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The Benefits of Geothermal Power?
The Yomiuri had an article on geothermal power titled Given that Japan is completely dependent on foreign oil and that global warming is a serious problem, it's only natural that alternative energies be sought out. But looking at the headline, “Benefits of geothermal power eyed,” you'd wonder what those benefits are. Here they are:
An advisory panel to the economy, trade and industry minister that has been studying energy resources last month compiled a report calling for an expansion in the use of geothermal power, considered less damaging to the environment than other energy sources, thus pushing the issue into the spotlight for the first time in a decade.
and
Geothermal power is an attractive option for many countries because it creates less than half the carbon dioxide emissions of nuclear, wind or solar power. It also has the advantage of being renewable and domestically produced.
That's it. It's less damaging and less polluting. What the article has is plenty of juicy-looking numbers: capable of generating up to 530,000 kilowatts...a capacity of 2.5 million kilowatts ... can generate 1.9 million kilowatts ...as much as 20 million kilowatts ...nearly 10 percent of the nation's overall power generation capacity of 235 million kilowatts..an output of 2,000 kilowatts.
With numbers that good, what could possibly go wrong?
However, more than half of the thermal sources are located in and around national parks and near the country's 27,000 thermal springs. This imposes certain restrictions on geothermal drilling and has raised development costs. The cost of geothermal power generation--about 16 yen for a kilowatt per hour--is three times higher than that of thermal or nuclear power.
Oops.
So why look at geothermal power? The article suggests its about oil:
Following a number of oil shocks, geothermal power generation rapidly grew in importance at a time when new energy sources were being sought in an effort to lower dependence on oil.
Unfortunately, it fails to take one hard fact into consideration: geothermal energy is not going to run Japan's fleet of cars and trucks. You're not going to fill'er up with steam or hot water. Alternative energy sources are going to be part of our lives. The media likes to report on sexy new technologies involving bio-diesel, hydrogen, or solar, but while these sources are renewable and “clean,” they cannot be scaled in the way we have done so with oil. We already know how to generate electricity using nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, or coal. At best geothermal will be a viable regional energy source. But it's not going to run our cars.
Comments
Shawn, you need to consider that Japan has a massive amount of snow-melt each year, which recently featured in an electric powered car turning water into hydrogen fuel, was on news TV and plenty of airtime.
Water to hydrogen requires massive amounts of energy, and geothermal could provide a baseload for several hydrogen production plants, to replace oil. The hydrogen fuel cell route is certainly a possibility for Japan, with heaps of snowmelt water, and heaps of untapped geothermal power.
They need to change the red tape and speed up investment into large plants. New Zealand, which has a tiny population, and a tiny economy compared to Japan, has a 100Megawatt geothermal power station. Why? Because New Zealand have the right policies, incentives through mandated and statutory renewable energy targets, and therefore gives confidence to private sector and energy industry to invest. Japan has none of those going for it, and should catch up quick! Shameful that they could produce 10% of all their energy requirements, and hydrogen fuel for a large amount of their fleet vehicles or buses/ taxis etc.
Geothermal Man
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