Iceland is Getting Hot and Steamy - 11/3/07

The Republic of Iceland is a leader in capturing geothermal power.  They consider this as “heat-mining” and they are profiting from the effort.  Olafur Grimsson lately visited the United States and spoke a numerous events and even testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.  President Grimsson accentuates the importance of geothermal energy to the economy and society of Iceland.  This is helping to completely change the dependence on coal and oil in Iceland in the past 30 years.  They were one of the poorest countries in the 1970’s throughout what was known as the European Common Market or now the European Union.  Since then Iceland has made a mindful and tactical commitment to build its domestic geothermal energy resources.  They have emphasized from large businesses to family homes the importance of geothermal energy and making this into a reality.  The electricity in Iceland is now 100% renewable energy.  All of the buildings are heated with geothermal energy.  For the most part, around 72% of Iceland’s total energy usage is tied to geothermal sources.  This helps to reduce hopefully all carbon emissions and noticeably reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels of any type. 

They have also learned how to turn this into a profitable business.  An example of this is that electricity is so cheap in Iceland that there is a flourishing business on the island that imports bauxite from the Caribbean area for the purposes of refining aluminum.  President Grimsson was surprised at the scarcity of geothermal power generations in the US.  A small 0.3% of all electricity generated in the 50 states is what the US is maintaining.  Most of that power is from California.  Grimsson stated that the US sits atop the second largest geothermal resource in the world.  He believes that if we can capture the “fireball on which we sit” that mankind could reinvent energy production across the world. 

President Grimsson also spoke to the US Senate in Washington DC.  The Senate is thinking of the National Geothermal Initiative Act of 2007 that is targeted towards promoting the development of geothermal energy resources within the US.  This sets a goal to achieve 20% of the total national electrical output from geothermal resources by 2030.  Grimsson once again stated that we must use the fire inside us. 

If developed properly Alaska could be an “investment magnet” for that state alone.  Iceland used to beg for investors and since tapping into their major resource of low-cost clean energy sources.  He believes that Alaska is really important for a source of alternatives to oil and gas.  This will help the smaller communities build their economies and improve the lives of the people there.

This may change the US national energy policy to wear they favor geothermal energy production.  We now have a goal.  Just like Kennedy had a goal to go to the moon.  By 2030 we must have an increase to 20% geothermal energy.  In conclusion, what we have now is a small sector of US energy business that is about to explode with growth throughout the next two decades.  This is exactly what we need for our investments.

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