Reykjavík Grapevine - 15.07.2011, Blaðsíða 27

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27
Step into
the Viking Age
Experience Viking-Age Reykjavík at the
new Settlement Exhibition. The focus of the
exhibition is an excavated longhouse site which
dates from the 10th century ad. It includes
relics of human habitation from about 871, the
oldest such site found in Iceland.

Multimedia techniques bring Reykjavík’s
past to life, providing visitors with insights
into how people lived in the Viking Age, and
what the Reykjavík environment looked like
to the first settlers.
The exhibition and
museum shop are open
daily 10–17
A!alstræti 16
101 Reykjavík / Iceland
Phone +(354) 411 6370
www.reykjavikmuseum.is
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10 — 2011
the City Manager of Akranes and of
Borganes. However, the idea fell by the
wayside when the frenzy erupted over
Reykjavík Energy Invest. “Since then
it hasn’t been brought up again, and I
doubt it will be,” Svandís said. “Well I
hope not.”
Reykjavík Energy Invest still exists
today though its ambition is far from
the grandiose dreams of its founders.
Independence Party City Council-
lor Kjartan Magnússon, who became
Chairman of Reykjavík Energy in Janu-
ary 2008, a few months after the REI
scandal exploded, explained: “We de-
cided after I became chairman to fulfil
our commitments in projects abroad, in
Djibouti for instance, but to stop the fi-
nancing of such projects thereafter, and
instead focus on selling knowledge and
expertise.”
Said Anna Skúladóttir: “Unfortu-
nately, looking back I think that every-
one ran around crazy in 2007, it didn’t
matter whether it was the municipal-
ity, State, companies, individuals—ev-
eryone was blinded. Hopefully we’ve
learned something from this and can
look forward.”
It might be noted that in 2009,
Reykjavík Energy purchased a 7.1 mil-
lion ISK Mercedez Benz ML 350 for
Anna’s personal use. Anna went on to
return the car in 2010 after Icelandic
tabloid DV ran an indignant story about
it.
A ROSY STORY INDEED
Though the crash alone is a convenient
excuse as Reykjavík Energy’s debt dou-
bled in 2008 due to fall of the króna
and financing became more difficult, it
could also be said that Reykjavík Energy
was as much a victim of the financial
crisis as Iceland’s banks were a victim
of the United States mortgage crisis.
Truth be told, Reykjavík Energy
managed in less than a decade to run
a perfectly viable company into the
ground, despite having the ingredients
of a cash cow. As President Ólafur Rag-
nar Grímsson tells Icelanders, foreign
leaders and journalists alike, geother-
mal know-how in Iceland is first class,
and people come from all over the world
to see it firsthand.
“We have great competitive advan-
tages,” Ólafur said at a geothermal con-
ference last year. “One is that Iceland is
the only place in the world where you
can, in a single day, witness all the as-
pects of geothermal utilisation. You can
witness three geothermal power plants,
a greenhouse town in a farming area, a
world famous international spa, a med-
ical clinic, as many swimming pools as
you want to and visit fishing companies
that use geothermal energy for drying
their products.”
He continued: “…When we bring
people here, they are inspired, they
have a vision. They leave Iceland full
of hope, inspired by the possibilities.
That is very important, because politi-
cal decision-making and even business
decision-making need more than mere
calculations. They also need a vision
and inspiration—hope. That is what we
can give.”
With all the geothermal know-how
in the world, however, Iceland’s larg-
est multi-utility geothermal energy
company was inspired by a vision that
took hold of Iceland during the finan-
cial bubble, which grew rapidly for a
decade, peaked in 2007 and then burst
in 2008.
When we called up the President
to ask about his geothermal rhetoric,
he explained, “The reason why I have
emphasised the geothermal experience
of Iceland as well as the technological
know-how is that I believe this the most
significant contribution we can make
to the battle against climate change,
which seriously is the most fundamen-
tal threat that the world faces.”
He added: “Even if one company in
Iceland does badly it doesn’t mean that
we should think to take this away from
other countries, and quite frankly there
is such a strong demand from the world
to have access to Icelandic cooperation
in this area that our problem is to meet
the requests and they come from poor
countries in the developing world to
rich countries in Europe and the West-
ern world.”
Despite the dark outlook presented
by rating agencies for Reykjavík Energy,
Jón Gnarr is optimistic. “The state of
Reykjavík Energy is still difficult, and
it’s very sensitive to exchange rates,” he
told me, “but I believe that the plan that
we have initiated is very good, and I am
confident that the state of Reykjavík En-
ergy will improve.”
‘OUTVASION’
Yes, it’s a made up English word

The term ‘outvasion’ is a direct
translation of the Icelandic word
‘útrás,’ which is often used to
describe Icelander’s expansion
overseas. The ‘útrásavíkingar’ or
‘outvasion Vikings’ refers to the
businessmen who set out to conquer
the world with a Viking-like ambi-
tion that ultimately brought about
Iceland’s downfall in 2008.