Japan: Good Times ahead for Geothermal in the Land of the Rising Sun?

As Japan Starts Up First Nuke, Geothermal Boom Begins (American Institute of Chemical Engineers)

Television viewers across Japan watched as workers in the control room of Kyushu Electric's Sendai nuclear reactor No. 1 pulled out 32 control rods so that it could be the first to go back online after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident.

This was a milestone because Japan has always been an "energy island," forced to import all of its oil, gas and coal (the conventional hydrocarbons), to accompany its nuclear fuel. Ironically, that's only partially true. For decades, the monopoly utilities ignored the country's only abundant energy — geothermal, a baseload power source as reliable as nuclear — leaving a potential 23GW of power, steamily volcano-adjacent and unused.

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