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1. Materials for Public Relation
The World Geothermal Congress 2000
was held in Japan from May 28 to June 10.
I was a member of the PR stuff to prepare the promotion CD-ROM for
the congress, and I made movie files of the bird's eye view of
3D geological map around the cities of venue, Beppu (Kyushu), Kazuno, and
Morioka (Tohoku) for the CD using
IRIS Explorer and my own customized
modules. If you are interested in these movies, they are
shown below in three formats. These customized modules
(ReadGSJmap100C and ReadGSImeshC) are
available from the anonymous FTP of the Geological Survey of
Japan, and brief report is published
in the Bull. Geol. Surv.
Japan in Japanese with English abstract.
Data: Mesh database in
Geological Survey of Japan Geological
Map of Japan 1:1,000,000
3rd Edition CD-ROM version and
Geographical Survey Institute
CD-ROM version Mesh data (Elevation) 250m mesh.
3. Declaration
of the World Geothermal Congress 2000
Preamble
Despite the limitations
of Planet Earth's conventional energy resources, the demand
for energy is continuously rising as a result of increasing
population and industrialization. The utilization of fossil
energy resources, which led to great technological and social
developments in the past, now is causing increasingly disastrous
effects on the global environment. The atmosphere, oceans, climate,
ecosystems, food resources, and human health on Earth are all
being adversely affected by atmospheric emissions from massive
combustion of fossil fuels. These damaging emissions include
carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas; sulphur oxides
that cause acid precipitation, corrosion, and respiratory disease;
nitrogen oxides that generate ground-level ozone, resulting
in damage to crops, animals and human health; and particulate
matter that causes adverse health effects in plants animals,
and humans.
In this situation there
is urgent need to deploy sustainable and environmentally clean
energy sources. An important contribution could be made by rapidly
expanding the use of renewable energy sources such as geothermal
energy. A number of countries stand out as having made utilization
of geothermal resources a national priority. Among these, we
cite just two examples: nearly 90 percent of homes and other
buildings in Iceland are heated by geothermal waters, and approximately
26 percent of electrical power generation in the Philippines
comes from geothermal steam. Since many other countries possess
vastly underutilized geothermal resources, these examples could
be replicated elsewhere if there was the will to do so.
Research sponsored by governments
and companies continues to improve geothermal technology. Despite
higher initial cost, the life-cycle cost of geothermal energy
utilization is reasonably low. When the environmental benefits
are factored in, the case for increased geothermal use is
compelling.
For these reasons, the participants
of the World Geothermal Congress 2000, representing delegates
from 60 countries, assembled in Kyushu and Tohoku, Japan from
28 May to 10 June 2000, under the auspices of International
Geothermal Association and Japanese Organizing Committee, DO
HEREBY ANNOUNCE THAT,
Considering
that:
geothermal
energy is a clean, proven and reliable resource for supplying
the needs of a sustainable society and helping to improve
the global environment,
essentially every country has some form of useful geothermal
energy resource,
the total worldwide resource base in geothermal energy is enormous
and vastly underutilized,
most importantly, strong commitments are needed by governments
of countries having plentiful geothermal resources in order
to promote increased utilization,
life-cycle costs of geothermal technologies are competitive with the
costs of other forms of energy, especially when environmental
externalities are considered,
increased research, development, demonstration and market deployment
are needed to lower initial development costs and help secure
the contributions of geothermal energy,
a significant amount of time is required to build a base of geothermal technologies
and educated people to apply them,
And
also considering that:
societies and governments have choices in development of their energy
infrastructure,
construction of fossil-energy fired power plants will result in commitment
to a stream of damaging atmospheric emissions,
informed decisions require accurate and timely information at all levels
in a society.
Now, therefore we, the
international geothermal community:
CALL UPON the governments of nations to make strong commitments
to developing their indigenous geothermal resources for the
benefit of their own people, humanity and the environment,
URGE governments to perform assessments their country's geothermal
resource potential for use in electrical power generation,
heating and cooling of homes and buildings, food processing,
fish farming, refrigeration, and a myriad of other uses,
URGE governments to adopt policies, laws and regulations that promote
investment in development of their indigenous geothermal resources,
CALL UPON the United Nations, the World Bank, and other institutions
to include strong geothermal energy components in their programs,
URGE geothermal industries and agencies worldwide to accelerate
their development of geothermal resources,
URGE governments, agencies, industries and others to promote and
encourage expanded international cooperation in geothermal
energy research, and in the development and demonstration
of new and improved technologies, and
DECLARE that we, the members of the worldwide geothermal community,
will do our utmost to promote geothermal energy utilization,
to disseminate information on geothermal energy, to transfer
geothermal technology to those who need it, and to work with
governments, world bodies, educational institutions, and others
to promote expanded use of clean, reliable, environmentally
advantageous geothermal energy.
Naoto Takeno
2000-07-27
