Islands of the Future

This is a TV show on the "Pivot" channel, about alternative energy, as it's being used on... islands.

Anyway, I've seen an i-MiEV in two episodes now -- Orkney, and Iceland.

EV's should be popular in Iceland. I think most of their electricity is generated using either geo-thermal steam or hydro power and is relatively cheap - It's so cheap they are thinking of exporting it

http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=765

I read an article on hydrogen powered vehicles in Iceland - They use large quantities of electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen and that process is only practical if you have very low cost electricity. The average Icelandic household uses more than 4X the amount of electricity of a US household

Don

Iceland is one place where Hydrogen would make sense to me. Electricity is nearly completely renewable, and with climate change, their glaciers are going to melt at a increasingly faster rate, so plenty of water available. If one was going to do Hydrogen, Iceland would be the place to do it.

From my research on the country, oil is the primary fossil fuel used, and that is for vehicle fuels. Transforming their fleet to electric/water sourced Hydrogen would make them near 100% renewable.

If you have a DVD copy of Revenge of The Electric Car, check out the bonus footage that didn't make it onto the main film. There's a 3 minute segment titled EVs in Iceland that shows an I-MiEV being driven around there.

I've also heard off-and-on stories regarding hydrogen in Iceland. But it's hard to get current information on the topic. I seem to remember that the county's financial situation during the big recession of 2008-10 stymied the hydrogen rollout significantly.

Didn't we get a new member here on the Forum from Iceland not too long ago?

Don said:

EV's should be popular in Iceland. I think most of their electricity is generated using either geo-thermal steam or hydro power and is relatively cheap - It's so cheap they are thinking of exporting it

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Oh, you should watch the show if you can; it was fascinating. They've got more than enough electricity for the people of Iceland already -- but what they're doing now, apparently, is harnessing more and more hydro power for the benefit of foreign aluminum producers, who take advantage of the cheap power to import ore, refine it in Iceland, and export the refined aluminum. And to do this, of course, means putting up a lot of dams, altering the landscape. So environmentalists in Iceland are trying to curtail this.

I have always wondered with Yellowstone in the middle of the country, why we don't have geo-thermal steam generating plants all around the caldera giving us 'free' electricity and reducing ever further the need to burn coal in this country. Since it's a National Park, it would probably have to be a government project, but then so were all the dams along the Columbia river which have paid back their cost of construction a million times over since they were built

Geo-thermal steam seems like the most natural way to generate power - No large altering of the landscape like hydro power requires . . . . no pollution like burning fossil fuels gets you. Why don't we have Yellowstone geo-thermal steam plants???

Don

I'm personally not in favor of putting geothermal in Yellowstone because the National Parks were originally put in place to preserve the natural habitat and protect it from development. Geothermal would flood the area with industry.

The problem with putting Geo in Yellowstone is the "fairness" of energy development. Any renewable energy production on National Park acres would just give ammunition to the natural gas industry to develop in protected areas of Pennsylvania, WV, and Ohio. They are dying to get their hands on the state forests.

One thing they are working on in my neck of the woods is retrofitting mini-hydropower on the existing locks and dams along the Monongahela River. Talk about minimal impact.

I just sent an off-list message to "Frosti" an Iceland resident who joined the Forum a few months ago. He might be able to give us some first-hand insights.

PV1 said:

I'm personally not in favor of putting geothermal in Yellowstone because the National Parks were originally put in place to preserve the natural habitat and protect it from development. Geothermal would flood the area with industry.

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I don't think the power plants themselves would necessarily have to be 'in' the park. With the angle drilling used by the oil industry, I'm sure they could be outside the park and still tap into the geo-thermal beneath the park

I wish we were spending our tax dollars on projects like this (low impact, renewable industries) and not overseas building things which are probably going to be blown up at some point anyway

Don