| This year, the annual UNU Visiting Lecturer was Cornel Ofwona, reservoir engineer at the Geothermal Development Company (GDC) in Kenya. Cornel gave a series of lectures on geothermal
exploration and development in Africa. Cornel Ofwona is a former UNU-GTP Fellow who studied reservoir engineering in 1996, and later returned for a MSc degree in reservoir engineering at the University of Iceland on a fellowship from UNU-GTP. He graduated in 2002 and is one of the leading reservoir engineers at GDC. The Visiting Lecturer’s Programme was as follows: |
Tuesday Sept. 4 Geothermal Energy development in Kenya: An overview
Wednesday Sept. 5 Olkaria Geothermal Field, Kenya: Past, Present and Future
Thursday Sept. 6 Geothermal Development in Menengai, Kenya: Prospects and Challenges
Friday Sept. 7 Challenges of developing geothermal in developing countries: Are they surmountable?
The lectures were attended by UNU-GTP Fellows and members of the Icelandic geothermal community. |
The 34th annual session of the UNU-GTP
The 34th annual session of the UNU-GTP opened on Wednesday 25th
of April.
The opening ceremony was led by the Director of the UNU-GTP, Dr. Ingvar B. Fridleifsson. Dr. Guðni A. Jóhannesson, Director General of the Icelandic National Energy Authority was an
honorary guest at the opening and the Permanent Secretary of State, Dr. Einar Gunnarsson, gave a speech to the graduates. This year record number of 33 UNU Fellows from 17 countries participated in
the six month specialized courses. The Fellows came from Bangladesh 1, China 2, Djibouti1, El Salvador 2, Ethiopia 3, India 1, Kenya 10, Malawi 1, Mexico 1, Nevis 1, Nicaragua 1, Papua New Guinea 2,
Philippines 2, Rwanda 2, Sri Lanka 1, Tanzania 1, and Uganda 1. The Fellows were trained in: Borehole Geology 7, Geothermal Utilization 6, Geophysical Exploration 5, Reservoir Engineering 5,
Chemistry of Thermal Fluids 3, Drilling Technology 2, Environmental Science 2, Geological Exploration 2, and Borehole Geophysics 1. In 2012, UNU-GTP welcomed participants from three new
countries: India, Malawi and Papua New Guinea.
Millennium Workshops and Short Courses
The
“Short Course VII on Exploration for Geothermal Resources” was organized and conducted by the UNU-GTP, Geothermal Development Company (GDC), Kenya, and Kenya Electricity and Generating
Company Ltd. (KenGen) in October 27-November 18, 2012. It was a part of the UNU-GTP Millennium short course series for Africa which have been conducted annually in Kenya since 2005.
This year‘s course was attended by a record number of 61 participant from 14 countries. The participants were from Kenya (28), Rwanda (6), Ethiopia (3), DR Congo (3), Tanzania (3), Uganda (3),
Burundi (2), Djibouti (2), Malawi (2), Mozambique (2), Yemen (2), which shares many geological features with the Rift Valley region, Comoros (1) and two new countries, Sudan (2) and Nigeria
(2).
Costumer Designed Short Courses
Training in Borehole Geology began in Kenya in early
November, as requested by the Geothermal Development Company (GDC), a state-owned company that conducts research on new geothermal areas on behalf of the Government. Extensive plans are in the works
to further geothermal use in the country and therefore the need for training is great.
A sixty day training course was arranged which was split into two parts. The first part started in November, but the second one in February 2012. The goal of the training course was to give the
staff at GDC, who works in the field of Borehole Geology, training in lab research and field work. There were only seven participants, which enabled the specialist from ISOR to spend ample time with
each participant and to train them in the daily work of a borehole geologist. The participants came from Chile (1), Colombia (3), Costa Rica (1), Ecuador (3), Peru (3), and El Salvador
(3).
