We recently took two days off work and combined them into an extra-long weekend to try and take in all the sights North Iceland had to offer. Our official cover for this operation was to visit two geothermal power plants in the north. Our company was even kind enough to provide us with a VIP guide for the plant tours.
Our main base for this excursion was Akureyri, which is Iceland's 2nd largest city with ~17,000 inhabitants. Its other claim to fame is its natural scenic beauty and great weather, both of which I have to agree with. Here is a pic of the town and area.
And another one at sunset.
Kalina and Krafla Geothermal Power Plants
It turns out the two geothermal plants we quite different, both in physical size and the specific technology used. I won't bore you with the details, but lets just say there is more than one way to make a geothermal plant. The smaller one was 2 MegaWatts (MW), and the other 60MW. This means they can power approximately 2,000 and 60,000 homes, respectively.
Here is the schematic of the smaller one. Even I got confused quickly when I stared at it.
And here is a view of the surrounding area outside of the larger plant. I have no idea what I was gesturing at, but the white plumes (not pollution - only water vapor, I promise) coming out of the ground give away the plant's location.
Here is a shot of the inside where the two main turbines are. Since this plant is 60MW, each turbine produces 30MW of electricity. Cool to know that each one of those blue structures can power 30,000 homes isn't it?
This particular plant also has some interesting history. As one might imagine, these plants are all located in some active geothermal areas, but in this case the source is a nearby volcano. This particular volcano decided to erupt shortly after the plant had been built, and in fact the engineer giving us our tour was working when it blew. He said it was "interesting" to watch free-flowing lava in person. The plant building was not seriously damaged, although at least one of the geothermal wells erupted with lava!Here's a picture of the incident.
And another really impressive one. I had to lift this one off the internet (many thanks to the USGS).
Sure beats my average day at the office.We also decided to embark on a hike around the area, which was interesting because a large portion of the landscape was a dried lava field. Here's a good shot of what I mean - notice the green on either side of the valley, which is all black?
Here's what the black looks like up close.
Despite its treacherous appearance, it is quite safe to walk around on these lava rocks. I even took a small one home as a souvenir.Dimmuborgir
One of the places we stopped by is called "Dimmuborgir", which is Icelandic for Dark Castle. Located on a small road off the main highway, it has very unique terrain, even by Icelandic standards. Huge jagged boulders seem to randomly sprout out of the ground and together they form very tall structures. Here's a shot on top of a ridge when we first started our hike. If you look really hard, you can see people walking on a trail right in the middle of the photo. This gives a pretty good sense of scale.
Immediately I understood where the Dark Castle name comes from. Honestly, can't you imagine the bad guy from Lord of the Rings living here?
This next one was taken inside a cave named "The Church" because of its high ceiling and narrow entrance. I could almost conjure up images of a seance or exorcism being performed.
Maybe not my first location choice for a summer home, but at least you know where to find me if I end up ruling the world from an evil lair.Goðafoss
As mentioned in an earlier post, this country has all kinds of amazing waterfalls just a few miles off of main roads. Goðafoss is one such example. Viking history tells of a local magistrate who threw all of his pagan statues into this fall when the country converted to Christianity around 1000 AD.
And this is what the center of the falls looks like.
Part 2 coming soon! Click here, here, and here to see more pics at these locations.
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