Government wants to prepare the Azores for the exploitation of mineral resources of hydrothermal vents
The Government of the Azores believes within a few years it will possible to exploit the mineral resources of hydrothermal vents and seabed rocks or turn the mud from the hot spring in Furnas into value-added products for the global market.”
The information was provided by the Regional Secretary for Science, Technology and Infrastructures, José Contente, at the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday during the discussion of the proposal for the Regional Annual and Budget for next year.
In order to accomplish this goal, the Regional Secretary said, we need that the Azorean scientific community contribute with knowledge, which is why the Plan for 2011 reinforced the investment in priority areas such as the “support to scientific research projects with relevance for sustainable development of the Azores and to R&D initiatives in business context.”
According to José Contente, with these support measures the Government aims to encourage a new impulse to scientific research in order to provide responses to specific problems in the archipelago which are associated to value creation of companies.
The Regional Secretary said this is a path that will increasingly bring development opportunities and he reminded sceptics that 20 years ago few believed in tourism because the number of hotels were scarce, employment was also limited as well as the businesspeople operating in the tourism sector.
In terms of accessibilities, the Regional Secretary revealed that priority status will be awarded to the renewal of roads on the islands of Flores and Corvo in 2011 as, in recent years, the majority of the investment in these structures was carried out in the regional road network of the remaining islands.
He also stated that the Government is already working on the introduction of hybrid vehicle technology that can gradually replace regular buses.
Even though, José Contente stated, the Government has allocated 19 million Euros in recent years for the acquisition of 201 new buses in the archipelago with six times less greenhouse gas emissions and which only consume half the fuel consumed by older buses.
With concern to civil protection, the Regional Secretary for Science, Technology and Infrastructures considered that the new challenges require cooperative efforts of both fire brigades and the associations supporting them.
In this context, José Contente added that the way society regards the fire brigades has changed dramatically, as associations have also changed, therefore, requiring an improvement in management, optimisation and effectiveness of both means and resources.
The Regional Secretary also revealed that the Plan for 2011 awards priority status to the acquisition of vehicles, especially of transport and medical ambulances in order to meet the increasing demands for assistance as well as to the investment in the qualification of resources associated to emergency inland transport.