I would like to briefly add to what Paul Scalise has said an insight that I gained from a professor specialising on geothermal during a break at a Nordic-Japan Green Economy conference held in Tokyo during the autumn of last year. (I can try to digg up the name of the contact should anybody ask me to.)

My question was why hot spring owners were not interested in investing themselves into geothermal if it was such a profit-making no-brainer. The answer was that must owners were old and thus averse to taking on the bank debt required to finance such investment.

I'd like to hear more if anybody had something to share on this topic. Geothermal in Japan is fascinating.

Btw, can anybody confirm that power generated from most geothermal sites was not eligible to utilities to satisfy their renewable obligation under the old renewable portfolio standard? Does anybody have an inkling about whether they are going to qualify for feed-in tariff support?

Alex Luta,
PhD Candidate
Tokyo Institute of Technology