-本文001-089 journal of environmental information science 2021

Original article Geothermal Power Developments and Related Disputes under FIT Scheme in Japan

Naoki MASUHARA*

Abstract： The installation of new geothermal power sources in Japan appears to face difficulty even after the FIT (Feed-in Tariffs) scheme started in 2012. This study clarifies the reasons and the recent circumstance of disputes regarding new geothermal developments all over Japan from 2011 to 2020. To identify each dispute, all articles of national newspapers were investigated by using search words of “geothermal power” and “opposition” both during that term. Through testing the average of two groups where geothermal-related disputes observed and not, among resource potential, installation targets and difference between target and existing capacity of each prefecture, the difference was thought to be mostly affected to disputes situation. So, to make consensus about new geothermal power installation, more citizen’s understanding about existing geothermal power plants should be needed. Key Words： geothermal power development, dispute, resource potential, installation target, Japan, prefecture level

INTRODUCTION

Owing to the effects of the Feed-in Tariffs (FIT)

for renewable energy electricity that were enforced in July 2012, the installation of renewable energy facilities by businesses and other entities has been accelerating in Japan. To compare the amount of energy introduced by source before and after FIT began, power generation through geothermal, and hydroelectricity has been almost stable in contrast to solar power (photovoltaics), which has seen a ten-fold increase during 8 years, and the amount of biomass and wind power has been increased slightly in terms of generated electricity (Figure 1).

According to Goldstein et. al. (2008), geothermal resources have been identified in 90 countries and there are quantified records of geothermal utilization in 72 countries in the World, with 24 countries relying on geothermal power for

electricity generation. Among them, the big four countries with geothermal resource potential in the World are the United States, Indonesia, Japan and Kenya. On the other hand, Japan’s order lowers to ninth in terms of installed facility capacity as of 2015 (International Geothermal Association Inc., 2018).

The installation of new geothermal power sources in Japan, therefore, appears to face difficulty. To identify the reasons of this lower installation, the geothermal and hot spring power generation potential (usable quantity) of all 47 prefectures in Japan and each prefecture’s hot springs and geothermal power generation installation targets have been summarized in this paper. And the circumstances of disputes nationwide have been understood through searching for articles in national newspapers.

There are several forms of geothermal power generation, including the widely used “flash type,”

* School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo

Journal of Environmental Information Science Vol.2021, No.120

0100200300400500600700800900

1000

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019Hydropower Photovoltaics Wind Geothermal Biomass

(Unit: 100GWh)

Figure 1 Recent change of generated electricity from renewable energy in Japan1)

and the recently introduced “binary type” (Eghbal, 2015). In the Japan’s “Law Concerning Special Measures to Promote the Use of New Energy” which was enacted in 1997, geothermal power generation was excluded from the scope of the law as it was already being implemented. However, in the 2008 revisions to the law, only a binary geothermal power type was added as an applicable form of power generation.

Binary geothermal power was also an applicable target of the Japan’s “Special Measures Law Concerning the Use of New Energy by Electric Utilities” from 2003, when it was initially enacted.

In the 2011 “Act on Purchase of Renewable Energy Sourced Electricity by Electric Utilities”, enacted in the aftermath of the Great East Japan earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants disaster, geothermal power was one of the five targeted types of power resource2). This act ensures that purchase prices are fixed for 15 years from the beginning of a contract and vary in response to the size of the power plant, with prices of 26 yen per 1 kWh (excluding tax) for power plants larger than 15MW and 40 yen per 1 kWh for power plants smaller than 15MW.

In addition to the enactment of legal support for geothermal power at a later point in time than other forms of renewable energy, (1) development cost, (2) restrictions due to the Natural Parks Act and other laws, and (3) opposition from local groups, such as hot spring associations, have all been pointed out as common barriers for the new

development of geothermal power plants (Endo, 2015. Kubota, 2013.). Development costs include finding a suitable location, which is difficult as usable resources are several thousand meters underground (Nakashima, 2014), and obtaining a drilling permit, which requires much time as it is necessary to follow various procedures. Restrictions are not limited to those in the Natural Parks Act, but also include those in the Environmental Impact Assessment Act and the necessity of acquiring a hot spring drilling permit for each prefecture. Furthermore, the acquisition of a hot springs drilling permit is related to the three barriers raised above by Kubota (2013) and Endo (2015), as the owners of nearby hot spring sources may be needed to agree to obtain a permit.

This research aims to answer the following questions, based on the table of the usable quantity/installation targets and results of the analysis of the circumstances in which disputes occurred.

(1) Will the national geothermal power generation installation targets adopted in “long-term national energy supply and demand forecasts” be achieved through the accumulation of each prefecture’s installation targets? If not, what conditions must be considered to achieve these targets?

(2) What relationship exists between the physical resources and installation targets for hot spring and geothermal power generation in each prefecture?

(3) In prefectures with comparatively small amounts of usable hot spring and geothermal power generation resources, even in cases in which the installation of new hot springs and geothermal power is planned, do fewer disputes occur because the scale of development is small? Below, the research methods, the data obtained

from these methods, and a discussion of these results are described in order.

1. METHODS The three research methods used to address the

above questions are described in this article. First,

Journal of Environmental Information Science Vol.2021, No.1 21

the contents of administrative documents including geothermal resource potential and installation targets at both national and prefectural levels are analyzed. Next, to identify geothermal-related disputes, all articles of major national newspapers were investigated. Finally, crosscutting analysis on relationships between geothermal resource potential, existing capacity and installation targets was conducted.

1.1 Administrative documents analysis Through administrative documents of national

government, national target by energy resource and geothermal resource potential of each prefecture was summarized. At prefecture level, latest local energy plans with quantitative targets of each prefecture out of 47 prefectures in Japan were investigated. Based on this survey, aggregated installation target of geothermal power was calculated.

1.2 Newspaper article survey To identify where disputes occurred, following

the method of Uechi et al. (2016), a set of data from 2011 when Japan’s energy policy situation changed significantly to 2020 (calendar years) was searched. The text of articles from major national newspapers (including the Asahi, Nihon-Keizai, Mainichi, and Yomiuri newspapers, and their respective regional editions) was completely searched to identify regional disputes. The keywords for that search included articles containing both “geothermal” and “opposition”, and, by examining the contents of these articles, an overview of disputes occurring in specific regions during the target dates was organized.

1.3 Crosscutting survey Based on the results of administrative

documents analysis and newspaper article survey, crosscutting survey on relationships between resource potential, existing capacity, installation target and related disputes of each prefecture was conducted using average testing method. Two groups where related disputes observed and not were created, and thus using this method was

thought to be made the effect of each number of prefecture clear.

2. RESULTS 2.1 Administrative documents analysis results The analysis of administrative documents

targets the Ministry of the Environment, which manages the Natural Parks and Hot Springs Acts; the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), which is the primary actor managing the promotion of renewable energy; and any research committees or other organizations established by these ministries.

As explained in the introduction section, both the “flash type” and the “binary type” are forms of geothermal power generation. While the flash type typically uses high temperature resources of 150-350 ℃ , the binary type uses low to mid-temperature resources of 50-200 ℃ , which were previously unusable.

Regarding the potential of each of these types, or how many geothermal or hot spring power sources can be installed using them, the Ministry of the Environment conducted national estimates in the “Study on the Potential for the Installation of Renewable Energies” and “Study on Basic Zoning Information Concerning Renewable Energies.” Furthermore, in 2013, the results of an attempt to improve the accuracy of information related to the

Figure 2 Flash-type power generation potential (Unit: MW)

2,0001,000500


Figure 3 Binary-type power generation potential (Unit: MW)

distribution of geothermal power generation resources, the “Detailed Study and Analysis of the Installation Potential Concerning Geothermal Power Generation” (abbreviated as the Detailed Study), which was conducted as a more precise installation potential estimate than conventional surveys, were published.

Therefore, our summary will proceed based on the geothermal power generation potential of each prefecture published in the Detailed Study. The geothermal power generation potential for each prefecture presented by the Detailed Study is distributed as shown in Figures 2 and 3.

The national total flash-type geothermal power generation potential is 7.85 GW (assuming no drilling or diagonal drilling in national parks; Figure 2), and that for binary-type generation is 930MW (for the same scenario as above with usable temperatures between 120-180 ℃; Figure 3). From the results by prefecture, there is little potential for either type in west Japan (excluding Gifu Prefecture) in Honshu mainland. This is due to the distribution of the volcanic belts that form the Japanese islands.

The installation targets for geothermal and hot spring power generation in each prefecture have been aggregated through searches of each prefecture’s official homepage. We have identified that 14 prefectures have installation targets for geothermal and hot spring power generation

Table 1 Installation targets and existing capacity of geothermal and hot spring power

generation of 14 prefectures

Prefecture Target year

Installation targets (kW)

Existing capacity (kW)

Hokkaido 2020 26,000 25,000Aomori 2030 41,538 0Iwate 2020 110,999 103,500Miyagi 2020 4,000 3,000Akita 2025 130,300 88,300Yamagata 2030 60,000 0Fukushima 2030 230,000 65,000Kanagawa 2030 1,100 0Shizuoka 2021 400 3Hyogo 2030 1,000 11Nagasaki 2030 1,300 210Oita 2024 177,890 155,390Miyazaki 2022 2,000 0Kagoshima 2022 71,000 61,680Total 857,527 502,094

HokkaidoAomori

Iwate

Miyagi

Akita

Yamagata

Fukushima

Shizuoka

Nagasaki

Oita

Miyazaki

Kagoshima

y = 1.3763xR² = 0.7782

0

50

100

150

200

250

0 50 100 150 200 250

Inst

alla

tion

targ

et b

y pr

efec

ture

(Uni

t:MW

)

Existing capacity of geothermal power plants (Unit:MW) Figure 4 Relationship between existing capacity of geothermal power plants and installation target

by prefecture

(Table 1). In this table, existing capacity means that capacity as of the time of target setting. Also, the relationship between existing capacity of geothermal power plants and installation target by prefecture was figured out in Figure 4.

Almost half of these prefectures have set targets for 2030 (six prefectures), although other years are also used (2021, 22, 24, and 25). As a 2030 energy mix is presented in the long-term national energy supply and demand forecast, during the following analysis, we have assumed that prefectures with


Table 2 Estimated amount of installed geothermal power generation capacity by 20303) Case and distribution

1. Large-scale development: development expected under current environmental regulations. Small to mid-size development: Development of projects that are currently occurring

2. Small to mid-size development: if future developments are assumed to proceed smoothly (in addition to the projects from 1.)

3. Large-scale development: anticipated development of projects assuming the easing of environmental regulations (in addition to 2.)

4. If the national government conducts airborne geophysical surveys in approximately five places that each lead to the creation of a 30MW class development

Large-scale development

320 MW 320 MW 610 MW

＋150 MW Small and mid-sized development

60 MW 240 MW 240 MW

Existing power plants

520 MW 520 MW 520 MW

Total 900 MW （6.5 billion kWh）

1,080 MW （7.9 billion kWh）

1,400 MW (10.2 billion kWh)

1,550 MW （11.3 billion kWh）

Table 3 Disputes related to geothermal and hot spring power generation reported in newspaper articles

between 2011 and 2020 Article date Location of planned

power generation Plant operator Major opposition members Reason for opposition

October 19th, 2011

Kirishima City, Kagoshima Prefecture

Kyushu Electric Power Co., Inc., etc.

Kirishima city, hot spring operators

Reduced amount of hot water, changes in hot spring quality

April 15th, 2012

Area surrounding Lake Akan, Hokkaido

Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., Ltd.

Community development organizations, tourist associations

Impact on natural and hot spring resources

April 15th, 2012

Minami Ward, Sapporo City, Hokkaido

Toyoha Mine Tourist associations, hot spring inn association

Impact on the Jozankei hot spring

May 16th, 2012

Yamagata Prefecture

(Prefectural plan)

Environmental organizations, hot spring associations

Impact on surrounding hot springs

November 28th, 2013

Kokonoe, Oita Kobe Bussan Co., Ltd.

Environmental organizations, tourist associations

Impact on scenery and spring quality

March 29th, 2015

Daisetsuzan National Park

Electric Power Development Co., Ltd.

Environmental organizations

Destruction of the natural environment

June 27th, 2018

Area surrounding Mount Bandai in Fukushima Prefecture

Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd., etc.

Surrounding hot spring operators

Drying up of hot springs, changes to hot spring composition

December 16th, 2018

Minami-Izu town, Shizuoka

Minami-Izu town, etc.

Hot spring inn association


November 12th, 2019

Ibusuki city, Kagoshima

Ibusuki city and Kyushu Electric Power Co., Inc., etc.

Surrounding hot spring operators



HokkaidoAomori

Iwate

Miyagi

Akita

Yamagata

Fukushima

Shizuoka

Nagasaki

Oita

Miyazaki

Kagoshima

y = 0.0702xR² = 0.3034

0

50

100

150

200

250

0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500

Inst

alla

tion

targ

et b

y pr

efec

ture

(Uni

t:MW

)

Geothermal resource potential (Unit:MW)

Figure 5 Relationship between geothermal resource potential and installation target by

prefecture target years other than 2030 will maintain the same level of installed power generation capacity (i.e., this level will not continue to increase).

Under the above conditions, the total of the installation targets for each prefecture reaches approximately 857MW, approximately 43MW below the smallest estimate of 900MW from minimum case of national forecasts (Table 2). That is, as the conditions for minimum case are that only the small to mid-size developments that are currently occurring take place, the large-scale development projects of approximately 43MW that are assumed to occur in national forecasts are not included in any of the 14 prefecture targets. Furthermore, the smooth progress of small to

mid-size development projects in every prefecture (Case 2. in Table 2) and the easing of environmental regulations that would encourage large-scale development (Case 3. in Table 2) are also not expected. The easing of environmental regulations, specifically the easing of the hot springs drilling permit standards of prefectural governors, based on the Hot Springs Ordinance in each prefecture, would cause the unorganized development of hot springs, causing them to dry up and tourist levels to decrease. This would cause financial losses in every part of the country; therefore, it is natural for prefectures to assume that environmental regulations will not be eased.

Base on results that were shown in Figure 4 and the Guilford's Rule of Thumb (Guilford,1956),

installation targets of each prefecture are determined by existing capacity of geothermal power plants strongly (R=0.88, R2=0.70, p=0.00).

Next, to compare the potential and installation targets of each prefecture, values for all 14 prefectures were plotted using potential as the x-axis and installation targets as the y-axis (Figure 5). In this figure, small to mid-size developments are all included through aggregating capacity of each power plants.

Prefectures with high potential would typically also have high installation targets, but this trend was moderate (R=0.55, R2=0.30, p=0.051) according to the Guilford's Rule of Thumb (Guilford,1956). By drawing a line indicating the average (the dotted line in Figure 4), there is a small number of prefectures, such as Iwate, that are almost on the average line itself, and Fukushima Prefecture is situated at the farthest point from the dotted line.

Fukushima Prefecture, which endured the Great East Japan earthquake and the following Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, has set a goal of meeting 100% of the prefecture’s energy demand with renewable energy by 2040. In order to achieve this 100% goal, quantitative targets for 2030 were set by source. Among them, geothermal installation target in the prefecture is 230,000 kW, which equals almost four times compared to the existing capacity.

2.2 Newspaper article survey results Over 20 years ago, Lesbirel (1998) had identified

14 energy-related disputes occurred in Japan from 1960s to 80s. Those 14 disputes were all oppositions for fuel or nuclear power plants, and after two times of oil crisis in 70s, Japan’s government put more focus on “new energies” which mean primary or secondary energy from sources other than oil. Such sources included not only solar, geothermal, hydrogen energy, but also coal (Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Japan, 1974).


Table 4 Average testing results between two groups (with related disputes / without disputes) Average of geothermal potentials

Average of installation targets

Average of difference*

Prefectures where related disputes were observed

457,667 94,215 43,036

Prefectures where related disputes were not observed

480,500 36,530 12,152

Result of T-testing

t=-0.07, df=12, p=0.94

t=1.49, df=12, p=0.16

t=1.31, df=12, p=0.11

* Difference means number between existing capacity and installation target of each prefecture. Here, disputes4) in various regions that appear

to be related to geothermal and hot spring power generation are discussed. To identify where disputes occurred, following the method of Uechi et al., a set of data from 2011 when Japan’s energy policy situation changed significantly to 2020 (calendar years) was searched. The text of articles from all national newspapers (including the Asahi, Nihon-keizai, Mainichi, and Yomiuri newspapers, and their respective regional editions) was completely searched to identify regional disputes. The keywords for that search included articles containing both “geothermal power” and “opposition”, and, by examining the contents of these articles, an overview of disputes occurring in specific regions during the target dates was organized (Table 3).

The prefectures in which disputes appear to have occurred are Hokkaido, Fukushima, Shizuoka, Oita, and Kagoshima. Furthermore, in Yamagata, concerns were not expressed in opposition to specific power generation plans, but in opposition to the prefecture’s energy plan itself.

2.3 Crosscutting survey results To clarify relationships between resource

potential (Figure 2,3), existing capacity, installation targets of each prefecture (Table 1) and disputes location, average testing method was adopted. Before average testing, two groups where geothermal-related disputes were observed and not, were created. Table 4 indicates each groups’ average in terms of resource potential, existing

capacity, and installation targets, and T-testing results.

3. DISCUSSION By checking the location of the six prefectures

where disputes occurred in Figure 5, excluding Hokkaido and Shizuoka, these prefectures have set relatively high (greater than the average) installation targets in comparison to their potential for geothermal power generation. And the comparison results of averages of several data (Table 4) suggests that difference between existing capacity and installation target of each prefecture may affect disputes situation, but the significance level was not enough (p=0.11).

In one of these six prefectures, Hokkaido, although the geothermal power generation installation target was set at 26 MW, subtracting the already installed capacity of 25 MW, as of 2012, yields a target of only 1 MW. Table 2 shows that disputes occurred in three places within the prefecture, at Lake Akan, Jozankei (in the city of Sapporo), and Daisetsuzan. However, the assumed amount of steam cannot be obtained at the site in Jozankei, so development plans are being reexamined.

CONCLUSIONS Based on the analysis results described above,

the three original questions can be answered as follows.

(1) The forecasted national geothermal power


generation installation was lower than accumulation of the installation targets of every fourteen prefecture. To achieve the national target, the other prefectures such as Niigata, Nagano and Gifu are expected to set and promote each geothermal power installation target, according to Figure 2.

And further discussion on the easing of environmental regulations to encourage large-scale development is needed for the achievement of this forecast, according to Table 2. However, if the easing of environmental regulations to encourage large-scale development was to occur, frequent occurrence of disputes could accompany the installation of new power generation facilities. Therefore, a trade-off is assumed in which progress towards the development of geothermal power generation may instead be impeded.

(2) The installation targets of each prefecture are thought to be strongly correlated with the existing capacity (R2=0.70). And moderately correlated with the potential power generation capacity in each prefecture (R2=0.30), but the significance level was not enough.

(3) Among geothermal potential, installation target and difference between existing capacity and target of each prefecture, the difference is thought to be most effective for dispute situation, but the significance level was not enough.

Overall, to make consensus about new geothermal power installation, more citizen’s understanding about existing geothermal power plants should be needed.

To improve the significance level of each testing results, more data collection focus on the other renewables such as wind, biomass and small-mid hydropower is needed for future study.

Also, for a future study, more concrete geothermal development plan in each prefecture and timing of each dispute starting should be investigated.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was supported by the project (No. 14200097),

Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan.

NOTES

1) Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (02/19/2021 updated) Comprehensive Energy Statistics. < https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/statistics/total_energy/>, 02/26/2021 referred.

2) Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry. (01/26/2021 updates) Present Status and Promotion Measures for the introduction of Renewable Energy in Japan, <http://www.meti.go.jp/english/policy/energy_environment/renewable/index.html>, 02/26/2021 referred.

3) Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (10/16/2020 updates) Long-term energy supply and demand forecasts <https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/category/others/basic_plan/past.html>, 03/19/2021 referred.

4) In this section, not conflicts but disputes were used, because dispute is the situation when issues are negotiable, possible to compromise, and altering institution and structures is not necessary. Conflict, instead, is likely to be " intractable and to lead to behavior that seriously prejudice the physical and psychological security and future development of the individuals and groups " (Burton JW. Conflict: resolution and prevention, St. Martin’s Press; 1990).

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