Thank you to Paul Scalise for an extremely informative piece on the history of geothermal power in Japan. Paul ends his piece with the following, after which I would like to pose a couple of questions.

>
> After the hotspring owners lobbied successfully with
media help
> against geothermal power plants in the 1960s, it
became difficult to
> site geothermal plants in Kyushu and Tohoku (areas
with the largest
> magmatic heat sources). Today, some people advocate
drilling in the
> national parks to avoid this issue, but they also are
opposed by
> various environmental interests who are very
concerned about how
> drilling and exploration will effect the eco-system.
>
> I appeared on a program for the BBC World News
discussing the
> political economy of geothermal power last year. One
Japanese
> institute's analyst appearing with me had estimated
geothermal could
> produce approximately 10% of Japan's total electric
power needs -
> mostly in the Tohoku EPCO and Kyushu EPCO service
regions -- if it
> were not for the objections of hotspring owners and
environmental
> lobbyists.

Objections to nuclear and thermal have also been deployed against power companies in the past, some successfully. Why is it that objections to geothermal seem to have been more successful in persuading the electric power companies not to develop geothermal (and other renewables) beyond the small test sites? Or, put another way, why have electric power companies and the national/local governmenst been more vigorous in resisting objections to nuclear and thermal stations than they have been with objections to much smaller and less intrusive geothermal stations?

In the US I have heard that independent local small scale plants have been successfully set up. An unintended consequence of these has been a big contribution towards rejuvenation of previously dying rural communities - something which is also a big problem in Japan and Tohoku especially, and which local energy production could be a good basis for so-called 'revitalisation' efforts. Are Japanese policy makers and energy companies looking into this issues, and have they been studying the US examples? (I saw a documentary on this recently, which featured independent small scale wind energy generation in Texas and the benefits this had had for declining local
communities: money circulation, human capital retention
etc.)

Thanks to everyone for a very informative discussion.

Peter

--
Dr. Peter Matanle
Lecturer and Taught Post-Graduate Tutor, School of East Asian Studies and National Institute of Japanese Studies, University of Sheffield.
Director,
WREAC Research Cluster on Social Change and Transition in East Asia.

---------------------
Co-Editor: Japan Forum
Founder and publishing editor: electronic journal of contemporary japanese studies.
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Latest publications (within the previous 24 months):

Iles, T. and Matanle, P. (eds) (2012) Researching Twenty-First Century Japan: New Directions and Approaches for the Electronic Age, Lanham, MD:
Lexington Books.

Matanle, P. (2011) The Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown: towards the (re)construction of a safe, sustainable and compassionate society in Japan's shrinking regions, Local Environment, 16 (9): 823-847.

Matanle, P., Rausch, A.S., with the Shrinking Regions Research Group (2011) Japan's Shrinking Regions in the 21st Century: Contemporary Responses to Depopulation and Socioeconomic Decline, Amherst, NY: Cambria Press.

Matanle, P. and Matsui, K. (2011) Lifetime Employment in 21st Century Japan: Stability and Resilience Under Pressure in the Japanese Management System. In Horn, S.
(ed.) Emerging Perspectives in Japanese Human Resource Management, Wirtschaftspsychologie, 15, Berlin: Peter
Lang: 15-44.

Matanle, P. and Sato, Y. (2010) Coming Soon to a City Near You! Learning to Live 'Beyond Growth' In Japan's Shrinking Regions, Social Science Japan Journal, 13
(2): 197-210.