The first crisis in energy prices was undoubtedly a strong stimulus for the involvement of the Commission of the European Communities in research and development on alternative energy sources. Indeed, the need to overcome difficulties faced by the Community as a whole, particularly those resulting from its severely unbalanced energy supply, made a common Community approach seem especially apt. This reasoning also applies to energy R&D, bearing in mind that responses to the crisis should be not only political or economic, but also scientific. Four years have passed since the decision of the Council of Ministers to launch the first Community Energy Research and Development Programme, dealing with geothermal energy, solar energy, hydrogen production and utili sation, energy conservation and energy systems analysis. A seminar on geo thermal energy was held two years ago to report on work in progress at the half-way stage of the four-year programme. The second international seminar, reported in this volume, was arrang ed so as to provide an opportunity to examine the final outcome of this Community investment in research in geothermal energy. This proceedings volume therefore has two main aims: - to present an evaluation of the results of the Community geothermal programme, by means of 83 formal reports describing the individual research programmes; - to show how the Community research programme fits into the overall context of national and international research on geothermal energy, by including the presentations of six guest speakers who introduced the sessions and gave keynote addresses.
