| Abstract |
Unlike most market-oriented economies in the world, China as the biggest planning economy country has its unique characteristics in the administration of its geothermal resources. Take Tianjin municipal city as an example. Tianjin City is located 100 km south of Beijing-the capital city of China and covers an area of 1000 km2, having a population of over 8 million. There are 10 abnormal geothermal areas in the city; all of them belong to low-medium temperature basement geothermal fields. Tianjin began to develop geothermal energy in early 1980ís. There are 144 geothermal wells in production now. Among them 104 wells are producing from sedimentary geothermal reservoirs and 40 from bedrock. Most of the geothermal energy is for space heating and tap water, and also for swimming pools, green house and fish farming. The geothermal wells belong to different owners and many wells produce from the same geothermal reservoir. The administration and management of the geothermal resources was a big problem. As a kind of mineral resource, geothermal resources belong to the nation. Obviously, only the government has the authority to control and administrate the geothermal resources. On this background, the Tianjin municipal government set up a special department called Tianjin Geothermal Administration Office to control and administrate the geothermal resources in July 1994. The Tianjin government issued a detailed regulation to provide terms and conditions for the geothermal administration. The major roles of the Tianjin Geothermal Administration Office are: 1) to make development plans for the geothermal fields; 2) to organize the feasibility studies for drilling geothermal wells and give permission; 3) to collect tax from the individual geothermal energy users on behalf of the government; 4) to organize the monitoring studies of the geothermal fields; 5) to finance the geothermal research programs. The Tianjin Geothermal Administration Office is the first one of itís kind in China and is very successful. Other cities and provinces are learning from the experience to establish their own similar government departments now. |