Góðan daginn!
I’ve been in Iceland for almost 2 weeks now! It's time for another edition of my unofficial newsletter :)
I spent the past week in Reykjavik, the capital city. I attended interesting lectures and went to the National Museum of Iceland and ate a really good hot dog.
A view of Reykjavik from the Hallgrímskirkja church tower!
The famous rainbow street! You can see the Hallgrímskirkja church in the background.
Ruminating on Energy
I’ve been having lots of thoughts about energy lately. This week we visited a geothermal power plant and a hydropower plant; together geothermal and hydropower make up around 74% of Iceland’s energy and 99.95% of Iceland’s electricity.
A view from the window of Ljósafoss Hydropower Station.
Given the renewable sources, I was surprised to find that there are still debates among Icelanders about the environmental impact of their electricity. It turns out that 66% of Iceland’s electricity goes to aluminum smelters. Because of the large amount of aluminum production and the small population of the country, Iceland actually has the highest per capita electricity use of any country. So even though hydropower isn’t contributing much to climate change, some hydropower plants in Iceland are still criticized for threatening the natural environment. While we tend to think of renewable energy as unequivocally good in the US, it’s interesting to hear the nuances of the perspectives in Iceland!
Part of the Hellisheiði geothermal power plant.
The geothermal power plant, Hellisheiði, was also interesting -- but what struck me the most wasn’t the geothermal energy, but another process the company does. Our tour guide told us all about their CarbFix process, a carbon capture and storage technique that they have developed. Essentially, they dissolve carbon dioxide into freshwater, then inject it into basalt underground, which reacts with the water and creates calcite and pyrite (fool’s gold). If you have Netflix you can watch Zac Efron visit Hellisheiði and learn about CarbFix in his “Down to Earth” travel docuseries.
Carbon capture is a complicated subject for many environmentalists. Of course, the idea of taking CO₂ out of the atmosphere is amazing, and we need all the help we can get to prevent the worst effects of climate change. But I’ve heard 2 main arguments for caution regarding carbon capture.
One argument is that the technology for carbon capture is very new and developing slowly, and if we wait for carbon capture to save us it’ll be too late. Rather, we need to focus on the technologies we already have. CarbFix is not yet far along enough to make a dent in emissions: their website boasts 100,000+ tons of CO₂ captured since 2014… but Iceland alone emitted 3,090,000 tons of CO₂ in 2023. Expansion of the CarbFix process is also tricky because it’s uniquely suited for Iceland’s environment: Iceland has a rich supply of basalt because most volcanic rock is basalt, and Iceland also has a lot of fresh water from glacier melt. However, they also work with other reactive rocks and are currently doing research to see if they can use seawater for the same purpose. Maybe this is a good start and their progress will increase exponentially… but I’m doubtful. I guess we’ll have to see.
Another argument pertains to the philosophy of using carbon capture as an excuse to avoid meaningful change. If we are able to effectively curtail climate change with carbon capture and don’t have to transition to renewable energy, have we as a society learned anything? If carbon capture is successful, could it become an excuse for fossil fuel companies to maintain business as usual? Hellisheiði is all renewable energy, so I don’t think they are doing this for the sake of fossil fuel production. However, as I learned from the hydropower plants, just because a company sells renewable energy doesn’t mean that the environment is their first priority.
I don’t really have a clear conclusion for this; I don’t think carbon capture is all good or all bad. But I do think it is very interesting and worth keeping an eye on.
Now for fun stuff!!
I went to Þingvellir National Park right after it snowed, and it was so beautiful! Þingvellir is really cool for a lot of reasons: it’s located on a rift valley between the American and Eurasian tectonic plates, and from the years 930-1798 it was the annual meeting place for Iceland’s Parliament. I was going to do some research so I could say even more cool things about this place but I wrote a bunch about carbon capture instead… but I’m sure you can find some interesting facts on Wikipedia if you’re curious. Here’s some pictures!
Yay Þingvellir!
Bye bye, Reykjavik!
We left Reykjavik on Friday and drove to Ísafjörður. It is the capital of the Westfjords and thus has a big and booming population of… 2,600! Only 200 more than the Denison student body! I moved in with my host family, who I will be staying with for 3 weeks. They are very nice, and cook good food, and my host mom is helping me knit a sweater.
This is the host family cat, who sleeps in my bed at night :-)
Alright, that's all I've got for this week. Thanks for reading and I hope you all are doing well.