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
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