Today was my first real touring day around Reykjavik. We were doing the waterfall and geysir and a couple of other places and started with the power plant which mostly supplies Reykjavik and the city is the majority owner but it does supply a couple of other small towns. I was surprised to learn that the water is used for heating and greenhouses but the one that surprised me is that it is also used to melt snow. There are hot water pipes laid underneath roads and parking lots and when it snows, they just send the hot water through and melt it rather than shovel and pile it up. Toronto could use some of that.
Iceland has been taping thermal and geologic power for awhile now but as late at 1967, they were burning coal for heating and Reykjavik was fairly polluted with the emissions. Glad they changed. She was telling us that the power plant sits on two techtonic plates, the North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate. But then later it seemed like we weren’t in the right place for that until we got around the lake and then we could see the movement. Supposedly the plates are moving apart at 2 ½ centimeters a year so it wouldn’t make sense to put the power plant right on top of the ridge.
Water comes out of the ground at 320C and they move it through curved pipes because it the pipes were straight, the force of the water would rip them apart and drag the pipes along with the water. Water is eventually cooled and injected back into the ground water.
On the way to the power plant, we passed a large lava field that was named Christian field. Someone was telling the Icelanders that they must be Christian and many were converting but the older people and some were trying to remain with the old gods, whom I think must have been many Norse and Viking gods since apparently the Norwegians settled Iceland. A lava flow was coming across the landscape towards this town and the pagans were saying it was because the gods were angry with Christianity and would just burn them out. The Christians were saying their god would protect them. As fate would have it, the lava field fell short of flowing into the town and destroying the Christians so it is called Christian field.
There was a buzzer in the power plant that you could push to hear what an earthquake sounds like. Walking around was fun as every few minutes someone would push the button. So a power plant can be interesting but we moved on to the Gullfoss waterfall (might be redundant there) and the geysir and Pingvellit but the P is not really like our P so can't spell it like it is pronounced.
Iceland has been taping thermal and geologic power for awhile now but as late at 1967, they were burning coal for heating and Reykjavik was fairly polluted with the emissions. Glad they changed. She was telling us that the power plant sits on two techtonic plates, the North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate. But then later it seemed like we weren’t in the right place for that until we got around the lake and then we could see the movement. Supposedly the plates are moving apart at 2 ½ centimeters a year so it wouldn’t make sense to put the power plant right on top of the ridge.
Water comes out of the ground at 320C and they move it through curved pipes because it the pipes were straight, the force of the water would rip them apart and drag the pipes along with the water. Water is eventually cooled and injected back into the ground water.
On the way to the power plant, we passed a large lava field that was named Christian field. Someone was telling the Icelanders that they must be Christian and many were converting but the older people and some were trying to remain with the old gods, whom I think must have been many Norse and Viking gods since apparently the Norwegians settled Iceland. A lava flow was coming across the landscape towards this town and the pagans were saying it was because the gods were angry with Christianity and would just burn them out. The Christians were saying their god would protect them. As fate would have it, the lava field fell short of flowing into the town and destroying the Christians so it is called Christian field.
There was a buzzer in the power plant that you could push to hear what an earthquake sounds like. Walking around was fun as every few minutes someone would push the button. So a power plant can be interesting but we moved on to the Gullfoss waterfall (might be redundant there) and the geysir and Pingvellit but the P is not really like our P so can't spell it like it is pronounced.
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