| Abstract |
In 2014 the Mexican Secretary of Energy Science and the Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) funded the Mexican Center for Innovation in Geothermal Energy (CeMIEGeo) as part of their policies to foster the use of clean energy. Most of the Mexican geothermal experts are part CeMIEGeo consortium, which includes academic institutions and universities, private companies and one government company (Federal Commission of Electricity). With an inversion of about 12 million dollars, the consortium acquired an analytic infrastructure with no precedents in Mexico, unique in Latin America. The so-called Specialized Laboratory System (SLE after its name in Spanish) has analytic unites distributed in four Mexican academic institutions. The SLE includes last-generation equipment to analyze geothermal rocks, fluids, and gases. It can do fundamental fluid analysis, but also highly sophisticated nano-tomography or micro-probe single-crystal analysis. Another issue that has a significant interest in CeMIEGeo is capacity building. During the last five years, we invited international experts in different geothermal disciplines to offer short courses to graduate students in our institutions. We promoted the inclusion of new courses about geothermal aspects in graduate programs of the academic institutions that are part of the consortium. Besides, we produced several introductory materials for massive open online courses (MOOCs), which are available in an international massive education platform. We carried out a public dissemination program in social networks to publicize geothermal energy uses and benefits to the general public. In addition to capacity building program and lab infrastructure, CeMIEGeo operated 30 projects in four strategic lines: 1) assessment of national geothermal resources, 2) improvement of exploration techniques, 3) technology development for resource exploitation and, 4) demonstrative projects for direct use of geothermal heat. In this paper we highlight some of the main results: new regional information on heat flow and geothermal gradient, better conceptual models of some Mexican geothermal exploitation fields, novel techniques for processing and interpretation of geophysical data, numerical modeling and simulation tools for resource exploitation, demonstration projects for direct use of geothermal heat, among others. |