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There's so many exciting projects[1] going on in Europe in this space. The offshore Danish wind power island and the massive wind farms off the UK coast for exa

There's so many exciting projects[1] going on in Europe in this space. The offshore Danish wind power island and the massive wind farms off the UK coast for example. Given how windy[2] the coastlines around Britain and Ireland are, it's great to see this in development. One project I'd like to see get implemented is connecting Iceland to Britain to give 24/7 renewable baseload energy via undersea cables to Britain and potentially to mainland Europe. This would reduce the need for so many battery capacity being built out[3]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25558986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25558986 [2] https://www.windy.com/?55.176,-3.587,7 https://www.windy.com/?55.176,-3.587,7 [3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iceland-energy-britain/iceland-magma-drilling-project-may-revive-giant-uk-power-cable-link-idUSKBN17C17E https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iceland-energy-britain/ic...

jopsen 6y ago
[3] makes me wonder if we could simply convert Iceland to a giant geothermal power plant, and power most of Europe.. Sure, it would take some investment, but isn't the technology already here?
- foepys 6y ago
  The Swiss tried geothermal power at large scale but the initial tests caused two earthquakes of 3.5 and 3.4 respectively. They then stopped the project. Maybe somebody else has examples of well running geothermal power plants but at least the Swiss are quite vary of them.
  - jopsen 6y ago
    Iceland does lots of geothermal power.. indeed power intensive industries like aluminum refining favor Iceland due to low power cost. Sure, it's hard to know how far geothermal in Iceland could scale.. But there is an active volcano, how much worse can it get? :)
- patrickk 6y ago
  That’s what I often think. We have the technology. Sure it will take some time to iron out the kinks and there will be transmission losses but we can do this with current technology. Despite all the recent talk the real barriers are lack of political will and investment, it was viewed as an emergency we could pull it off very quickly indeed.
- rurounijones 6y ago
  And what a juicy military target those undersea power cables would be in such a situation (Unfortunately)
- throw0101a 6y ago
  That'd be quite the underwater cable. It'd span about 900 km to get to the Scottish mainland: * http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?MP=r&R=900km%40BIHN http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?MP=r&R=900km%40BIHN 1050 km to reach the tip of Norway (or Ireland).
  - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
    So what? Use the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faroe_Islands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faroe_Islands as junction, and branch from there to Scotland and Norway. Each branch wouldn't be that different in distance from the part between Cyprus and Crete from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroAsia_Interconnector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroAsia_Interconnector or the related https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroAfrica_Interconnector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroAfrica_Interconnector

jopsen 6y ago

[3] makes me wonder if we could simply convert Iceland to a giant geothermal power plant, and power most of Europe.. Sure, it would take some investment, but isn't the technology already here?

foepys 6y ago
The Swiss tried geothermal power at large scale but the initial tests caused two earthquakes of 3.5 and 3.4 respectively. They then stopped the project. Maybe somebody else has examples of well running geothermal power plants but at least the Swiss are quite vary of them.
- jopsen 6y ago
  Iceland does lots of geothermal power.. indeed power intensive industries like aluminum refining favor Iceland due to low power cost. Sure, it's hard to know how far geothermal in Iceland could scale.. But there is an active volcano, how much worse can it get? :)
patrickk 6y ago
That’s what I often think. We have the technology. Sure it will take some time to iron out the kinks and there will be transmission losses but we can do this with current technology. Despite all the recent talk the real barriers are lack of political will and investment, it was viewed as an emergency we could pull it off very quickly indeed.
rurounijones 6y ago
And what a juicy military target those undersea power cables would be in such a situation (Unfortunately)
throw0101a 6y ago
That'd be quite the underwater cable. It'd span about 900 km to get to the Scottish mainland: * http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?MP=r&R=900km%40BIHN http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?MP=r&R=900km%40BIHN 1050 km to reach the tip of Norway (or Ireland).
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  So what? Use the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faroe_Islands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faroe_Islands as junction, and branch from there to Scotland and Norway. Each branch wouldn't be that different in distance from the part between Cyprus and Crete from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroAsia_Interconnector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroAsia_Interconnector or the related https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroAfrica_Interconnector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroAfrica_Interconnector