CELL Field Trip to Geiser, Gulfoss, and Burfell Hydropower Station

As part our CELL semester program, we take a variety of field trips - from trips to Reykjavik to visit art and natural history museums to hiking trips in the mountains skirting glaciers and waterfalls... This week we took a trip to the Burfell hydropower station and then to Geiser hot springs, Gulfoss waterfall and, finally, to an enchanted Icelandic forest.

Burfell Hydropower Station: Our day started at 8:15 a.m. when Begga, our friend and mentor here at Solheimar and her Viking daughter, Birta, picked us up at our home. We drove for an hour or so toward the Burfell Powerstation near Mt. Hekla, Iceland's most active volcano, as the sun leisurely rose in the east (we have about 7 hours of daylight on November 6th, and we are losing about 7 1/2 minutes of daylight per day. At Christmas, there is a little over 3 hours of daylight here at 66 degrees North). We drove through beautiful Icelandic countryside with sprawling sheep farms, moss-covered mountains, and ocassional waterfalls garnishing the scenery. Just before we arrived at the power station, Begga took us on a detour to a beautiful waterfall cascading down an 80' drop into the river below. Iceland is an amazingly beautiful country with so many natural gems to be expored..

At the Burfell Hydropower Station we were met by our guide who ushered us into the reception area for hot tea and snacks. He then presented a slide show/lecture followed by a quick tour of the hydropower station. Over 80% of Iceland's electricity is produced from renewable hydro- and geothermal power. This small island nation leads the world in the percentage of its energy generated from renewable sources. As Iceland produces far more energy than it needs (ten times more per capita than in the U.S.) it exports its renewable energy by importing electricity intensive industries, such as aluminum smelting. Bringing the aluminum industry to Iceland, however, has been quite controversial here. Iceland is currently trying to attract data farms, high tech data bases like Yahoo and Microsoft - businesses that require large amounts of electricity but don't impact the environment as adversely as aluminum smelters. This innovative thinking will enable Iceland to diversify its economy while attracting more environmentally friendly businesses/industries.

While visiting Burfell, we learned some of the pros and cons of hydropower. First, the pros: Electricity produced by hydropower does not produce C02 emissions, and does not pollute the atmosphere; once a dam is completed, electricity can be produced at a constant rate and if electricity is not needed, the sluice gates can be shut - stopping electricity generation and saving it for when it is needed; dams are designed to last for many decades; and the lake that forms behind the dam can be used for many purposes from irrigation for farms to a variety of recreational activities.

Second, the Cons: Dams are very expenseive to build and must operate for many decades to become profitable; the flooding of large areas of land means that the natural environment is destroyed; the building of large dams can cause geologic damage; and building large dams disrupts the natural flow of water within a watershed: disrupting fish migrations and impacting irrigation and ground water downstream, etc.

As with so many environmental issues, hydropower has advantages and disadvantages. It provides, perhaps, the cleanest form of electricity production on one hand, but it permanently floods large areas of land and disrupts river flow downstream on the other. So what is the answer? What we are learning through our CELL experience is that maybe the answer is not "one" solution, but rather a combination of ideas that can lead to more wholistic solutions - solutions designed to learn from our best architect -Nature. There are viable solutions for any problem - solutions that will enable us to develop our economy while stewarding our environment. Many nations around the world are successfully practicing this ecological approach to economic development. We can too. For example, we can develop an energy policy that promotes a variety of renewable options from solar to wind, from hydropower to hydrogen, from increasing energy efficiency of appliances to increasing our public transit systems, etc. And in terms of hydropower, perhaps, we can learn to build a few dams on a select number of rivers where the environmental impact is less severe and to look at hydropower as one piece of the pie and not as the whole pie...

After visiting the hydropower plant, we strolled up a nearby hill to check out a replica Saga Age farm that was covered in ash by an eruption of Mt. Hekla in 1104. It was so interesting to visit the farm house and church that had been rebuilt to rough specifications uncovered in an archaeological dig nearby. The main house was around 70 feet long by 25 feet wide, built into the hillside with a grass-covered roof, a main sleeping/meeting/game/cooking room in the middle, a working parlor on one end where women would spin wool into yarn and perform other chores, and another room on the opposite side of the house where people would enter in through a sturdy-planked wooden door. In the middle room was a fire pit where the family would cook and come to warm themselves, play games, have meetings, sleep, etc. Visiting this replica farm really made the history of the Viking era come alive. You could really imagine what life must have been like here in Iceland in the year 1104. It certainly wasn't a romantic life, but, nonetheless, it captured our imaginations of what it must have been like to live simply and closely with the earth, and to experience Iceland's harsh climate in such primitive conditions.

After our visit to the Viking Age farmhouse, we travelled to Geiser - the original hot spring from which the name geiser originates. Although the original Geiser now lies dormant, a sister hot spring nearby still dazzles visitors with her regular (10 minute interval) eruptions. It was exciting to wait in anticipation of the eruption which spurts from a geothermal hot spring hole in the ground 2 meters wide and filled with several thousand gallons of steamy-hot water. Just before she blows, the hot spring starts to bubble and rise and fall rapidly until suddently blowing its spout of hot steam 80 feet into the air (Geiser used to blow 80 meters/250 feet high). The anticipation of watching the hot spring build up pressure, was really fun - something like being a kid and watching an 80 foot jack-in-the-box about to explode, but not knowing exactly when and then jumping when it suddenly explodes out of the box. We all agreed that we could have stayed and watched the magic of the exploding steam for hours...

After visiting Geiser, we travelled to Gulfoss, an impressive waterfall (actually two waterfalls) dropping a combined height of over 100 feet. The canyon below Gulfoss was equally impressive extending for 3 kilometers downstream and reaching a depth of 70 meters (220 feet). Geologist believe that it may have been formed by torrential floods caused by glacial outbursts occuring near the end of the last ice age. It was so impressive to stand above the falls and to hear the roar of water below and to feel of the cloud of cool mist condensing on your cheeks. Just a small piece of experiencing Iceland...

On the way home from Gulfoss, we visited an enchanted forest near Geiser which I'll describe in a moment, but first a brief description of the area we are visiting. The land that surrounds Geiser and Gulfoss is typical Icelandic heathland - vegetated with lichens growing on rocks and forming irrigular patterns of varying colors. Farms also dotted the landscape with Icelandic sheep and horse pastures interspersed with wooly willows planted by farmers to provide wind breaks and to help control soil erosion. Shortly after Iceland's Settlement Period (AD 930), the country's forest and other vegetation became severely depleted. Where vegetation disappeared, the winds and rain quickly eroded the land. So, today, much of Iceland is devoid of forests, and some consider soil erosion to be Iceland's largest environmental problem. The Icelandic landscape, for the most part, is wide-open space with beautiful views of distant mountains and glaciers, but no trees. So, with this brief introduction, you might be able to emphathize with our sheer delight in visiting a real Icelandic forest.

We drove several kilometers from Geiser up a gravel rode to a several hundred acre spruce forest (one of Iceland's very few "forests") that had been planted by a Danish man 60 years ago. There's an Icelandic joke that goes: "What do you do if you get lost in an Icelandic forest?" Answer: "Stand up!" Most trees in Iceland are very short. The forest we visited, however, was different. It stretched from a valley up along a steep hillside with the largest trees towering over 60 feet above us. It was incredible walking along the forest trails over small foot bridges allowing us to navigate fast flowing, crystal-clear - drinkable water (no need to purify the water in Iceland, it is naturally the cleanest water in the world). As we walked, we absorbed the smell of spruce needles and moist air in our lungs. We hiked up a steep trail along a stream bed that dropped off sharply in places with mini-waterfalls along the way and soft moss-covered rocks. We hiked in twilight as the sun leisurely set in the west. It was such a peaceful place - an arboretum oasis - showing us the potential of what one man/one life can do to restore a gift of natural beauty to our planet. It makes me want to spend more time in natural areas and to support the conservation and preservation of wild places...