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| (Courtesy The Asahi Shimbun) |
Bandai-Asahi National Park in Fukushima Prefecture is believed to contain the largest amount of underground pools of hot water and steam, which can generate an estimated 270 megawatts of electricity.
The environment and industry ministries are considering lifting development restrictions aimed at protecting the environment in six special areas of national and quasi-national parks. The plan came up in the government’s search for alternative energy sources when most of the nation’s nuclear reactors were being shut down for safety reasons after the Fukushima plant disaster.
The candidates are two park areas in Hokkaido, three in Akita Prefecture and Bandai-Asahi National Park, near Fukushima city. They are projected to have a total geothermal energy capacity of 600 megawatts, or half the capacity of a typical nuclear reactor.
The government is focusing on the Fukushima park to take advantage of special measures laws for the recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Concerns have been raised about possible environmental destruction in building the geothermal power stations. The government will ask developers to take such steps as reaching agreements with local governments and hot-spring hotels before development, minimizing the environmental impact and offering support to local communities, including providing hot water to hotels.
For the special areas, the ministries will urge developers to dig angled tunnels from outside the parks to reach the underground hot water and steam.
The ministries will also discuss allowing vertical tunnels inside the special areas in the Fukushima and other parks on a trial basis starting next April.
The industry ministry hopes the eased restrictions will encourage companies to enter the geothermal generation business. It has also allocated about 10 billion yen ($122 million) in the 2012 budget for development subsidies and other measures.
