News

For the first five weeks, the UNU Fellows attend an intensive introductory lecture course on most aspects of geothermal research and development. There are two written tests in the course. Their specialized training starts on 20th June. They will specialize in the following lines of training: Geothermal Utilization 5, Environmental Studies 3, Chemistry of Thermal Fluids 3, Reservoir Engineering 2, Borehole Geophysics 2, Geological Exploration 2, Borehole Geology 1, Geophysical Exploration 1, and Drilling Technology 1. The outline of the specialized courses is given under Training - Specialized courses.

The first complete reports made available there are the reports of the 2002 UNU Fellows and earlier this year the 2003 reports were added to it.  However, now we are also looking back and are planning to make some of the older reports available as well.  The first part of that work has now been completed by adding the reports from 1999, 2000 and 2001 to those available.

Two former UNU Fellows from Kenya who commenced their MSc studies in 2002 defended their MSc thesis and graduated from the University of Iceland in June in 2004. Gabriel N. Wetang’ula (UNU Fellow 2001) worked on the environmental aspects of the Olkaria geothermal field in Kenya (Wetang’ula, 2004), and John K. Lagat (UNU Fellow 1995) on the geology and alteration mineralogy of the same field (Lagat, 2004). Their MSc thesis have been published in the UNU-GTP publication series.

The Closing Ceremony of the 26th annual session of the UNU-GTP was held on 22nd October 2004. Eighteen UNU Fellows from eight countries, who completed the traditional six month specialized courses, received their UNU Certificates. They came from China (4), Eritrea (2),  Ethiopia (2), Indonesia (3), Iran (2), Kenya (2), Mongolia (2), and Russia (1). They received specialized training in Environmental Studies (5), Geothermal Utilization (4), Reservoir Engineering (4), Chemistry of Thermal Fluids (3), and Geological Exploration (2). A total of 318 professionals from 39 countries have completed the six month specialized courses during 1979-2004. Of these, 44% have come from countries in Asia, 26% from Africa, 16% from Central and Eastern Europe, and 14% from Latin America.

The conference charted the way towards an expansion of renewable energies worldwide, responding to the call of the Johannesburg summit in 2002 for the global development of renewable energy. It also kept up the momentum generated by the coalition of like-minded countries for promotion of renewable energies (known as the Johannesburg Renewable Energy Coalition, JREC). More than 1000 participants met in Bonn, among them official governmental delegations from some 90 countries including energy, environmental and development ministers, representatives of the United Nations and other international and non-governmental organisations, civil society and the private sector.

The aim of establishing the MSc programme in cooperation with the University of Iceland is to go a step further in assisting selected countries in building up their specialist groups. A total of 33 scientists and engineers from Kenya have completed the six month specialized courses during 1982-2003. Four of them have already completed their MSc studies in Iceland.