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Successful short course on geothermal exploration & development held in Kenya

Successful short course on geothermal exploration & development held in Kenya Participants at the UNU GTP short course in Naivasha, Kenya - Nov. 2016 (source: UNU GTP)
Alexander Richter 6 Jan 2017

Under the UN Sustainable Development Goals a short course on geothermal exploration and development was held in Kenya with the participation of 61 individuals from 16 countries in Africa. The short course was held by the UN University Geothermal Training Program.

A recent short course under the UN Sustainable Development Goals program was held in Naivasha, Kenya, as reported by the UN University Geothermal Training Program.

The Short Course I on Exploration and Development of Geothermal Resources took place in November 2016..  The first week of the Short Course, was devoted to field work in the surroundings of Lake Bogoria in the Rift Valley.  Then the course course moved to Lake Naivasha where the participants attend lectures on geoscientific exploration, environmental aspects of geothermal development, drilling, reservoir engineering, utilization, project management and financial considerations.  The lectures are complemented by field trips to the nearby Olkaria geothermal fields, laboratories, power plants and other destinations of interest to students of geothermal development.   Three days were committed to project work, where the participants were presented with data from both high and low temperature geothermal fields, with the objective of constructing simple conceptual models and siting wells.  The Short Course concluded on November 30, 2016.

The short course was part of the new series of short courses held in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in cooperation with KenGen and GDC.  The series are a continuation of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) short course series, which ran over the period 2006-2015.

In all, 61 individuals from 16 countries were participating in the Short Course.  They come from Cameroon (1), the Comoros (2), Djibouti (4), D.R. Congo (1), Egypt (1), Eritrea (1), Ethiopia (3), Madagascar (2), Malawi (2), Nigeria (1), Rwanda (2), Sudan (1), Tanzania (3), Uganda (3), Zambia (2), and the host country Kenya, which had 32 participants.

The participants have been passionate about the subjects being conveyed and show a lot of interest during question time.  Surely many of them will be have prosperous future in geothermal utilisation.

Source: UNU GTP