Matriz riam

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 14 (2010) 2414–2425

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Evaluating the level and nature of sustainable development for a geothermal power plant
Jason Phillips
Department of Geography (Streatham Campus) and Camborne School of Mines (Cornwall Campus),University of Exeter, C/o Cornwall Campus Treliever Road, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9EZ, United Kingdom

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 19 April 2010 Accepted 25 May 2010 Keywords: Sustainable development Geothermal energy Sustainability science Environmental Impact Assessment

The paper provides for an evaluation of the potential level and nature ofsustainable development of the Sabalan geothermal power plant in NW Iran, to be operational in 2011. The paper achieves this by applying a mathematical model of sustainable development developed by the author (re: Phillips [17,18]), in respect to the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) conducted by Yousefi et al. [13] using the Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix (RIAM) methodology (re: Pastakia [15]; Pastakiaand Jensen [16]). Using a model application methodology developed for the RIAM, the results indicated that the nature of sustainable development for Sabalan was considered to be very weak (S = 0.063). This was due to the imbalance between negative environmental impacts and positive socio-economic impacts deriving from the project. Further, when placed into context with a similar set of resultsobtained from the EIA of the Tuzla geothermal power plant by Baba [35] also using the RIAM methodology, then the similarities between the results obtained raises some legimate questions as to the sustainable development credentials of geothermal power production. ß 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents 1. 2. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Literature review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1. Geothermal energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2. Environmental impact ofgeothermal energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2. Sustainable development and geothermal energy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3. Sustainability science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1. The Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2. Assessment criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.3. Environmental components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.4. Evaluation and presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . 3.2. Model application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2. Determination of model application procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3. Model application methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3.3.1. Glossary of terms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.2. Model application—Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix (RIAM) . Results: Sabalan geothermal power plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2. Environmental baseline...