Week 3

humpback whale tale!

Whale..yumm

Week three: We had classes each morning with Agust all week. On Monday we went over geothermal energy. It is much more complex than hydropower, so I am glad we learnt about that one first. Geothermal energy has many more parts rather than simply water being pushed through a turbine, spinning a generator. In this case, one needs to first find a location with high geothermal activity (usually near a volcano). A Borehole is drilled and hot liquid is pumped out of the ground. The liquid is usually a combination of steam and fluid, so it goes through a separating tank to separate out the steam and recycle the fluid/water. Then the steam goes through the turbine (causing the generator to spin). Depending on the complexity of the system there are more parts such as condensers (creating cold air below the turbine, creating a vacuum and making the turbine more efficient), heat exchangers and storage tanks. Sometime the excess steam can be used for space heating. Also, some areas of geothermal activity are only used for district heating, not electricity.

After lecture on Monday we went whale watching off the reykjavik harbor! It was fun, such a beautiful and sunny day made being out on the water very enjoyable. The first stop was by an island filled with birds, especially puffins, but we saw them up close and personal on our trip south last week so it wasn’t as cool. Then we headed out into the waters to find some whales. We saw minke whales maybe 3 or 4 times, and a humpback whale. The tour guide was very excited about the humpback because it was the first one he’s seen this season. After enjoying the beauty of the creature out in the ocean, we worked up an appetite for trying some minke. Iceland is one of three countries that can still legally hunt whale (Norway and Japan are the other two) and it is still a huge discussion whether or not it should be legal. We went to a cute little fish shack called Sea Baron and ordered a skewer of minke whale to split. It was very rare, which made it unenjoyable for me, but the outer grilled bit was actually quite tasty. It was like a fishy tasting steak.

The Boreholes were covered in funky looking shells

After another lecture on renewable energy on Tuesday we visited Hellisheidi geothermal powerplant. With all the boreholes it is a huge area covered with pipes and different tanks and steam separators. Apparently there are beautiful mountains all around the plant (we couldn’t see them because it was so foggy) and the plant was a bit of a controversy because it disturbed the natural beauty of the hiking. I find this a bit silly because Iceland is covered in naturally pure beauty and there are plenty of other places to hike around the area, and the energy produced is a very good profit for the country. But that’s just me.

Relaxing on the green

Agust gave us Wednesday afternoon off, so we decided to go down to the beach and have lunch there. It was filled with kids because it was the last week of school, but the weather was amazing so we all just laid out and relaxed. After a while of that, Jeremy and I decided to head downtown for a drink or two. We started off at a café with a little outdoor patio and couldn’t figure out where all the people were hanging out on such a beautiful day. After that beer, we walked over to the parliament to find the green filled with 20-something year olds drinking beers, who knew? So we decided to follow suit, headed to the liquor store to buy some singles and hung out on the green all afternoon.