New Zealand:

Body of Geothermal Pioneer Missing for Decades Found in Ngaio Bush (The Dominion Post)

John Holmes Smith died in 1986

Police announced on Monday that they had now identified remains as being those of John Holmes Smith, a pioneering geothermal engineer, who was 76 when he went missing from his home in Ngaio, northern Wellington, in March 1986.

In May 1986, a memorial service was held for the retired former chief geothermal engineer for what was then the Ministry of Works and Development.

By August, with still no clue as to his whereabouts, the case was referred to the coroner, who found he must have died on or about the day he went missing.

Colleagues told The Evening Post at the time of his disappearance that Smith was a pioneer, who conducted one of the world's first investigations into how geothermal steam could be used as a natural energy source.

His legacy lives on in the Wairakei geothermal field near Taupo, now known as Te Mihi, which was the first wet-steam station in the world when it was commissioned in 1958.   Today it has enough capacity to power about 160,000 homes.

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