Over 126 million people visit Onsens annually, spending considerable amount of money at spas, hotels, restaurants, and shops at hot springs. Because of the significant economic activities related to tourism, local communities didn’t think that Onsen business and geothermal power plants could co-exist.
They were concerned that deployment of geothermal power plants would change the quality and compositions of spring water, which contains a lot of organic matter that is known to provide health and beauty benefits. Most importantly, the community feared that geothermal power plants would dry up their precious spring water wells.
Their concerns were eliminated when binary geothermal power plants were introduced.
