.

The experience gained from operating the geothermal power plants Coso Hot Springs in California and Valles Caldera New Mexico suggest there may be some merit to the arguments advanced by the onsen operators.

On top of objections from the "powerful" onsen industry, high initial costs and lengthy administrative hurdles also hold back those interested in building a geothermal plant, she said.

In other words the lazy feckless politicians in Japanwould rather not bother with developing a natural resource but continue to advance nuclear plants, in a country riddled with fault lines

Go nuclear then.

Yes, meiyouwenti, we can see how well that worked out.

What is the environmental impact of building and operating geothermal power facilities? Will it destroy the natural scenery? What about the ecosystem? How many people will need to be displaced? Will they increase the chances of quakes?

These are important questions!

The hot spring industry is no fart in the bath

I don't like the bacteria, slime and other foul things that occur in a tepid shared bath. With lots of other people using before me, I am not comfortable to see people that leave (unintentionally mind you), their pubic hair, skin diseases or bandaids etc floating in the same water I am 'trying' to enjoy.

Apart from the aesthetic beauty of the baths themselves and often in lovely surrounds, I have no qualms if all are converted to koi ponds and they let the geothermal flow to energy needs.

Lessons from Pohang: A Stanford geophysicist discusses geothermal energy’s earthquake problem – and possible solutions

https://news.stanford.edu/2019/05/23/lessons-south-korea-solving-geothermals-earthquake-problem/

Apparently, the big South Korean quake in 2017 was linked to the geothermal energy project!

Never got health problems from visiting Onsens. Guess some people don't use public swimming pools.

Scientific reports could provide evidence if geothermal and onsens together are possible.

With the advancements in drilling technology there is no need to locate geothermal plants anywhere near onsens or scenic areas. The water can be drawn from almost anywhere under Japan or Japan's oceans and piped to generating plants. Under major cities like Tokyo or Osaka in fact. Many of the geothermal plants around the world are actually using Japanese technology. (New Zealand, Iceland, Italy)

https://www.energy-xprt.com/companies/turboden-srl-a-mitsubishi-heavy-industries-company-35470/

Japan dragging its feet and losing the initiative AGAIN!!!!

What’s the problem? Geothermal energy can be exploited without interfering whatsoever with onsen activities. Maybe the “powerful” onsen industry are afraid that in doing so everyone could enjoy free onsen at home while warming-up their homes at the same time!

It's possible to exhaust, for a while, all the heat trapped in hot spring areas. New Zealand had that issue, by tapping too much geothermal energy for heating and other uses, they almost lost the power of the geysers, that were a tourist hit. They had to stop all geothermal energy use for 20 years, to allow the pent up geothermal energy to recharge, and some extinct geysers came back into action. They also had to find ways to reinject the discharged water to help the recharge process.

https://www.geothermal-energy.org/pdf/IGAstandard/Japan/1997/Scott.pdf

Geothermal or more potential Fukushima's...I know which one I'd prefer!

I opt for a middle of the road approach on this one.

Onsens are definitely an important part of Japanese culture, but how many do you need? Seems like every corner of Japan has tons of them. From Kyushu to Hokkaido. Kanto alone already has an insane number. No matter how much of an enthusiast you are, it's impossible to visit every single one of them.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect that as energy needs increase over time, people here learn to compromise some of their luxuries for a more secure future.

At the very least the vast amounts of geothermal energy that gets wasted in onsen towns like Beppu in Oita, should be used to mine Bitcoin. It's free energy.

The plant "has not changed either the quality or the quantity of the water" for onsens in the town, he said.Sales of electricity from the plant now fund free local bus rides for children and seniors, and have allowed the town to renovate disused buildings and support local artisans.And extra hot water from the plant has created a new tourist attraction -- a small colony of giant freshwater prawns, which people can catch and grill."

A great example that should be replicated in many more places in Japan, however as always the old men with vested interests block everything.

"It seems that the fears of onsen owners are just based on rumors", "There is no interference with hot spring wells," which use water from reservoirs closer to the surface."

A double edged sword this is. I've written 500 of my best songs while bathing in onsen. Onsen also cure many disease such as black nail, shyness, atopy, etc. I doubt with a dwindling population that exploring this renewable resource is worth doing. Stick with nuclear power. Japanese nuclear power is very safety.

@kiwi07

Geothermal is an almost unlimited resource and

more than adequate for the needs of those in Japan or New Zealand

One way to alleviate the concerns of onsen users would be to only install geothermal plants a certain distance away from any established onsen. Surely there is plenty of "low hanging fruit" that could, and should, be developed.

I find it disappointing that people refer to the geothermal industry in the US, rather than the geothermal industry in California. Without California, the US would lag far behind many other countries in the production geothermal electricity. About 70% of all such energy in the US is developed in California, not just because the geothermal potential is here, but also because we have the drive to develop it. (If CA were a nation, it would be number one in the world in geothermal electricity production.) As a case in point, for decades California led this country in the production of power from wind. That happened not because we have more wind than anyone else, but because we had more initiative. Even before the Danes, we showed the world that wind could be harnessed on a utility scale. Today, finally, a few states in the Midwest have woken up to the potential for wind power in their areas, so California is no longer first in the country in that regard.

Japan got 0.3% of its energy from geothermal last year. While the U.S. generated the most geothermal electricity in the world, only 0.4% of our energy, nationwide, comes from geothermal. In California, about 6% of our electricity is generated with geothermal power.

So, Japan and the US are almost equal in what percent of their energy comes from geothermal, and without California, the US would be far behind Japan in this category. As a percentage, CA generates 20X more geothermal than Japan.

RE: Open-minded,

A study by Caltech indicated that geothermal energy reduces the risk of major earthquakes by releasing pressure by the extracted heat and micro earthquakes.

So it would actually reduce the danger of earthquakes while also giving us clean energy...

At this point i am not sure what the people even want. Nuclear power is bad. Coal is bad. Cutting trees is bad. Oil and gas is bad. Wind power is bad for the fishing industry and marine life. Large scale solar power farm is not doable due to the limited land and mountainous area's. And now this due to hot springs. What else you want at this point? And people actually ask why the energy prices are so high. One of these days, the power supply is gonna stop and then you would see just bad bad things can get in the summer or during winter.

@Hito.

Indeed.

One needs to understand the benefits from the energy at disposal compare to energy from which you externally depend.

And that nothing remains neutral but everything changes.

Geothermy is a blessing for Japan. Use it in a scientific wise way and many fruitful outcome will appear like examples mentioned in the article.

@Hiro not hito, my apologies !

It's the Tourism Ministry that is against it.

They should take a trip to New Zealand and see how well the geo-thermal plants blend into the country side there.

"To be honest, if possible, we want the drive for geothermal energy developments to stop," said Yoshiyasu Sato, vice president of the Japan Onsen Association.

At least he's honest and didn't bore us with the doublespeak that's common in these parts.

Wanting them banned just because you don't like them is pretty narcissistic, no offense.

I don't want them banned. Just not fussed either way if they close.

they coexist with a small geothermal plant.

so, quite possible then? why all the fuss....?

As usual, no one wants to take that first step out of fear, and instead will be left behind. Besides, given the recent news about how polluted the bath water was at one bath house, ALL baths here should be more rigorously tested and any that don't pass shut down.

National needs are greater than local needs.

this is just a strong indicator that there is a big interest in keeping Japan resource and energy-dependent on purpose for all its existence. Protecting onsen industry from something that is not even proved to damage them (think of the geothermal plant as another nearby onsen or onsens) is just a mere excuse I think. There is a bigger reason behind all this. Besides providing many gigawatts of power, exploiting geothermal may even ease the tectonic pressure in order to prevent big earthquakes they say, however all these benefits mean nothing against having a warm bath do they?

As usual, no one wants to take that first step out of fear, and instead will be left behind. Besides, given the recent news about how polluted the bath water was at one bath house, ALL baths here should be more rigorously tested and any that don't pass shut down.

It should be obvious but the bathhouse that didn't change its water was constantly reheating it with fossil fuel, probably kerosene. It was not using natural heat. This means that without energy security for Japan, that bathhouse will disappear. It is not some wonderful sustainable natural thing naive people might imagine it to be.

fwiw, many onsen use fossil fuel to heat up a mineral water from a spring that is tepid but hot enough for bathing. Any bath that recycles water uses fossil fuel to reheat it. Pretty much every onsen will use fossil fuel for the hot water coming out of the taps and showers.

Fossil fuel is not renewable. Japan may have an onsen culture, but pre-fossil fuel it was much much smaller and limited to sites with prodigious amounts of very hot spring water at or near the surface, not a relative trickle coming out of a borehole drilled 1km down and then recirculated in a bath and reheated with fossil fuel.

Both can live in harmony

Eighteen down votes and not even one up vote for pointing out that real life hands on experience operating at least two geothermal plants in the US demonstrates that geothermal power production can have impacts on groundwater levels, the flows of local springs and the like. Real life.

There is also a hazardous waste stream of chemicals that have to be removed from the water plus sulphur dioxide gas to deal with. I generally support geothermal power production but do not fool yourselves into thinking is is problem free. The Coso Springs plant has been depleting the aquifer it uses and has been piping water in from another aquifer in Rose Valley. Real life.

unleash Japan’s nuclear power. It is safe, cheap, effective, productive, and abundant.

LMAO this myth still perpetrates in Japan. The Nuclear lobby in the 60's and 70's successfully sowed this idea into the psyches of inaka people and onsen town hicks. Iceland, has HUGE geothermal energy production and also HUGE culture for hot springs....1 does not preclude the other. And guess where they get the technology and turbines required to make all that clean, constant electricity?? You guessed it......Mitsubishi Heavy industries from right here in good ol Nippon!! You couldn't make this nonsense up. Well done Japan, another great example of why groupthink is terrible for the progression of society.

Let's fire up those coal plants!! LLF

Nothing beats Nuclear power. Other methods can only produce tiny amount compare to Nuclear energy. Let people enjoy the onsen.