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Most of your comment is wrong. They've been discussing building a 1GW cable. 7000 times smaller than 7TW. A 7TW cable would be enough to transmit Iceland's year

by avar 10y ago

Most of your comment is wrong. They've been discussing building a 1GW cable. 7000 times smaller than 7TW. A 7TW cable would be enough to transmit Iceland's yearly electricity production 700 times over. It produces ~10GW per annum. Hot water is not piped directly into the homes in Reykjavík, it's heated up "cold" water, with artificially added sulfur. See another comment of mine here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14274085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14274085 In Reykjavík the water you use is not recycled in any way, it's pumped into a sewer from there into the ocean. It's definitely not pumped the >50 km back to Nesjavellir for reprocessing.

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rconti 10y ago
Thank you for the corrections. I was in the datacenter but now I've googled it and found the information about the 1GW cable: http://www.atlanticsuperconnection.com http://www.atlanticsuperconnection.com I'm very surprised to find that the hot water is heated cold water. Where is it heated? Offsite, with geothermal plants, I must assume? Otherwise I'd be VERY confused about how my host would not know that he had 2 separate water heaters. Seems quite odd that a local would not know this, but I guess that's how rumors work. Is the hot water in radiators similarly offsite-heated water?
- avar 10y ago
  I interpreted your comment as saying that hot water was piped directly into homes from a natural source, but I see now that you may not have meant that. There are exceptions, but generally hot water is piped directly into homes in Iceland from municipal heating. There's no domestic water heaters. There are dual hot & cold water pipes everywhere. The hot water that comes out of the tap is from the same source that's in the hot water radiators. In the case of Reykjavík the hot water is initially cold water heated at Nesjavellir[1] and at [2] you can see an article in Icelandic about the pipe. It's 27km of 80x90cm pipe that can transfer 1600 liters of 100 degree hot water per second. Here's the pipe on Street View: https://goo.gl/jFzvYN https://goo.gl/jFzvYN The reason they heat up cold water is simply because most of the time when you find an abundant natural heat source it doesn't also come with an abundant natural water source. Therefore you pump cold water in, mix it with the heat, and pump out hot water. I don't know what fancy technology they use for this at Nesjavellir, but in some rural areas this setup is literally just a coiled pipe dropped into a hot spring. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesjavellir_Geothermal_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesjavellir_Geothermal_Power_S... 2. http://www.verkis.is/verkefni/veitur/vatnsveitur/nesjavallaraed http://www.verkis.is/verkefni/veitur/vatnsveitur/nesjavallar...
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  - rconti 10y ago
    I did understand the water to be piped directly into homes from a natural source, which is what my original comment reflected. However, in retrospect, that may have been a misunderstanding on my part rather than what my host literally told me. I perhaps combined the concept of municipal hot water and the sulfur smell into a concept where the hot water was actually geothermal water -- rather than normal water heated by geothermal power. I did see one of the very large geothermal plants, but am having a hard time remembering where it was. Either on my way to/from Thórsmörk, along the golden circle, or on a drive to Snaefellsnes. Thanks again for your insight!
mercutio2 10y ago
GW per annum is a unit you would use for the rate of installation of new power production capacity. Perhaps you meant Iceland's average power production is 10GW?

by avar 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

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rconti 10y ago

Thank you for the corrections. I was in the datacenter but now I've googled it and found the information about the 1GW cable: http://www.atlanticsuperconnection.com http://www.atlanticsuperconnection.com I'm very surprised to find that the hot water is heated cold water. Where is it heated? Offsite, with geothermal plants, I must assume? Otherwise I'd be VERY confused about how my host would not know that he had 2 separate water heaters. Seems quite odd that a local would not know this, but I guess that's how rumors work. Is the hot water in radiators similarly offsite-heated water?

avar 10y ago
I interpreted your comment as saying that hot water was piped directly into homes from a natural source, but I see now that you may not have meant that. There are exceptions, but generally hot water is piped directly into homes in Iceland from municipal heating. There's no domestic water heaters. There are dual hot & cold water pipes everywhere. The hot water that comes out of the tap is from the same source that's in the hot water radiators. In the case of Reykjavík the hot water is initially cold water heated at Nesjavellir[1] and at [2] you can see an article in Icelandic about the pipe. It's 27km of 80x90cm pipe that can transfer 1600 liters of 100 degree hot water per second. Here's the pipe on Street View: https://goo.gl/jFzvYN https://goo.gl/jFzvYN The reason they heat up cold water is simply because most of the time when you find an abundant natural heat source it doesn't also come with an abundant natural water source. Therefore you pump cold water in, mix it with the heat, and pump out hot water. I don't know what fancy technology they use for this at Nesjavellir, but in some rural areas this setup is literally just a coiled pipe dropped into a hot spring. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesjavellir_Geothermal_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesjavellir_Geothermal_Power_S... 2. http://www.verkis.is/verkefni/veitur/vatnsveitur/nesjavallaraed http://www.verkis.is/verkefni/veitur/vatnsveitur/nesjavallar...
- deleted 10y ago
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- rconti 10y ago
  I did understand the water to be piped directly into homes from a natural source, which is what my original comment reflected. However, in retrospect, that may have been a misunderstanding on my part rather than what my host literally told me. I perhaps combined the concept of municipal hot water and the sulfur smell into a concept where the hot water was actually geothermal water -- rather than normal water heated by geothermal power. I did see one of the very large geothermal plants, but am having a hard time remembering where it was. Either on my way to/from Thórsmörk, along the golden circle, or on a drive to Snaefellsnes. Thanks again for your insight!

mercutio2 10y ago

GW per annum is a unit you would use for the rate of installation of new power production capacity. Perhaps you meant Iceland's average power production is 10GW?