From the words of the Landsvirkjun company:

The ideal area to harness the power of water is where the greatest fall in water is the shortest distance. The more water you have, the more energy can be generated.

one way of doing this is damming a river just above a power station to raise the water level. Canals can then be built bring the water from a high elevation to a lower elevation. At the top, this water is then contained intake basin, the sent down the mountain or hill to the power station where the power is generated.

The main environmental concern to hydropower is the creation of reservoirs. Land has to be flooded in order to capture the necessary amount of water. But if folks would look at the positives of reservoirs instead of negatives, one could see the great benefits. Of course, in Iceland, it is less of a human impact to flood lands as opposed to the overpopulated US.

check out LANDSVIRJKJUN website to learn more!

I didn’t get to take pictures of Burfell or the tiny plant, but I do have some of the med size plant.

This was the last of the Geothermal plants. This one had a couple of unique aspects. First off, it housed a museum, Power Plant Earth (Orkuverið Jörð), which explained the Big Theory, and the history of all energy. They even had an earthquake simulator in which you stand on a platform, choose your earthquake, and it shakes to represent the magnitude. Perfect for any geo-nerd.

Secondly, it is here where we got to see, hear, and smell raw geothermal activity straight from the ground. That was my first experience with natural geothermal activity so I enjoyed the heck out of it. Now, this I have pictures of!

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Lastly, part of the exhibit is outdoors: The bridge that crosses the two tectonic plates, North American plate and Eurasian plate. So, if you look at the pictures, the N American plate is to the right, and the Eurasian plate to the left.

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This is the largest geothermal station in Iceland and the 2nd largest in the world. By this time, we knew all about how geothermal plants work. The cool thing is all of the power plants are open to the public, have extensive visitor centers, and offer all kinds of exhibits.

This plant is currently in expansion, with hopes to expand to up to 300 MW of electrical energy and and 400 MW thermal energy. It’s also the place where we got to see the boreholes up close. This plant also gets its geothermal energy from Hengill.

Currently, they only supply electricity and the expansion part will include supplying hot water. When we left Iceland, the expansion was nearly complete.

Again, I didn’t take pictures of the plant itself, but I do have a few of the pipelines that run from the boreholes of this plant.

There is an awesome program in progress right now called Carbfix. We did not attend any presentations about this, but here is the website so you can read more about it!

This was the second geothermal plant we visited. It sits near the largest natural lake in Iceland, Pingvallavatn. The volcanic activity from Hengill provides the plant the geothermal activity for energy.

I didn’t take any pictures here, because I figured most power plants worked basically the same. But I will tell you a little about it.

Construction of Nesjavellir began in 1987 with 5 boreholes. Today, there are 22 boreholes, drilled at depths of up to 2000m. On average, each borehole provides about 60 MW of thermal energy. All together, the plant provides more than 1100 liters of hot water per second and 90 MW of electrical energy.

This plant is the second largest in the country.

Since I didn’t take pictures, I did find this AWESOME video online that shows the power plant. Its worth the watch

The first geothermal plant we visited was located adjacent to the Blue Lagoon. In fact, its the wastewater from this plant that draws tourists and Icelanders alike to bathe in its “healing” waters. Here is a glimpse of a wasterwater pool at the Blue Lagoon:

So, back to the plant. Its located in Keflavik or Svartsengi (I’m not sure how the municipalities are split up). It was built in 1978 to supply heating and electricity in the wake of the energy crisis. It was the first geothermal power plant in the
world to combine generation of electricity and production of hot water for heating.

This plant has 6 different plant areas, referred to as power plant 1, power plant 2, etc….Power plant 1 is the original plant and is currently “retired”. It was used to produce both electricity and hot water, mainly as the plant’s own power needs.

Power Plant 2 was built in 1980 and is used for hot water only. It disperses nearly 225 liters of hot (125* C) water per second to the local area.

Power plant 3 is mainly for electricity; producing 6 MW of electrical energy.

Power plant 4 was built in 1989, produces 8.4 MW of electrical energy

Power plant 5 was built in 1999 to replace power plant 1 and to meet the rising electrical and hot water demands. It produces 30 MW of electrical energy and 240 liters per second of 115* C water.

Power plant 6 produces 30 MW of electrical energy.

All together, this plant produces a total  of  75 MW of electrical energy and 150 MW of thermal energy.

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In order to get to all this geothermal power boreholes need to be drilled into the rocks and aquifers. The can be drilled straight down, diagonally, and even with bends and turns with depths varying from plant to plant.

When working, the boreholes emit steam into the air. This tends to be quite loud so little soundproof huts are built around boreholes to muffle the sound.

I guess they have a tendency to be unsightly, but I would take seeing a few huts and cheaper electricity bill any day.

Inside the window of the borehole:                                                                               Plant representative describing the borehole:

Extended view of three of them and a section of their pipelines:

So, the theme of the program was renewable energy. The most abundant source of renewable energy in Iceland is geothermal due to its Geology. Iceland is the only area where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is exposed above sea level. The North American plate and the Eurasian plate meet here and create one of the most seismic areas in the world. Not to mention, the over 200 volcanoes on the island. But since I didn’t get to see the whole island, I’m just going to have to tell you about the southern part of the island.

So, all of this tectonic activity creates the geothermal pockets of water and steam that reach temperatures well over 300 degrees F.

Icelanders have been tapping into the geothermal heat source since the early 1900’s. It started being used for electricity in the 30’s. Geothermal power plants are built near the geothermal areas and drill bore holes to extract the heat.

So after the very interesting visit to the geothermal plant, we hit the small fishing village of Grindavik (63°50′0″N, 22°26′0″W). I think if I had to live in Iceland, this may just be the little town for me. But I don’t think I could live here so no worries there.

It was cold and windy today, but mostly sunny. The wind is killer off the ocean. It seems every little town is “just off the ocean”. The city limits encompass a fairly large chunk of territory (425 square K). The population is a little less than 3000 people.

The main income is fishing, but this place is mostly known for the saltfish. They even have a museum heralding their grand export.

Of course there is a lighthouse, but there is also remains of old saltfish curing areas and housing areas from the mid 1800’s. Of course, folks have been living here since settlement (around the year 940). Don’t laugh at my washed out photos. I loathe photo editing and can never seem to prepare my camera for the crazy changes in the sky.

You can click here for the rest of the pics of this little town. They are mostly of the waterfront and the ruins.

Today I visited my first geothermal power plant. ever. The company plant name is HS Orka HF. We were led by Þorgrímur Stefán Árnason. He gave us a most informative talk about how their plant is run, and how they recycle just about every bit of their excess steam, water, and carbon emissions. I took a few notes so let me try to explain them here. I guess I could tell you all about the history of the plant, but I will keep that part short as the actual geothermal activity as a form of renewable energy is much more important. You can click here for some pretty awesome pictures inside this particular plant. They have nothing to hide.

During the energy crisis of the 70’s, Iceland looked into the use of its wealth of geothermal activity for energy. Actually, they first looked into it merely for heating, then advanced to energy use. So, at this particular plant, due to its proximity to the ocean, the water and steam that is “pumped” from the ground must be separated. Meaning that all of the minerals must be removed before anything else.

So to start, the magma in the ground heats the water to well over 200*C. Bore holes were drilled into the ground where potential hot spots may be located (which in Iceland, is pretty much anywhere). The deepest hole at this area is to be about 400m. These holes were used for hot water production in the thermal energy exchange plan for the nearby towns people. Over time, the water table fell, but the heat system stayed the same. They then drilled directly into the steam pockets. Steam heat and boiling water is extracted from the ground as a “brine” (water/steam mixed with ground minerals). The brine is then separated, the steam and water used as energy and heat, then pumped back into the ground for another round. Of course that is very basic.

The “wastewater” that consists of all the minerals is pumped into a lake. It was first thought that this water was an environmental hazard, then someone got the bright idea to actually bathe in the water to treat their psoriasis. It seemed to work, and since the 1980’s the Blue Lagoon Spa has been in full force. It is believed that the high mineral and algae content of the wastewater is an excellent source for skin health. These are the mineral count stats that I got from the Blue Lagoon website:

Blue Lagoon geothermal seawater Concentration of major elements. (mg/kg of fluid)

• Silica (SiO2) 251
• Sodium (Na) 7.643
• Potassium (K) 1.177
• Calcium (Ca) 1.274
• Magnesium (Mg) 0,60
• Carbon dioxide (CO2) 11,4
• Sulphate (SO4) 31,8
• Chlorine (Cl) 15.740
• Fluorine (F) 0,18

Total soluble Chemicals 25.800–Other elements are in trace amount

ok, so they say that continual sampling of the water shows no signs of bacteria due to the high mineral content. It still grosses me out to basically take a bath with hundreds of other folks at the same time with the same bath water. I guess that is another story.

In other geothermal news:

The process of heating a home goes like this:  Heat energy released by the pressurized fluid is channeled through a home’s ductwork  for distribution to radiant baseboards, in-floor tubing, or radiators. This water is also their source of hot water. ALSO, some homes are now starting to install pipes under their sidewalks and driveways to keep ice from forming in the winter. The cost of geothermal energy is so minimal that Icelanders can afford to do this.

The hot water being pumped to houses can get up to 103*C and does not need to be treated.

and lastly:

Today, the total production capability of the energy plant in Svartsengi is 75 MW in electrical energy and about 150 MW in thermal energy. How is that for renewable energy?? Don’t worry, there is more to come……….

So today we took a long, hellacious bus ride to check out a couple of waterfalls.

Seljalandsfoss (63°36’19″38.6N 20°21’57″26.2W). It’s the most famous and most photographed waterfall in the country. This waterfall drops from the Seljalandsá River about 40 meters. This one you can walk behind it and get some pretty awesome pictures (if you remember to reset your ISO settings on your camera!). Click here for pics.

The second one is Skogafoss (63°31′47″N, 19°30′50″W). It is considered to be included in part of the foothills of the Eyjafjallajokull and Myrdalsjokull glaciers. This one was actually my favorite because of the massive Skógaá River behind it. Not to mention the ultimate freshwater from the famous glaciers. This falls is about 25 meters in width and drops 60 meters. This cliff used to be part of the coast line which is now receded to about 5k away. I’m sure Global Warming will take care of that soon enough. There is a legend about a treasure hidden behind this waterfall. You can read about it here.

Go ahead and click this link for the rest of Skogafoss pictures.

En route between the two waterfalls, we stopped to get a good look at the river  Markarfljót (63°57′5″ N, 19°21′31″W). The reason is the whole area was flooded by this river when the glacier of Eyjafjallajokull melted during the recent eruption. This floodplain was so barren, yet surrounded by such beautiful, green mountains. The river was heavy and gray with volcano sediment and ash covered the land. To top it off, the day was cloudy and drizzly so EVERYTHING was gray.  Below is a quick peak at the landscape of the floodplain, but you can click here for the rest of these pictures.