4 ms·

Iceland effectively has free electricity. I believe they are one of the biggest producers of refined aluminum. Could use it as a way station to process raw mate

Iceland effectively has free electricity. I believe they are one of the biggest producers of refined aluminum. Could use it as a way station to process raw material that require a lot of electricity.

ponector 2y ago
Free? Half of the world has cheaper electricity than Iceland according to https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-electricity-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-e...
- Scoundreller 2y ago
  I wonder how much that cost is just amortizing delivery costs. If most of the population has district heating, there isn’t much of a load per residence.
- xhkkffbf 2y ago
  I'm always interested in how reality can be different from the popular notions. Sure, they have plenty of geothermal energy but it's not free to turn that heat into electricity. And many other things are pretty expensive on that island so it's not surprising that the cost of generators and other machinery is also expensive. But we can dream that it's free, right?
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    There's no need to turn the heat into electricity then back into heat — they use district heating to move the heat directly to buildings. This site says 90% of the population is covered by the system. https://www.greencitytimes.com/geothermal-district-heating-in-iceland/ https://www.greencitytimes.com/geothermal-district-heating-i...
  - yownie 2y ago
    >geothermal energy Geothermal here is used for heating homes, electricity production comes from Hydropower generation (dams). Source, an Icelander.
    - vasco 2y ago
      And farming in winter!
    - Symbiote 2y ago
      About a third of your electricity is from geothermal sources. Source: the actual data. https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/IS https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/IS
- buckle8017 2y ago
  Electricity in Iceland is very political. The aluminum smelters are paying something like $0.02/kWh. Foreign buyers who setup real industry will pay about $0.05/kWh. Bitcoin miners will pay $0.10/kWh. The real cost to produce from volcanic sources is under $0.01/kWh.
  - skirge 2y ago
    how do you track Bitcoin miners at home? I will claim I'm producing moonshine!
    - petre 2y ago
      You look at the electricity bill. If it's much higher than usual, it's most probably either a BTC mining operation or an underground Cannabis farm.
    - buckle8017 2y ago
      This discussion is about industrial power.
- Symbiote 2y ago
  Those are residential consumer prices. Denmark's 35¢/kWh for households is only 9¢/kWh for industrial users, and (from another site) even less for "very large industrial" users. Iceland's figure isn't given. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics#Electricity_prices_for_non-household_consumers https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
  - yownie 2y ago
    Because all of our wholesale contracts are negotiated in secret without public approval (Icelander here)
    - rcbdev 2y ago
      Sue them for environmental damage via their energy contracts and request this information under the Aarhus Convention, which your country is a signatory to. In case your electricity is run by the government you might also have Freedom of Information laws like Austria, Slovenia or Sweden that would grant you access to such public-sector contracts, if requested.
    - doikor 2y ago
      This is mostly the same here in Finland (one of the cheapest non household electricity prices in Europe.) Though I don’t see much of an issue as that is just a contract between two private parties. What is the ownership structure like in Iceland? Also in the case of some of the most electricity consuming industries they are mostly buying from themselves (Pohjolan Voima which is a owned by a group of heavy industry companies)
- xxs 2y ago
  Comparing retail prices is pointless when replying to a comment referring the heavy industry.
- veeti 2y ago
  This data is wildly off base for at least Finland, so I would take it with a grain of salt.
  - fifilura 2y ago
    Yeah, summarizing electricity cost with one number is not doable in countries where seasons vary as much as in Finland. Electricity cost will always be higher during winter where it is needed for heating. And this is where households will also use more.
    - doikor 2y ago
      For heavy industry they are buying from themselves when the electricity prices spike (Pohjolan Voima). Basically they always get it at cost of production (mankala periaate). This is why you don’t see upm kymmene, stora enso, kemira, etc profits go down when electricity prices are high (they go up as they can sell what they don’t need for massive profits). This mainly applies during "normal" times (when olkiluoto nuclear plants go down which they own a big chunk of or something like that the situation might change)
LtWorf 2y ago
But not unlimited
- debesyla 2y ago
  Isn't it geothermal? So just drill deeper..? Or something? (I am a dummy at this topic, just asking.)
  - lovemenot 2y ago
    Geothermal yes. And hydroelectric, even moreso.
  - LtWorf 2y ago
    There's not infinite spots where you can do it.
mrbabbage 2y ago
When you're driving the highway from the international airport at Keflavík to Reykjavík, the first big building you see is a massive Rio Tinto aluminum smelter: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ATHxAWRLKLMf8Gbh8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/ATHxAWRLKLMf8Gbh8
throwaway2037 2y ago
> one of the biggest producers of refined aluminum I googled for it. It is not even in the top 10. Norway is #8. My guess: Hydro power from Norway fjords is much cheaper than geothermal power from Iceland.
- rob74 2y ago
  According to this article https://archive.is/v5k1Y https://archive.is/v5k1Y, Iceland also has hydro power. > Alcoa arrived in 2007 after Iceland built a giant power plant on the other side of the island, near a sparsely populated region where the fishing industry was in decline. Iceland’s electric utility built five highland dams that capture glacial meltwater. The largest of the resulting reservoirs is roughly the size of Manhattan. The water is piped 25 miles to an underground power plant, then dropped a quarter-mile down another pipe to make the turbines spin. Finally, the resulting electricity is transmitted 47 miles on high-voltage lines to the ocean’s edge. Electricity in Iceland costs about 30 percent less than what Alcoa might pay in the United States. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rahnj%C3%BAkar_Hydropower_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rahnj%C3%BAkar_Hydropow... I would say that Norway has an advantage because Iceland's remoteness makes it more expensive to ship the bauxite there (there is no bauxite mining in Iceland itself) and the aluminum back. Still, it's apparently the second largest aluminum producer in Europe.
  - mtnGoat 2y ago
    Alcoa actually owns 26% of the output of a hydro electric dam on the Columbia River(Rock Island Dam) directly adjacent to it’s mothballed factory. It’s not that they can’t get power in the US cheaper, it’s that they can resell that power at higher profit than running a smelter with that power. Thousands of jobs left the town and now a several billion dollar plant sits idle. The idea recently floated they sell the land, power and water rights to MSFT for their new water cooled data center’s nearby, but MSFT didn’t want to own all that infra.
- petre 2y ago
  Hydro turbines are almost always peaker plants, with Niagara as an exception. Geothermal is base load. They don't really compare.

Iceland effectively has free electricity. I believe they are one of the biggest producers of refined aluminum. Could use it as a way station to process raw material that require a lot of electricity.

ponector 2y ago

Free? Half of the world has cheaper electricity than Iceland according to https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-electricity-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-e...

Scoundreller 2y ago
I wonder how much that cost is just amortizing delivery costs. If most of the population has district heating, there isn’t much of a load per residence.
xhkkffbf 2y ago
I'm always interested in how reality can be different from the popular notions. Sure, they have plenty of geothermal energy but it's not free to turn that heat into electricity. And many other things are pretty expensive on that island so it's not surprising that the cost of generators and other machinery is also expensive. But we can dream that it's free, right?
- Symbiote 2y ago
  There's no need to turn the heat into electricity then back into heat — they use district heating to move the heat directly to buildings. This site says 90% of the population is covered by the system. https://www.greencitytimes.com/geothermal-district-heating-in-iceland/ https://www.greencitytimes.com/geothermal-district-heating-i...
- yownie 2y ago
  >geothermal energy Geothermal here is used for heating homes, electricity production comes from Hydropower generation (dams). Source, an Icelander.
  - vasco 2y ago
    And farming in winter!
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    About a third of your electricity is from geothermal sources. Source: the actual data. https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/IS https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/IS
buckle8017 2y ago
Electricity in Iceland is very political. The aluminum smelters are paying something like $0.02/kWh. Foreign buyers who setup real industry will pay about $0.05/kWh. Bitcoin miners will pay $0.10/kWh. The real cost to produce from volcanic sources is under $0.01/kWh.
- skirge 2y ago
  how do you track Bitcoin miners at home? I will claim I'm producing moonshine!
  - petre 2y ago
    You look at the electricity bill. If it's much higher than usual, it's most probably either a BTC mining operation or an underground Cannabis farm.
  - buckle8017 2y ago
    This discussion is about industrial power.
Symbiote 2y ago
Those are residential consumer prices. Denmark's 35¢/kWh for households is only 9¢/kWh for industrial users, and (from another site) even less for "very large industrial" users. Iceland's figure isn't given. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics#Electricity_prices_for_non-household_consumers https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
- yownie 2y ago
  Because all of our wholesale contracts are negotiated in secret without public approval (Icelander here)
  - rcbdev 2y ago
    Sue them for environmental damage via their energy contracts and request this information under the Aarhus Convention, which your country is a signatory to. In case your electricity is run by the government you might also have Freedom of Information laws like Austria, Slovenia or Sweden that would grant you access to such public-sector contracts, if requested.
  - doikor 2y ago
    This is mostly the same here in Finland (one of the cheapest non household electricity prices in Europe.) Though I don’t see much of an issue as that is just a contract between two private parties. What is the ownership structure like in Iceland? Also in the case of some of the most electricity consuming industries they are mostly buying from themselves (Pohjolan Voima which is a owned by a group of heavy industry companies)
xxs 2y ago
Comparing retail prices is pointless when replying to a comment referring the heavy industry.
veeti 2y ago
This data is wildly off base for at least Finland, so I would take it with a grain of salt.
- fifilura 2y ago
  Yeah, summarizing electricity cost with one number is not doable in countries where seasons vary as much as in Finland. Electricity cost will always be higher during winter where it is needed for heating. And this is where households will also use more.
  - doikor 2y ago
    For heavy industry they are buying from themselves when the electricity prices spike (Pohjolan Voima). Basically they always get it at cost of production (mankala periaate). This is why you don’t see upm kymmene, stora enso, kemira, etc profits go down when electricity prices are high (they go up as they can sell what they don’t need for massive profits). This mainly applies during "normal" times (when olkiluoto nuclear plants go down which they own a big chunk of or something like that the situation might change)

LtWorf 2y ago

But not unlimited

debesyla 2y ago
Isn't it geothermal? So just drill deeper..? Or something? (I am a dummy at this topic, just asking.)
- lovemenot 2y ago
  Geothermal yes. And hydroelectric, even moreso.
- LtWorf 2y ago
  There's not infinite spots where you can do it.

mrbabbage 2y ago

When you're driving the highway from the international airport at Keflavík to Reykjavík, the first big building you see is a massive Rio Tinto aluminum smelter: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ATHxAWRLKLMf8Gbh8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/ATHxAWRLKLMf8Gbh8

throwaway2037 2y ago

> one of the biggest producers of refined aluminum I googled for it. It is not even in the top 10. Norway is #8. My guess: Hydro power from Norway fjords is much cheaper than geothermal power from Iceland.

rob74 2y ago
According to this article https://archive.is/v5k1Y https://archive.is/v5k1Y, Iceland also has hydro power. > Alcoa arrived in 2007 after Iceland built a giant power plant on the other side of the island, near a sparsely populated region where the fishing industry was in decline. Iceland’s electric utility built five highland dams that capture glacial meltwater. The largest of the resulting reservoirs is roughly the size of Manhattan. The water is piped 25 miles to an underground power plant, then dropped a quarter-mile down another pipe to make the turbines spin. Finally, the resulting electricity is transmitted 47 miles on high-voltage lines to the ocean’s edge. Electricity in Iceland costs about 30 percent less than what Alcoa might pay in the United States. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rahnj%C3%BAkar_Hydropower_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rahnj%C3%BAkar_Hydropow... I would say that Norway has an advantage because Iceland's remoteness makes it more expensive to ship the bauxite there (there is no bauxite mining in Iceland itself) and the aluminum back. Still, it's apparently the second largest aluminum producer in Europe.
- mtnGoat 2y ago
  Alcoa actually owns 26% of the output of a hydro electric dam on the Columbia River(Rock Island Dam) directly adjacent to it’s mothballed factory. It’s not that they can’t get power in the US cheaper, it’s that they can resell that power at higher profit than running a smelter with that power. Thousands of jobs left the town and now a several billion dollar plant sits idle. The idea recently floated they sell the land, power and water rights to MSFT for their new water cooled data center’s nearby, but MSFT didn’t want to own all that infra.
petre 2y ago
Hydro turbines are almost always peaker plants, with Niagara as an exception. Geothermal is base load. They don't really compare.