Saving Iceland

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

From Reverend Billy

A year ago we were with you in Iceland, the land of fire and ice and spirits and charms! This year we get news and images on the computers. Congratulations on the Century Aluminum Smelter blockade. You slowed down the output from that day, July 21, 2008. You’re saving lives! Every hour that an F-16 is not yet in the air…

Wandering your website, I remember my sermon last year. I tried to conjure the memory of Crazy Horse and bring his spirit to your struggle for Iceland. Savitri remembers the recurring phrase, “The land is innocent and powerful.” I don’t remember much of the specifics of my talk that afternoon, which was itself an on-the-spot remembering. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the river valley in our windows and simultaneously my boyhood love of the stories of Crazy Horse, from when my family lived in the Dakotas.

And so if you will read this letter, and help us bring back that day in the hotel conference room in Olfus… Writing is an act of memory and by writing this letter to you today — maybe some of your year-ago campaign, and our sermon within it, will resurface in these pages. Read More

Jaap Krater, Morgunbladid – Thórunn Sveinbjarnardóttir’s has said the environmental impact of Alcoa’s planned Bakki smelter and the associated energy production needs to be considered jointly (1). This poses the question whether or not new dams will be needed for heavy industry in the north. Looking at what can be realistically realised from geothermal plants, it becomes clear that a number of hydro projects will inevitably be necessary to power the Bakki smelter, and they should be taken into the assessment. In this article Jaap Krater analyses the energy calculations for the smelter and potential power plants. Read More