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This blog documents a one-week seminar in Iceland and the talks we've been having with people from Reykjavik about questions of the availability and use of energy in Iceland, but also about Iceland's environment, economy, history and society. The host for this exploration was the chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) at ETH Zurich, headed by Prof. Dr. Ludger Hovestadt. The main statement of their research is the worldwide abundance of energy in the near future, using the solar energy stream all over the world. When it comes to Iceland now, this country finds itself in an exclusive position, producing way more energy then needed with zero CO2 emissions, a struggle for the rest of the world. It was our task to find out how the Icelandic people feel about this issue, how the energy is used, maybe also wasted, what possible future scenarios are.
One of the most interesting observations during the week was the diversity of opinions and views about energy and environment, each person seems to have his own Iceland. We didn't find the stereotypes about the country and its inhabitants when we were there, the mood during the talks was always familiar. Icelanders see themselves as opportunists, acting and thinking very pragmatically when it comes to survival and to contact with earth's forces. On the other hand, it's a very young folk, the liberation process of Denmark hasn't finished fully yet and their ability to see Iceland as an individual country is just growing since a few years. So is the debate about nature. There is a lot of energy around, under the earth and in the heads of people, but it sometimes seemed that Icelanders aren't really conscious about that. They are familiar with slow processes, there's a saying like "glaciers grow and shrink all the time, we don't worry about that anymore", it's showing their pragmatism again and their strong connections to nature and inside the society. So it's not surprising that they are recovering well from the financial crisis and seeing opportunities.
Personally I was interested in a large spread use of greenhouses in Iceland, tropical houses in the cities. We've seen harsh conditions for agriculture when we were travelling around a little the first day, so artificial landscapes seem to be a perfect fitting solution, but whether the government, energy companies nor the farmers are very interested, there are no subsidies to build up greenhouses or reduce electricity costs for running them. Probably it's not so easy to set new things up in Iceland, a lot is just growing and starting so I'm sure that it will find its way.
Link: Seminar week in Iceland
This last meeting took place almost next to Keflavik international airport, it was hard to find the office itself, because there was no visible sign. We were surprised to have a foreign energy company in Iceland, which makes use of experienced Icelandic engineers and other people. Magma Energy Iceland is less than a year old, see the News Release of the company.
Asgeir has studied civil ingeneering at Iceland university and worked for Reykjavik Energy (COO) and Geysir Green Energy (CEO) before. Magma Energy is a Canadian company and manages projects in the USA, China, Hungary, Chile, Peru, Iceland and some other places. He told us that basically only heating of buildings is a taks, whereas cooling rarely is needed in Iceland, except some air conditioning and ventilation, but often just the windows are opened.
The largest hydro power plant was built for Alcoa, a aluminium smelter company, in the East of Iceland. The amount of geothermal energy has increased a lot during the last years, but hydropower is an easier way to produce electricity, it's cheaperand it's also easy to foresee the power of a river, to calculate how much electricity can be produced at a specific site. To make use of geothermal energy is more complicated. Expensive explorations are needed, and only estimations are possible in the beginning of the use of an geothermal field, there's generally less knowledge about it. The building up of a power plant then goes step by step, because energy companies don't risk to exploit or empty a field. Due to large public acceptance for power plants, there are no fences around them in Iceland. The acceptance for aluminium smelter companies isn't that high though.
Another use of the energy would be welcomed, but what and how?
Asgeir reminds us of the large environmental impact of tourists, and tells us that geothermal power plants are easily removable, once the field would run out of energy. Usually, the required depth for drilling holes is between 500 and 1'000 meters.
There is a quality of life that goes along with the abundance of energy
Snow melting on the walkways in the city is health care prevention, so are the warm pools, the long and warm showers, to help the hard working people relax. Iceland is a rather harsh environment. Another quality is the possibility of lighting the settlements without remorse and producing food in greenhouses. The biggest Icelandic brand is the Blue Lagoon, it also sells medical and cosmetical products. There were some tryings to export mineral water, but it worked not that well.
Link: Magma Energy Corporation
We met Haukur Magnusson, the editor of the magazine, in his office, where he introduced us to his assistants, an intern an a journalist, they were the whole staff. Reykjavik Grapevineis is printed every month regularly, every two weeks in Summer. The basic issue is to serve new Icelanders and tourists, with events that are coming up and recommendations of restaurants, cool places, concerts, books and other media. Haukur took us to a café nearby, where we got some free coffee and had a free and easy talk.
He told us first about the financial crisis, there as a lot of building activity before, also terrible new monsters (e.g. concert hall), now many things are standing still a little. He mentioned the big problem of Iceland to place and position itself in the global village, like other people said before in the interviews. There are also often hypocritical views, like the slogan "Pure Energy". Most people don't think about stuff, they don't have a lot of responsibility and consciousness about social, economical and ecological correlations. Icelandic pop singers stay in Iceland, because the world doesn't need more pop singers, that creates an image of a typical Icelandic genre.
We're running our country like we want to do it
But there's not only one view about things of course.
Iceland is a nation of opportunists sometimes, so the crisis could be a reason for contemplation and looking inside. Things have become harder, but not that hard.
Iceland is a teenager
People can't afford shopping in London anymore, so they focus on Iceland and the local design, which is very positive. But there is also an increase of nationalism and ugly ideas.
Link: Reykjavik Grapevine
Dorothee empfing uns ausserordentlich freundlich und mit Tee in einem zusammengewürfelten Interieur. Sie lebt seit 1994 in Island und stammt aus Deutschland, war früher die Nachbarin von Karin Sander. Das Gespräch auf Deutsch war zu Beginn etwas ungewöhnlich, da wir uns bis dahin alle Gedanken auf Englisch gemacht haben. Dass Dorothee weder Isländerin noch in Island aufgewachsen ist, hat einen entscheidenden Einfluss auf ihre Sicht der Dinge, die eine erfrischende Distanz aufweist, gleichzeitig sehr präzise ist.
Eine Knappheitsdiskussion ist hier absurd
Erst seit etwa fünf bis sieben Jahren gibt es eine Umweltdiskussion über andere Verwendungsmöglichkeiten der hier vorhandenen Ressourcen in der Zukunft. Es herrscht dabei kein Mangel an Ideen, aber der Wille zu einer grossen Lösung behindert dieses Unterfangen. Island hat nichts Festes zu exportieren, keine natürlichen Rohstoffe und nur wenig Geld für akademische Forschung und Universitäten, was natürlich mit ihrer geringen Bevölkerungszahl zusammenhängt. Zudem ist ihr Nationalbewusstsein noch nicht alt, nachdem sie bis zur Mitte des letzten Jahrhunderts eine Kolonie Dänemarks waren. Andererseits können Ideen besser oder einfacher als in Mitteleuropa umgesetzt werden, wegen der kleinen Gesellschaft.
Reykjavik hat sich als Stadt verkleidet
Die Verknüpfung zwischen den Generationen ist stark, ebenso familiäre Bindungen, das ist auch mit ein Grund, weshalb Isländer nach einem Auslandstudium auf die Insel zurück kehren, und positiv für das Land. Eine Klassengesellschaft macht eigentlich keinen Sinn wegen der kleinen Bevölkerung, Dorothee sagt aber auch, dass Neureiche in den letzten Jahren das Land zerstört haben und meint damit den Kollaps des isländischen Finanzsystemt.
Wortbedeutung Wikinger: von Bucht zu Bucht fahren
Die ersten Bewohner Islands waren aber keine Nomaden oder Wikinger, sondern sesshafte Menschen, die Siedlungen gründeten. Auch die heutigen Isländer sind Macher, erst nachher wird darüber gesprochen und diskutiert, was auch am Beispiel der Umweltdebatte sichtbar ist. Reflexion über Wesen und Handeln der Gesellschaft wird eher als störend empfunden.Die Wirtschaftskrise führte zu einem langsameren Fortgang der industriellen, aber auch der umwelttechnischen Entwicklung. Es gibt im Moment wenige bis gar keine finanziellen Möglichkeiten für die Umsetzung neuer Ideen. Eine wichtige Frage bei Projekten ist, für wie lange sie jeweils Arbeit und Arbeitsplätze generieren.
Link: Center for Icelandic Art
Landsnet offers the main grid for the transmission of electricity in Iceland, mainly high voltage. Kristjan works as project manager, Gardar is responsible for business relations. It was a little hard to direct the talk into a discussion, but nevertheless some opinions were observable. We also felt that Landsnet operates as a typical service provider.
The electricity market is a deregulated one, there are no private companies, but public control and finance. 80% of all users are so-called intensive customers, the heavy industry, who are using much energy and the same amount constantly. Most of Iceland's electricity is produced by hydro power plants (about 80%), not by geothermal energy. We mentioned the large dam in the East of Iceland, then they told us that most of the protest had come from Reykjavik, not from the ones who are directly affected by the large smelter companies. The debate about the Icelandic environment and its protection has become much stronger since that project.
The landscape is changing by itself
The first aluminium smelter company was set up in the late 1960s by "Alu Suisse". The Icelandic government and industrial companies are doing it in the same way all the time because it's working. Gardar told us that the drilling technology for geothermal power plants is not old, which is explaining the low spread of this kind of power plants. But they are not sure if the use of geothermal energy is the best solution all the time, because there is sulfur inside the smoke, which leads to corrosion, e.g. of the electricity pylons. The power intensive companies consume electricity very constantly all the time, so it's easy to deliver them. Therefore they pay less than normal customers, and there aren't any plans to relieve farmers who run greenhouses too.
Link: Landsnet
We were welcomed in one of the oldest building of Reykjavik, inhabited by Visit Reykjavik, which manages Reykjavik's public relations. It was founded in 2002, for the marketing of Reykjavik, offering tourist information and organising big city events. Sif Gunnarsdottir is the director of Visit Reykjavik.
Icelandic people must learn and experience why their energy is different
There is no consensus about what to display of Reykjavik (museum, music, energy), to change that is one of the main goals of Visit Reykjavik. The slogan "Reykjavik pure energy" was created and surveys of visitors at Keflavik airport about the city were made.The movie of Iceland for the Shanghai World Fair is all about (pure) energy, but the consciousness about abundance and dependency and how to use energy is just growing. Iceland's energy companies do not subsidise green houses like industrial companies. Nevertheless, Reykjavik wants to be the green city of Europe by 2012.
Denmark is like a big brother or parent of Iceland
150 years ago there was only a spring and an autumn boat to get on and off the island, nothing more. The counry and its society have changed and developed a lot during the last 100 years, also Reykjavik is a very young city. Public swimming pools are the social places by definition, it is where people meet in Iceland.
Link: Visit Reykjavik
Eirikur Hjalmarsson called our meeting an "energy seminar", it was our first interview. Hjalmarsson is the Chief Information Officer of Energy Reykjavik, he has studied history and journalism. He told us about facts and numbers of Iceland's energy household, but was also very open-minded to our questions and critical views on Iceland.
Why are there not a lot of greenhouses in your country, Iceland could be more self sufficient, not?
Eirikur answered: "Because the farmers are stupid!", then explained the subsidies they get from the government. There is no plan to support greenhouses (yet), nor to reduce electricity prices for those farmers, like it is done for heavy industry.
The aluminium-industry buys about 70% of Iceland's electricity, 10% for households, similar numbers that we've heard the day before at Hellisheidi Power Plant. Energy Reykjavik manages water supply, electricity, hot water, sewerage and fiber optics. Fossile energy consumption decreased from 80% (1930) to only 20% (present) and by now, using alternative energy (hydrogene, methan, electricity) for transportation has become less expensive than using gasoline or diesel. Technology and acceptance aren't wide spread yet.
Link: Energy Reykjavik
Link: National Energy Authority
