Iceland review - 2006, Síða 59

56 ICELAND REVIEW ICELAND REVIEW 57
THE DEBATE
By 2008, iceland will produce more energy per capita than any other
country in the world. since 1996, the production of hydroelectric
power in iceland has increased by 60 percent, and the Kárahnjúkar
project will raise it by an additional 60 percent.
STOP THE DAMS?
in july 2005, greta Ósk sigurdardóttir and her husband, gudmundur
ármannsson, 60, orchestrated an anti-dam protest at their farm near
egilsstadir. a small band of protestors from around the world camped
in their farm’s field for a month in an attempt to stop construction.
saving iceland, which organized last summer’s protest, has called for
another international protest in july 2006.
“The politicians say the dam covers an area that is uninhabited, but
it’s all the area from the glacier to the sea that will be affected,” says
sigurdardóttir. “This is the biggest dam ever built in europe on a
volcanic ground. There is risk of erosion. This is scary for all of us.”
in 2002 Björk’s mother, hildur rúna hauksdóttir famously went on a
hunger strike to halt the dam’s construction, and in january, an icelandic
environmental group organized a concert under the motto “stop the
dams!” over 5,000 people attended the event.
pollution is another concern. árni finnsson, an environmental activist
from náttúruverndarsamtök Íslands (iceland nature conservation
association), is concerned about greenhouse gases produced during
aluminum production. “one ton of aluminum produced generates
almost two tons of greenhouse gases,” he says. “and there will be a
huge impact in the reservoir surrounding the alcoa aluminum plant.”
critics around the world are also weighing in. The popular weblog
of Beppe grillo (www.beppegrillo.is), an italian comedian and
pro-environmentalist, sums up the paradoxical situation: “a paradise
on earth will be destroyed; global pollution is perpetuated; we are
punishing icelanders for not having polluted enough so far; the only
one who makes profit out of all this is alcoa.”
BETTER HERE THAN THERE?
while smelters close in the Us and central europe due to increased
energy and production costs, companies like alcoa have been
relocating to countries that offer energy at lower costs, like iceland,
parts of the persian gulf, africa, asia and south america.
“if the world needs the lightweight metal called aluminum, it is better
for the world to produce the aluminum in iceland than in the persian
gulf,” landsvirkjun’s hilmarsson says. since not all of the countries offer
cleaner hydroelectric and geothermal energy, he says running smelters
in other countries ultimately produces more global co2 emissions.
Because iceland hasn’t signed on to previous large-scale industrial
projects, it has remained a fairly pristine environment. Under the Kyoto
protocol, iceland is allowed to increase its greenhouse gas emissions
by 10 percent until 2012. Thus it can afford projects like the alcoa
smelter, which produce co2 emissions, however low they may be.
landsvirkjun says the project will help strengthen the national economy,
create jobs and diversify exports. offering energy to multinationals
could create a new opportunity for the country. researchers from the
ministry of environment have found the project “feasible.”
us, the Italians, the foreigners, the bad guys,” said Franceschi.
“They say we want to destroy the landscape, but the reality is the
government wanted this project. They decided to build the dam
here, and we are only executing it. But we are their scapegoat.”
In two days, Kárahnjúkar, wrapped in snow and silence, started to
reveal itself. The life of this isolated community started to the take
shape of human faces and stories of workers who chose to live a life
that is hard to understand and appreciate from the outside. I felt I
was just starting to gain an understanding of the rules and the spirit
of a community of people whose lives are so deeply shaped by their
jobs that life becomes work. And for whom the main resource they
rely on in such extreme circumstances is human relationships.
In our last few minutes of conversation driving down the valley,
Franceschi told me his friends back in Italy think he chose an
adventurous life, full of excitement and travels, but he says the
reality of their lives is very different.
“We rarely leave the camp, and all we can do after work is be
with our family or watch television. The adventure for us is the
construction itself,” Franceschi said. “The real adventure for us is
looking at a landscape and a project that changes and grows every
day because of your work.”