地熱開発の現状と将来展望

Abstract

From a view of energy security, the development of domestic energy is very important in Japan. We have the low production rate and import most of the energy from the foreign countries. And from the view of the natural environment protection, the geothermal energy is effective to lower discharges of the carbon dioxide and so on than the other energy resources. In December, 1998, we had the COP 3 in Kyoto city, many developed countries decided the numeral goals about the amount of discharge gases(6 gases including carbon dioxide) to the year of 2008 ∼ 2012. At present, the development of geothermal energy becomes very important as well as the development of solar energy, wind energy and wave energy in Japan. In this paper, I will introduce the history and the problems about the development of geothermal energy and the processes of electric power generation by the geothermal steam from the deep parts of underground, and explain expectations about the future of the development of geothermal energy for a reference.