Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumHellisheiği: A Geothermal Embarrassment
So many men, so many minds. Only about ten kilometres away from the plant stands the small town of Hveragerði, wherein one gets to hear a completely different story. We cannot accept that OR will be permitted to continue polluting the atmosphere, Hallgrímur Þ. Magnússon, clinical doctor in Hveragerði said to newspaper DV last June. A few days earlier he had voiced his worries to local newspaper Sunnlenska, encouraging the towns residents to start taking magnesium and iodide supplements to counteract the health impacts of the power plants sulphur (hydrogen sulphide) pollution. I maintain that the pollution is of such quantity that the human body needs those two materials in order to resist the effects, Hallgrímur said to Sunnlenska.
Recent inspection makes it clear that the sulphur pollution, which does not only reach to Hveragerði but also to Reykjavík, often goes far above Icelandic and international standards. In the case of Hveragerði, the quantity of polluting materials in the atmosphere is such that the town should be considered within the plants dilution area (the area in which residential homes are not permitted).
Plus ca change...
From the Saving Iceland website.
The cited article is Hellisheiði: A Geothermal Embarrassment
Apparently not all Icelanders are content to live in a renewable energy paradise.
JohnnyLib2
(11,212 posts)We were there in January and of course there was no mention of controversy. Various tour guides around the area routinely mentioned
geothermal energy; this station is one of the major tourist points outside of Reykjavik.
hunter
(38,325 posts)"They have sold their energy to the aluminium smelters way too cheap and now they cant afford to reduce their pollution. That is, in my opinion, the reason why they are trying to stop the new regulations."
The aluminum business itself is dirty and largely unnecessary to human happiness.
On the other hand, many nations seem hell bent on powering aluminum smelters with coal and giant hydroelectric projects, so things can always be worse.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)and sure enough - things got worse!
NNadir
(33,541 posts)That's the other featured form of so called "renewable energy" that is featured on the "Saving Iceland" website.
Pushing for 8 new hydroelectric plants in Iceland
A rather big consumer of aluminum is the car industry, including the famous or infamous subsidized "Tesla" car for millionaires and billionaires which is inexplicably rather popular with a subset of human beings who call themselves "environmentalists," although personally, I hardly see the members of this set as being particularly concerned with the environment.
But that's just me...
In fact the lightweight and strong metal, aluminum, is very popular with the "efficiency will save us" crowd.
We know these kinds of people well, the sort who drive to the shopping mall at Christmas in their coal powered electric car to buy Sierra club calendars with pictures of Yosemite from back in the days when their was snow on El Capitan so that come summer, when people come over for a steak cook out with hormone free dead cows, everyone seeing the calendar can be inspired to talk about what a shame it is that those evil corporations are trashing the environment.
hunter
(38,325 posts)I used to ride my bike to Sierra Club meetings where a bunch of older wealthy white people would talk about their vacations to "unspoiled" places around the globe with zero awareness that it was their own culture that was spoiling places.
I quit the Sierra Club in the 'eighties.
Gentrification in urban areas is a similar problem. The wealthy empty people flock to the places that are not empty, displacing the non-empty people, creating new places of very expensive banality.
Nobody on the planet is so dangerous as a bored and boring millionaire or billionaire.
Sorry Kermit, you sold out.