World Geothermal Congress, Bali Indonesia, Douglas Gilding A scientific conference in a third world country. During the third week in April 2010 I travelled to Bali, Indonesia to present a paper at the 2010 World Geothermal Congress . Let me enlighten you on my journey to Bali and into the world of geothermal energy. Fig 1 Picture of a Balinese after seaweed harvest near a sea temple. Geothermal energy is the use of the heat generated by the earth’s core to gain energy in the form of heat or electricity. The deeper into the earth one goes, the warmer it gets. This is caused by heat radiating up from the earth’s core heating the above lying layers. The first to recognize this phenomena were probably the miners as they were the first to go deep down into the earth. The utilisation of heat out of the deep for the production of energy or heating of buildings is known as production of geothermal energy. Geothermal energy provides a large amount of the worlds clean energy supply and the number of projects is growing rapidly. The scientific world of geothermal energy comes together once every five years at the World Geothermal Congress. Although once every five years does not sound very frequent this is not because of the low interest in the subject. The geothermal community has grown very rapidly through new technology, better understanding of existing geothermal systems, environmental awareness and the search for a greater diversity in energy sources and reliability. Also in the Netherlands there is a new large interest into geothermal energy. Since the start of the Delft Geothermal Project (DAP) geothermal development in the Netherlands has grown significantly and to a higher level than in the last 3 decades. This is realized by completion of projects, growth of the geothermal market and the amount of research in geothermal energy. The Delft Geothermal Project started in 2007 during the 23 rd lustrum of the Mijnbouwkundige Vereeniging. The goal of the project was to realize a geothermal project on the grounds of the TU Delft to sustainably heat student houses and university buildings. With an exploration license granted in august 2008 the project is still ongoing. However with four wells drilled within the license area for local glasshouse farmers and multiple publications, lectures and symposia every year the project is a great success. It is therefore not surprising that a large group of Dutch geothermal researchers and enthusiasts attended the world geothermal congress in Bali, April 2010. It was a cold November day in 2008 that I received the invitation to submit an abstract for the World Geothermal Congress in April 2010. Although it still sounds silly to write a paper two years before you present it. I wanted to participate to let the world know what we are doing at the TU Delft and of course Bali sounded as a very interesting and nice place to visit. So with the help of Andries Wever, and Karl Heinz Wolf, I submitted a full paper with the title; Integrating Multi Purpose Geothermal Systems with Local City Heating Grids. The paper was about smart solutions that are needed to economize geothermal systems, such as integration into existing heating grids, exploitation of synergies with fossil-fuel based systems, and innovation on well-construction technology. The key conclusion was that by combining a geothermal system with a power/heat co-generation plant, a peak shaving effect on the economical risks of a combined investment can be created, making city heating grids more favourable. By combining the geothermal system with co-injection of CO 2 captured from the co-generation plant it is possible to create an economically feasible, environmentally sustainable, multipurpose energy system. The paper was successfully accepted and with the help of the Molengraaff fonds and support of PGMI I could attend the congress. The plans were made to go to Bali for 18 days and visit some geothermal sites on Bali. The (unpronounceable volcano on Iceland) did not throw any ash into my plans and my plain was the first KLM flight to fly again from Amsterdam to Bali. I flew in the afternoon of Tuesday the 19th of April after spending most of the day at the Half lustrum symposium. Although the volcanoes ash clouds were a nuisance it did put geothermal energy and its related research higher on the agenda. The Congress started on the 25 th of April with 1500 attendees and 30 Dutch participants. Fig2 The opening event in Indonesian style with traditional Indonesian food and dance The president of Indonesia followed by the president of Iceland opened the congress and held the first of the 700 presentations of the congress. Although most of the work was out dated and written two years before there were some papers and presentation I found very interesting. Examples of those are: A deep geothermal project on Island that unexpectedly drilled into a magma chamber and successfully retrieved cored sample of magma. The Carbfix project a combined CO 2 injection and geothermal energy project in Basaltic rock. A Japanese deep sea drilling project to drill and to take cores of the magmabody in a subduction zone offshore Japan. And finally the history matching of production and temperature data in a Swedish low enthalpies geothermal project to better understand thermal flow within geothermal systems. Apart from the presentations there were plenty of moments to socialize as every Congress has its diners and events. Two days before the congress a golf tournament was organized. Before the opening ceremony on the 25 th there was a large social gathering in Indonesian style at the Western Inn Hotel with traditional Indonesian food and dance. On Tuesday a large open air diner was held in old quarry that was changed into a large open air theatre. Unfortunately it started to rain heavily and most of the guest were moved to stand under a small tent or started to leave. The Dutch, however don’t mind a little rain when the beer is flowing faster than the rain. It turned out to be one of the greatest nights of the congress. Wednesday evening is a Noorden evening in Delft, so Dick Swart and I organized The Holland Borrel on Bali. A Dutch drink with all the Dutch participants of the Congress. It was a fantastic evening with lots of interesting discussion on new technology and the way forward for geothermal energy in the Netherlands. On Thursday the 30 of April, queens day in the Netherlands the Dutch stand at the congress was done up in orange and serving “oranje bitter”. The Dutch stand was organized by the Dutch consulate on Bali to give Dutch companies an opportunity to present and promote themselves. Fig 3 Presenting the paper at the world geothermal congress 2010. On the 30 th of April it was also my turn to present my paper. With a full room of interested people the presentation went well and I got a lot of interesting questions. After the presentation I was presented with a certificate and a special thanks from the organizing committee for my presentation. With the congress over it was time to visit some geothermal systems. We had planned to take part on a geothermal field trip to local geothermal systems in the area. Unfortunately the field trip organized by the congress was cancelled. Therefore Claartje and I organized a trip into Bali’s Interior ourselves. As we could not get permission to access the geothermal fields we changed the scope of the trip to the source of the geothermal energy on Bali; The volcanoes and the Balinese people. So we travelled into Bali to find a volcano, and learn more about the Balinese and Indonesian culture. After the congress, Claartje and I travelled north from Nusa Dua where the congress was held to Ubud. Travelling by road through Denpasar it took us past magnificent temples, local villages and rice pats in all the colours of green you can imagine. Arriving at Ubud we set out to explore the area visiting the holy monkey forest, royal palace, wading through rice fields, and checking out the art galleries Ubud is famous for. 4 View on the Central volcanic cone of Grunung Batur from the outer caldera. On Bali there are three volcanoes the most accessible and active today is the Gunung Batur, a volcano better known as mount Batur. This volcano is locate on the central part of the island with some geothermal energy produced on its flanks. Its a 1700 m high volcano and has a large outer caldera and one inner caldera. The center cone is constructed within the inner caldera to a height above the outer caldera rim. The caldera contains a lake, a couple of villages, an active and 700- metre-tall volcano stack rising above the surface of the Lake Batur which lies around a 1000 meter above sealevel. As this lake was created by displacement it does not discharge any CO 2 . So you can go out onto the lake with a canoe to travel around to get a better view of the lava fields to the south. Canoeing on a volcanic lake is a strange and calm experience and gets you close to the Balinese volcano temples. 5 View from the Central volcanic cone of Grunung Batur of the lava fields. Next morning we got up very early to climb to the top of mount Batur highest volcanic cone and see the sun rise from the summit and look into the crater. Only two weeks before a tourist had slipped on the slippery black volcanic ash and had fallen into the volcano.