Natural resources

A film opened here this week called Draumaland, which talks about the impact the energy sector has had on the Icelandic landscape. There are two factors at play, the Icelandic power companies which build the geothermal and hydroelectric plants, and then the foreign companies (mostly aluminum smelters) that buy the newly produced energy at a very cheap price to produce goods for world-wide sale, and polluting the environment (though this has been reduced with recent innovations). Conversations in the media with experts in this matter, and the film itself, have all emphasized that this is not a simple two step process. Instead, it is more a "which came first the chicken-or-the-egg" type questions. Icelanders aren't just building damns for no reason, they are building them for the foreign industries, even before the foreign industries get here and start buying the energy. It is in fact a cycle with no clear beginning point. For Icelanders, I think this is upsetting because it suggests less national control over natural resources, more so than a genuine feeling of a ruined landscape, though of course the images of flooded valleys can be hard to take. 

Now, as everyone who has ever met me can attest, I absolutely adore the Icelandic landscape, I relish in its beauty and diversity. So I am not a fan of seeing it destroyed. But I also think that the production of clean energy is extremely important as part of a global effort to combat climate change, and I think in that sense the Icelandic landscape is being well utilized by both the power companies and the foreign industries that are here. Certainly better to do it here than somewhere else, where not only the industry is polluting, but so is the energy that goes into it.