Message-ID: <9508312353.AA09382@lan.vita.org> Date: Thu, 31 Aug 1995 19:53:53 EDT From: DevelopNet News <mailto:dnn@VITA.ORG> Subject: Your VITA newsletter for September. To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
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September 1995 Volume 5, No. 9
IN THIS ISSUE
ENERGY WATCH
Clean, Cheap Energy From Hot, Dry Rock
LITERATURE REVIEWS
Urban Food Crops
Latin America: Biotechnology's Future
ORGANIZATIONS
Industrial Research
Loans in Asia
VITA PROJECTS
Satellite Launch Fails
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Haiti Skills Bank Project
Remote Sensing for Marine and Coastal Environments
Agroforestry Extension for Development
* * *
DevelopNet News is published monthly by Volunteers in Technical
Assistance (VITA) in Arlington, Virginia, USA. For additional
information, please see the end of this newsletter.
* * *
E n e r g y W a t c h
CLEAN, CHEAP ENERGY FROM HOT, DRY ROCK
David Duchane had reason to be proud when, last year at a meeting in San
Francisco, he summarized successes after 22 years of effort in New
Mexico. His team of workers had shown the feasibility of hot dry rock
(HDR) technology for getting useful and cheap heat from beneath the
Earth's crust. The first HDR power plant, in the mountainous area at
Fenton Hill, had operated successfully and at sustainable low cost for
eight months. At that point, U.S. government financial support ran dry.
Geothermal energy in developing countries
Geothermal energy is hardly news. Hot water and steam are found at many
underground locations in the world, notably near volcanoes and hot
springs. The heat can be used by geothermal heat pumps. Typically, hot
water (150 deg. C. to 370 deg. C.) is pumped from an underground reser-
voir to the surface, where steam can be released and used to generate
electricity. (For a general geothermal fact sheet, see "Geothermal
Energy," electronic posting, gopher://orst.org/0/renewables
/geothermal/grc.txt)
Daniel Entingh (Princeton Economic Research, Rockville, Maryland) sees
enormous possibilities for the development of small geothermal power
plants (HDR and other types) in developing countries. The systems he has
designed produce as little as 100 kW and are suitable for powering towns
of 100 to 5,000 people, depending on the demand. The temperature of the
emerging water is 100 deg. C. to 120 deg. C. Installation, operating,
and maintenance costs are low, and there is little environmental impact.
He calculates the potential for small plants in several countries; in
Africa, the countries with the greatest potential are Ethiopia, Kenya,
and Tanzania. In the Asia-Pacific region, Indonesia, the Philippines,
and China are the best prospects, and in Latin America, Mexico,
Guatemala and Nicaragua top the list.
Why HDR is important
Underground reservoirs of hot water are found in a relatively small
number of places on the Earth. The special significance of HDR is that
only hot dry rocks are needed, and these can be found almost everywhere
by drilling deep enough. Thus, the success of Duchane's team broadens
the horizons for geothermal development to include every region of the
Earth, including the many developing countries where energy is often in
short supply. Duchane calls the untapped energy "vast and ubiquitous."
In the New Mexico project, the deep rocks are hot, but not in contact
with enough fluid to transport heat to the surface where it can be used.
The borehole was 3.27 kilometers deep, the water was pumped down at
about 23 deg. C. and came up at 187 deg. C., with a flow rate of 6.7
liters per second. This was less than the entry rate, so 0.7 liter of
fresh water had to be supplied every second to make up for leakage
underground.
Duchane, who is at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, hopes
that private industry will be persuaded to operate a pilot plant with
government assistance, in order to exploit the "extremely large clean-
energy market."
David Tenenbaum (Madison, Wisconsin) finds that "the more accessible HDR
resources in the United States alone could provide an estimated 650,000
quads of energy, compared with the U.S. annual energy consumption of 84
quads." (One quad, or one quadrillion [a million millions of] British
thermal units, is the amount of energy contained in 171.5 million bar-
rels of oil.) He adds, "whoever figures out how to economically tap even
a fraction of the potential in HDRs could earn a place in history."
Is HDR a practical investment?
Just what are the obstacles to the practical application of HDR? Creat-
ing any geothermal plant is expensive, but HDR developers must bore
holes two or more kilometers deep before reaching hard rock. Even though
operating costs of the finished plant are extremely low, the capital
cost, $3,000 per kilowatt, is three to four times as much as it costs to
build a gas-turbine plant. "Geothermal," says Tenenbaum, "cannot compete
with fossil-fuel-based electricity on price alone."
Furthermore, geothermal energy is where you find it; it is not easily
loaded onto a train or a supertanker. Nevertheless, subterranean temper-
atures increase with depth virtually everywhere on the planet; HDR
installations could be built practically anywhere. And if the energy is
used for manufacturing, the produced goods could be sold anywhere. That
is one reason Japan and five European countries have sponsored HDR
research programs. Another incentive lies in opportunities to sell HDR
equipment in energy-hungry areas all over the globe.
Once installed, geothermal energy is cheap and clean. But the cost of
installation is high where deep holes must be drilled. That is why some
engineers are exploring cheaper ways to drill deep holes.
Critics of the Los Alamos project say it did not run long enough to
prove its cost worthiness, and that flow rates were lower than would be
needed in a properly scaled-up plant. But they add that these are not
reasons to give up. New drilling methods are under development that will
cut capital costs. The new methods include high speed fluid jets, and
flames burning at 2,260 deg. C. Flame drilling has been estimated to
reduce drilling costs to about $10 per meter of depth, down from $300 to
$1,000. And developing the technology would take another five years of
research.
HDR, like other geothermal technology, is environmentally attractive.
Power plants venting geothermal steam can produce some air pollution:
0.05% as much carbon dioxide and 0.3% as much sulfur dioxide as coal-
based plants. But closed systems, recently developed, produce virtually
no emissions during normal operation, since the geothermal fluid never
has a chance to reach the atmosphere.
There are other drawbacks. Local traditions and beliefs may cause people
to object to geothermal projects. A drilling operation can produce enor-
mous quantities of sludge, possibly containing toxic waste that requires
disposal. And HDR systems require a water supply to replace loss from
leakage in the well; and water is sometimes precious in dry regions of
the world.
The outlook for HDR and geothermal energy
In the United States, there has been little public support for the
development of geothermal energy. Financial support from the government
for research and development peaked in 1979 at $150 million, then fell
to $18.5 million in 1990. Today, more than two decades after the oil
embargo, official estimates say that 85% of the country's energy supply
still comes from fossil fuels.
But 18 nations, mostly around the Pacific Rim, now generate geothermal
electricity. Geothermal is also gaining ground in Latin America. In the
United States, fossil fuels are cheap at present. Some people point out
that they only appear to be cheap because some costs don't show up on
energy companies' balance sheets or in consumers' bills. These "hidden
costs" include the health and environmental costs of extracting, trans-
porting, and burning fuels; the military costs of defending fuel sup-
plies; the hazards of storing radioactive wastes; the security costs of
massive fuel imports and, possibly, the costs of global warming. But
geothermal energy development in the United States remains at low prior-
ity among key policymakers, many of whom favor a mix of strategies for
dealing with the energy problem, using each technology where it is most
appropriate. The future success of HDR is likely to depend on whether
installation costs can be brought down dramatically.
Sources: D.V. Duchane, "Hot Dry Rock -- A Climate Change Action Oppor-
tunity for Industry," pages 203-212, and Daniel J. Entingh, Eyob
Easwaran, and Lynn McLarty, "Small Geothermal Electric Systems for
Remote Powering," pages 233-240; both in U.S. Department of Energy,
1994. Geothermal Program Review XII, held April 25 to 28, 1994, in San
Francisco, California. David Tenenbaum, 1995. "Tapping the Fire Down
Below." Technology Review (January), pages 38-47.
L i t e r a t u r e R e v i e w s
URBAN FOOD CROPS
Charles L. Choguill, 1995. "Urban Agriculture and Cities in the Develop-
ing World [editorial]." Habitat International (Sheffield, U.K), volume
19, no. 2, pages 149-150.
Why do people in cities often raise their own food? Choguill summarizes
the reasons in these words: ability, necessity, opportunity. The vast
majority of migrants to cities are from rural areas, where they exer-
cised *ability* to support themselves by growing food. Migrants to
cities often find that their employment opportunities are erratic and
their income is not dependable; urban agriculture is then a safety net
that meets the *necessity* of food support. Finally, in those developing
countries where urban planning may not exist, the existence of urban
land available for growing food presents the *opportunity.*
In the same issue of Habitat International (pages 209-224), R. R. Thaman
(University of the South Pacific, Fiji) provides an article, "Urban Food
Gardening in the Pacific Islands: A Basis for Food Security in Rapidly
Urbanizing Small-Island States." Thaman says that many small island
states share the characteristics of developing countries and, in addi-
tion, are geographically isolated from diverse food markets. So, in the
face of unemployment, inequality, poverty, falling real wages, malnutri-
tion, and nutrition-related degenerative diseases, it isn't surprising
that some residents of cities and towns try to grow their own food. He
argues that sustainable national development and food security should be
promoted by formal encouragement of urban food gardening. This would
benefit such states as Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, Kiribati, and
Nauru. The economics and sociology of urban food production are not well
understood by planners and policymakers, but "it should be viewed as a
component of agricultural development strategies."
A huge variety of food crops is grown, depending on the variety of soils
and growing conditions. Nonfood plants are also grown for medicines,
dyes, ornamentation, and craft or building materials. In many areas,
householders use allotted garden land and unoccupied land is often
informally appropriated for plantings. Domestic farm animals are some-
times kept, with occasional destructive effects on tree growth.
LATIN AMERICA: BIOTECHNOLOGY'S FUTURE
Christian Orrego, 1995. "Biotechnology in the Western Hemisphere: A
Brief Overview by Someone Skeptical About Trends." Interciencia, volume
20, no. 3, pages 126-129.
"Trends never last," said the famous biologist Rene Dubos. Thus,
Christian Orrego (San Francisco State University and University of
California, Berkeley) starts his "skeptical" look at the conventional
wisdom, that technical progress in biotechnology is not likely to be
rapid in developing countries. As counterexamples, he cites the remark-
able capabilities that Cuba has recently developed, the advances in
microbial copper metabolism discovered by Chilean research workers, and
the development in Colombia of the most promising vaccine against
malaria available today.
It is commonly believed that First World science progresses more rapidly
because of the long tradition of support for science; but science also
has a long history of support in many poor countries. It is also widely
assumed that technical progress requires a "critical mass" of technical
workers, but the recent, explosive growth of electronic communication
and the growing availability of databases throughout the world allows
collaboration to transcend natural boundaries. For example, a recent
study of the gene sequencing for a type of brewer's yeast showed that
biomedical scientists from several countries in Latin America already
participate in international networks to the same extent as their col-
leagues in those countries that are the major producers of scientific
literature. Some people think that Latin American countries that are
installing modern telecommunication systems may find themselves ahead of
First World countries with older networks.
The miniaturization of tools and chemical procedures in molecular biol-
ogy reduces the cost of research and works in favor of poor countries.
The latest techniques for monoclonal antibody production, a powerful
weapon in the armament of molecular biology, are simpler and cheaper
than ever before. Orrego is persuaded that Latin American countries will
increasingly participate in leading-edge research in spite of lesser
affluence.
O r g a n i z a t i o n s
INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH
The World Association of Industrial and Technological Research Organiza-
tions, it is said, would have to be invented if it did not already
exist. This year WAITRO is celebrating its 25th anniversary of assisting
its members (research and technology organizations in many countries) to
improve by cooperating and communicating with members in other coun-
tries. It is based on the idea that members must learn from each other.
The idea is particularly urgent these days, when industrial research and
development depends increasingly on revenue from the open marketplace,
and not from governmental largesse. Another vexing problem is that few R
& D staff members have much time to spend on international matters,
being entirely taken up with national concerns. WAITRO's General Assem-
bly meets once every two years to review achievements and set new goals.
The most recent meeting was held in New Delhi in February 1995. WAITRO's
total budget for the period 1995 to 1998 is about half a million
dollars.
Information: WAITRO, Danish Technological Institute, Gregersvej, P.O.
Box 141, DK-2630 Taastrup, Denmark. Tel. +45 (43) 50 43 50, fax +45 (43)
50 70 30.
LOANS IN ASIA
The Asian Development Bank (Manila) is owned by the governments of 55
countries of which 39 are in Asia. The Bank is dedicated to solving
development problems by making loans to governments and organizations in
Asia and Oceania. For example, a loan of $33.3 million to the People's
Republic of China allowed conversion of two power plants from oil to
pulverized coal. The project was completed in 1992 on schedule and under
cost. Expected savings are about 3 million barrels of oil annually,
worth $45 million. In the mountainous Philippine province of Palawan,
which has many poor people and 1,780 islands, a loan of $47 million for
port development helped communities to provide much needed educational
and social services as well. These services included local small-loan
programs that allowed people to start or expand small businesses. Loans
to Indonesia have supported the government's family planning efforts by
targeting population growth and women's reproductive health care. Over a
20-year period, the number of births per woman declined from more than
five to less than three, infant mortality decreased from 14% to 7%, and
life expectancy rose from 46 to 60 years.
In 1994, the bank's operational costs totalled $51,500 million. It has
resident missions in several Asian countries and a total staff of 1,900
persons.
Information: Information Office, Asian Development Bank, P.O. Box 789,
0980 Manila, The Philippines. Tel. +63 (2) 632-4444, fax +63 (2) 636-
2444.
VITA Projects
SATELLITE LAUNCH FAILS
The long wait for the launch of VITA's third satellite ended abruptly on
15 August, local time. The 115-kg satellite was scheduled to go into
low-earth orbit from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard the
first Lockheed Launch Vehicle. The satellite was observed to behave
erratically and had to be destroyed shortly after the launch at 6:20
p.m. PDT (1:20 a.m. 16 August GMT).
The project is being carried out under an agreement with CTA, Inc.
(Rockville, Maryland) in exchange for CTA's use of a portion of the
satellite capacity for a commercial program.
Program commitments to other organizations depended on a successful
launch. VITA is actively exploring options to minimize the program
delays from the loss. It may take a year to prepare a new satellite.
Information: Henry Norman <mailto:hnorman@vita.org>.
A n n o u n c e m e n t s
HAITI SKILLS BANK PROJECT
The main purpose of this VITA project is to establish and operate a
skills bank of Haitian-Americans and Haitian citizens residing in Haiti
who have technical skills of value to the private and public sectors of
Haiti. Other Americans may also participate. The Skills Bank is designed
to respond to specific needs of such employers as the Government of
Haiti, the Haitian private sector and business associations, interna-
tional development organizations, and nongovernmental organizations.
Both long and short-term employment opportunities are available.
This ongoing project has been mentioned in several mailing lists,
including mailto:DEVEL-L@american.edu and HAITI-L@CONICIT.VE). Please cross-
post and forward this announcement as you feel appropriate.
Information and registration forms: Barbra Bucci <mailto:hsb@vita.org>.
REMOTE SENSING FOR MARINE AND COASTAL ENVIRONMENTS
>From 18 to 20 September, the Environmental Research Institute of
Michigan will sponsor the Third Thematic Conference on Remote Sensing
for Marine and Coastal Environments. The conference will take place in
Seattle, Washington, and will focus on the application of remote sensing
technologies and geographic information systems to real-world problems
in marine and coastal environments. Experts from over 30 countries will
present more than 300 papers encompassing all aspects of remote sensing.
Plenary and interactive poster sessions will address a number of topics
including emergency response, oil and chemical spills, landcover and
wetlands inventory, and fisheries management. Conference presentations
are expected to be of particular interest to marine and coastal
planners, natural resource managers, industry leaders, remote sensing
specialists, and government agencies.
Information: Robert Rogers, ERIM/Marine Environment Conference, P.O.Box
134001, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48113-4001; tel. +1 (313) 994-1200, ext.
3234; fax +1 (313) 994-5123; e-mail <mailto:wallman@vaxb.erim.org>.
AGROFORESTRY EXTENSION FOR DEVELOPMENT
In response to a growing need for training in methods and approaches to
extension services for agroforestry, an international training course
will be conducted in Nairobi from 30 October to 24 November 1995. Fifty
participants from 12 countries have already taken similar courses over
the last three years.
The course aims to increase the awareness of participants in the tech-
nical, ecological, sociological and economic basis of agroforestry, as
well as its relevance as a tool for social development. Planning, imple-
mentation, monitoring and evaluation of agroforestry extension programs
will be covered. There will be lectures, discussions, workshops and
field exercises, including a one-week field study tour of agroforestry
field projects in Kenya. The course will be repeated in July and Novem-
ber 1996.
Information: Pascal T. Otieno, Technical and Study Tours Limited, P.O.
Box 50982, Nairobi, Kenya. Tel. +254 (2) 222192 / 244773, fax +254 (2)
780461 / 244775.
* * *
HOW TO JOIN VITA'S ELECTRONIC FORUM
VITA's free, public, online discussion forum, DEVEL-L, provides for the
exchange of ideas and information on a wide range of issues and topics
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Please do not send these messages to VITA.
* * *
DevelopNet News is an electronic newsletter published monthly by Volun-
teers in Technical Assistance (VITA), a private, nonprofit, interna-
tional development organization located in Arlington, Virginia. The
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President: Henry R. Norman <mailto:hnorman@vita.org>
Acting Editor: Vicki Tsiliopoulos <mailto:vickit@vita.org>
Editorial Assistant: Rafe Ronkin, VITA Volunteer <mailto:rronkin@vita.org>
VITA specializes in information dissemination and communications tech-
nology. It offers services related to sustainable agriculture, food
processing, renewable energy applications, water sanitation and supply,
small enterprise development, and information management. It has pro-
jects in 6 African countries.
VITA's publications, on a variety of practical subjects, are designed to
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