Trial of Overall System Design for Geothermal Development to Achieve Harmony with Both Regional Environment and Local Society

Abstract

We describe the concept and how to use the overall system design (OSD) of geothermal R&D to increase the social acceptance in Japan. The OSD is a methodology to optimize the entire geothermal project, including not only the technological optimization of survey, development and utilization, but also the relationship with local communities and coordination & communication of stakeholders themselves. In the OSD concept, both positive and negative impacts can be evaluated by using the "Input coefficient" assumed for activities in geothermal survey & development and the method of "regional Input-Output analysis". Showing economic effects is one of the important elements in the OSD concept that is easily understood by all stakeholders. In the geothermal survey and development based on the OSD which advances step-by-step, we proposed to refer the idea of "adaptive governance" which allows much flexibility and acceptance of disagreement so that communication and decision-making can be done with high enough social acceptance. For that, we tried to use GIS visualization of the relationship with nature, public facilities, residential areas etc. The OSD is useful in future geothermal R&D in Japan, where social acceptance can be much more important.