What a Day!

Yesterday, the geologists and engineers split up, so we will have a guest speaker, Mike Rasmussen, describe the geology adventures...

The engineers headed out to visit a number of interesting 'hotspots', including an energy museum, a geothermal plant, a hydro power station, a hydrogren filling station, and the headquarters of one of Iceland's largest power plants. The energy museum provided a great deal of insight on the history of Iceland's power situation, describing the troubles Iceland has faced, as well as the resources from which it has been able to harness energy. We were then able to see first hand the processes by which that energy is acquired. Over 90% of space heating in Iceland comes from geothermal sources, though this is not its only use. After drawing hot water from the rift zone (over 200 degrees C), it must be processed. The water is sent (via insulated pipes) to one of Iceland's five processing plants. At the plant, the steam is separated from the water (water is then used for heating, and is eventually sent into Icelander's homes. The steam continues on to an aerator, which eliminates unwanted chemicals, and gets rid of all 'wet' steam (which may be in a two-phase state, containing liquid). This is a critical process because water in a liquid state could potentially destroy the turbine blades which are used for harvesting energy from the quickly moving steam. The steam is directed to either a high pressure generator (8 bar) or a low pressure generator (2 bar), which subsequently creates the power which is utilized by the Icelanders (so long as they are hooked up to the power grid).

The hydro power station borrows energy from nature in a somewhat different fashion. Located near a source of flowing water, a hydro station redirects some of the flow through a number of turbines, before allowing the water to meet back up with the river. This process requires a number of workers to be on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

These experiences provided a fantastic opportunity for all of us to meet with a number of field experts, and take a closer look at exactly what opportunities for meeting our power demands exist in natural and closed loop cycles.

The geologist chronicles:

With a monster truck looking van outside, we felt confident that we were going to be able to traverse the difficult conditions that lay ahead of us. There were rumors of some roads being washed out and other rumors of roads blocked by quicksand, so we felt fortunate that we had such a ridiculously tough looking "van." As it turned out the engineers took the van, something I took to be some kind of sick joke, and we took a classic style touring bus, with and Austrian driver who smelled very....."European." He made up for this by sporting one of the finest mullets I had ever seen, and proceeded to chauffer us across the Southern end of Iceland. Our first stop was a waterfall which we were able to actually go behind the falling water itself. Finally Kevin's suggestion of bringing water proof gear was made useful, as the weather had finally returned to normal; rainy and windy. We made a stop at yet another waterfall after this, which we could not go behind but was much bigger and was therefor not a disappointment. We stopped for a traditional Icelandic meal consisting of a cheeseburger and fries at a pseudo truck stop which was suprisingly full of people. We then went to one of the famous black sand beaches of Iceland, with soft black sand and sea stacks sticking out of the water like jagged teeth. The view of these spires, coupled with the thin mist crowning the cliffs above the beach was truly one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen; suddenly the rain didn't seem so bad, ane could do little else than feel fortunate for laying eyes on such a landscape. On to another beach, which sported basalt column formations and more sea spires. This beach also boasted a view of one of the more well known features; a sea arch. These basalt columns look like a series of steps, and are so perfect in shape it seemed insane that they could have come from simple erosion.(pictures will be posted later of the various formations) With every corner on this beach, the views got more and more spectacular, and the poor weather mattered less and less. Our driver then braved the nearly impassible road leading up to Myrdas Jokull glacier(possibly misspelled). This road had been completely washed away at one point, and the "new" replacement road was only slightly better than not having a road at all. Still the little bus made it to the glacier where we were treated to a close up look at one of the increasingly rare features of the world. One of us even decided to take a quick dip into the glacial stream (slipped in and went up to their knees). Being that the person was unhurt, save their pride, this was quite hilarious at the time. We also encountered some quick sand on the way out, something that came as a bit of a supris as the rocks beneath my feet began to sink down into the mud. This was more interesting than an inconvenience. We made it back to the bus and headed West, back to civilization (and dry socks). Completely sure that our day had trumped any perpindicular piping and turbines that the engineers had seen...ooooo it burns, doesn't it?