Iceland’s Green Man

How has renewable energy functioned more broadly as an economic-development tool?
We have had a policy of trying to diversify the economy away from fisheries for decades into areas like financial services and tourism. Thanks to renewable energy, power-intensive industries can now serve as a new pillar underneath our economy. There's been a decision to build a data center on the former U.S. base of Keflavik, which will tap into our renewable electricity. We'll see how that develops. Our power companies are receiving a lot of inquiries from companies, partly because the relative price of energy is favorable.

You say that the importance of geothermal energy goes far beyond the domestic economy. How so?
There's another side to geothermal that is increasingly important, and that's development cooperation. For more than 30 years, we have been home to the geothermal department of the United Nations University. They have been training scientists from developing countries who have now become important personalities in the field throughout the home countries. We can contribute to the economic development of foreign countries by teaching them to use this resource that is more commonly available than people think, including in the United States.

What advice would you offer to political leaders and executives who blanch at the high cost of the investments required?
When my mother was growing up, there were people around who remembered the coal dust clouding the sky over Reykjavik in the 1930s and 1940s. Now, with a natural hot-water heating system, it's a completely clean city. This has taken decades with a lot of investment.

© 2008