Arturo Pineda Alcaraz (March 21, 1916[1] – March 10, 2001[2]) was a Filipino volcanologist known

for his work on geothermal energy. He received the 1982 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government
Service.
Arturo Pineda Alcaraz was born on March 21, 1916 to Conrado Alcaraz and Paz Pineda in Manila.
Due to his father's occupation as a government auditor, the Alacaraz family moved often. He
completed his elementary school education in Lucena, Quezon and had his high school education
in Camarines Norte and Baguio City.[1]
His father's cousin, Leopoldo Faustino, who was then Head of the Division of Mines of the Bureau of
Science, inspired Alcaraz to pursue a career in mining. In 1933, he enrolled in the College of
Engineering of the University of the Philippines Manila since no university in the country offered a
mining-related degree at that time. However, a year later the Mapúa Institute of Technology offered
a degree in mining engineering where Alcaraz transferred to and received his Bachelor of Science
degree in 1937. After graduating, he joined the Bureau of Mines.[1]
He then received his M.S. in Geology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1941 through a
government scholarship. On his way back to the Philippines, Alcaraz boarded a Japanese ship
in San Francisco. While the ship was crossing the Pacific Ocean, the United States government
froze all Japanese assets. As a result, Alcaraz and the other returning Filipino scholars were
stranded in Tokyo after the ship failed to continue to the Philippines, which was a territory of the
United States at that time. Assisted by the American Embassy, they were able to return to Manila by
the end of August 1941.[1]
In 1948, Alcaraz received a grant from the United States Government under the postwar
Rehabilitation Act to study microseismology at the Opa-locka Naval Air Station in Florida. In 1955,
he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and received a Certificate in Volcanology from
the University of California, Berkeley.[1][4] He was also awarded a Colombo Plan Fellowship and took
a three-month training course on geothermal energy at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan.

After graduating in 1937, Alcaraz joined the Bureau of Mines as an aide in the geology division. A
year later, he went to the United States to study for his master's degree. Upon his return in 1941, the
Bureau of Mines assigned him to Busuanga Island, Palawan to study manganese deposits.
After the Japanese victory at Corregidor in May 1942, Alcaraz returned to Manila to visit his family.
He learned that the Japanese occupation government had reduced the Bureau of Mines into
a skeleton crew of which he was not a part of. In 1943, Maximo Lachica, the Director of
the Philippine Weather Bureau, offered him the post of Chief Geophysicist. Alcaraz had met Lachica
on the ship from San Francisco.
After the Allied victory in the Battle of Manila, Alcaraz took leave from the Weather Bureau and did a
few months of volunteer work as a civilian engineer for the U.S. Army and surveyed the Port Area for
clearing and rebuilding. After the end of World War II, he remained as the Chief Geophysicist of the
Weather Bureau.
In 1947, Alcaraz studied the eruption of the Mayon Volcano. Since he did not have a personal
vehicle, he travelled around the base of the volcano on public buses. He also met with municipal
officials and discussed contingency plans for the local population.
In December 1951, Mount Hibok-Hibok in Camiguin released a nuée ardente (burning cloud of hot
ash and gas) which resulted in 600 deaths. As a result, the Commission on Volcanology (ComVol)
was officially created under the National Research Council. Alcaraz was appointed Chief
Volcanologist, a post which he held until 1974. During his tenure as Chief Volcanologist, the ComVol
monitored the 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1969 eruptions of the Taal Volcano, and the 1968
eruption of the Mayon Volcano.
Arturo Alcaraz (1916-2001) was a Philippino volcanologist who specialized in
geothermal energy development. Born in Manila, Alcaraz is best-known as the
Philippines' "Father of Geothermal Energy Development" due to his
contributions to studies about Philippine volcanology and the energy derived
from volcanic sources. His main contribution was the study and establishment of
geothermal power plants in the Philippines.

In the 1980s, the Philippines attained the second-highest geothermal generating

capacity in the world, in great part due to Alcaraz's contributions.

The young Alcaraz graduated at the top of his class from Baguio City High School
in 1933. But there was no school of mining in the Philippines, so he entered the
College of Engineering, University of the Philippines in Manila. A year later--
when Mapua Institute of Technology, also in Manila, offered a degree in mining
engineering--Alcaraz transferred there and received his Bachelor of Science in
Mining Engineering from Mapua in 1937.

After graduation, he received an offer from the Philippines Bureau of Mines as an

aide in the geology division, which he accepted. A year after he began his job at
the Bureau of Mines, he won a government scholarship to continue his education
and training. He went to Madison Wisconsin, where he attended the University of
Wisconsin and earned a Master of Science in Geology in 1941.

The Kahimyang Project notes that Alcaraz "pioneered in generating electricity by

means of geothermal steam among areas proximate to volcanoes." The Project
noted, "With a vast and extensive knowledge on volcanoes in the Philippines,
Alcaraz explored the possibility of harnessing geothermal steam to produce
energy.

He succeeded in 1967 when the country's first geothermal plant produced much-
needed electricity, ushering the era of geothermal-based energy to power up
homes and industries."

The Commission on Volcanology was officially created by the National Research

Council in 1951, and Alcaraz was appointed Chief Volcanologist, a senior
technical position he held until 1974. It was in this position that he and his
colleagues were able to prove that energy could be generated by geothermal
energy. The Kahimyang Project reported, "A steam from a one-inch hole drilled
400 feet to the ground powered a turbo-generator which lighted up a light bulb.
It was a milestone in the Philippines' quest for energy self-sufficiency. Thus,
Alcaraz carved his name in the global field of Geothermal Energy and Mining."
Alcaraz was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955 for two semesters of
study at the University of California at Berkeley, where he received a Certificate
in Volcanology.

In 1979, Alcaraz won the Philippines' Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for

International Understanding for "supplanting national jealousies that led to a
confrontation, with increasingly effective cooperation and goodwill among the
neighboring peoples of Southeast Asia." He also received the 1982 Ramon
Magsaysay Award for Government Service for "his scientific insight and selfless
perseverance in guiding Filipinos to understand and use one of their greatest
natural resources."

Other awards include Mapua Institute of Technology's Outstanding Alumnus in

the Field of Science and Technology in Government Service in 1962; the
Presidential Award of Merit for his work in volcanology and his initial work in
geothermy 1968; and the Award for Science from the Philippine Association for
the Advancement of Science (PHILAAS) in 1971. He received both the Gregorio Y.
Zara Memorial Award in Basic Science from PHILAAS and the Geologist of the
Year Award from the Professional Regulatory Commission in 1980.