Saving Iceland

Alcoa has laid off 300 workers in it’s Rockdale smelting facilities in Texas after idling some of the facility. Another 100 contract workers will be affected. The aluminium giant says this is necessary due to unreliable power supply from the energy supplier that is contracted for the smelter, Luminant. That company claims Alcoa is using them as an excuse to fire workers to drive up profitability. Read More

Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip from Leo Murray.

Rio Tinto Alcan is still planning to construct a new smelter in Iceland, as well as in Canada, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Cameroon. In total the mining and metals giant is planning to expand it’s aluminium production capacity by 2.6 million tons. All the projects are projected to start between 2011 and 2014. Rising energy prices are driving fossil fuel powered smelters out of business, report financial news analysts Bloomberg. Thus Rio Tinto are looking at accelerating hydro-powered smelter construction.
Rio Tinto has thought to construct a new smelter in Thorlakshöfn or Keilisnes. Landsvirkjun have said they do not wish to construct more power plants for another new smelter in South West Iceland, but apparently Rio Tinto Alcan are still counting on it. Currently Budarhals dam in Tungnaa is being constructed to increase production in RTA’s Straumsvik smelter with 40.000 tons.

In a special report on the environment, Thórunn Sveinbjarnardóttir, minister for the environment in Iceland, says that Icelandic nature has suffered from aluminium production and needs increased protection. “It is time to correct the injustice nature and environmental protection has faced because of heavy industry,” says the report.
She says Iceland’s nature is valuable, and conserving it is a way of utilising the resource. In the past Iceland’s nature, it’s rivers and geothermal fields have been seen as ‘unutilised resources’ that are almost asking for exploitation. This view, held by many Icelandic politicians and entrepreneurs, is a modern interpretation of 17th century Cartesian thought. Read More

BBC News – Six Greenpeace activists have been cleared of causing criminal damage during a protest over coal-fired power. The activists were charged with causing £30,000 of damage after they scaled Kingsnorth power station in Hoo, Kent. At Maidstone Crown Court Judge David Caddick said the jury had to examine whether protesters had a lawful excuse. The defendants said the protest was lawful because it aimed to prevent damaging emissions. Read More

Iceland Review – The Geysir hot spring area and Hvítá river, which forms Gullfoss waterfall— two of the biggest tourist attractions in Iceland— will be part of a new framework program on options for energy harnessing to be completed next year. According to the government resolution, the framework program based on 50 potential areas for harnessing energy should be completed by the end of 2009, but Minister of Industry Össur Skarphédinsson wants it to finish by July next year, Fréttabladid reports. Read More

Landsvirkjun, Iceland’s national energy company, announced that it intends to build yet another dam, Bjallavirkjun in Tungaá. LV is currently restarting work on Búðarhálsvirkjun in Tungnaá. Bjallavirkjun would create a 30 km² reservoir inside a protected area by Veiðivötn. The dam itself is planned to built just on the edge of the protected area, west of Skaftafell National Park and Langisjór Lake and will be in the entrance of Landmannalaugar. The dam will produce 46 MW per year. LV has not said who would be the buyer.

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Minister of Industry Össur Skarphédinsson said at the Althingi (parliament) yesterday that experimental drilling in the geothermal area in northeast Iceland for the planned Alcoa aluminum smelter at Bakki near Húsavík should begin despite environmental assessment. Minister of the Environment Thórunn Sveinbjarnardóttir previously stated that Alcoa’s planned smelter at Bakki and the geothermal drilling that would power it need to be assessed as a whole. That may delay construction of the smelter. All of this is being discussed while there is already test drilling going on in Krafla ant Þeistareykir, which is proving highly destructive, as Saving Iceland reported earlier. Read More