Description
Short Course X on Exploration for Geothermal Resources was held at Lake Naivasha, Kenya. The first week of the Short Course, which opened on November 9, was devoted to field work in the surroundings of Lake Bogoria in the Rift Valley. On November 15, the course moved to Lake Naivasha where the participants attended lectures on geoscientific exploration, environmental aspects of geothermal development, drilling, utilization, project planning and financial considerations. The lectures were complemented by field trips to the nearby Olkaria geothermal fields, laboratories, power plants and other destinations of interest to students of geothermal development. The final four days were committed to project work, where the participants were presented with data from which they constructed conceptual models of geothermal systems. The Short Course concluded on November 30.
The short course is part of the series of short courses held in support of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in cooperation with KenGen and GDC, started in 2006. In 2016, a new series will be started in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were adopted by 193 UN member nations at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in September and are to supersede the MDGs in 2016. Attention will therefore be given to how geothermal development contributes to the SDGs and sustainable management of geothermal resources will be emphasized, as well as efficient utilization. It is not expected that that there will be major changes in the setup of the short course, however.
In all, 62 individuals from 18 countries participated in the Short Course. They came from Burundi (1), Cameroon (1), the Comoros (1), Djibouti (3), D.R. Congo (2), Egypt (1), Eritrea (2), Ethiopia (3), Malawi (2), Mozambique (1), Nigeria (1), Rwanda (2), Sudan (1), Tanzania (7), Uganda (3), Yemen (1), Zambia (2), and the host country Kenya, which had 28 participants.