N.Z. sitting on $500,000 geothermal resource?

Press, 16 April 1980, Page 22

N.Z. sitting on $500,000 geothermal resource?

PA Auckland New Zealand sits on a geothermal resource that could be worth $5OOO million, but, according to an overseas expert, the financing of research and the exploitation of the resource is “far too small." Professor J. W. Elder said in his just-released report on geothermal energy exploitation in New Zealand that the .potential benefit from the resource is great enough to justify “substantial investment” in it. The professor of geophysics at Manchester University, Professor Elder has spent a year based at Auckland University studying geothermal power.

He said the return on capital invested would be at least 10 to one and could be as high as 20 to one. “Clearly, the rate of investment in geothermal projects is dependent on national strategy,” he said. “Nevertheless, the justification for a massive total investment is overwhelming.” Professor Elder said it would be .foolish not to have available all possible energy systems. “The opportunity exists now — and should not be missed — to continue this research so that geothermal resources are available for exploitation in the future with minimal delay.” . -

Professor Elder also called for better co-ordina-tion of the geothermal research programme. He said that there was a lack of over-all strategy and “the present system of trying to do research work by committee is appalling.” The report — which was compiled during a year’s stay in New Zealand by Professor Elder in 1978 — advocated a single co-ordination office. Elsewhere in his report, Professor Elder said it was “painfully apparent” to him that important decisions about geothermal matters were being made by a “kind of uninformed consensus.”