USA, Alaska:

Geothermal Energy: What Alaska Can Learn from Iceland (KTVA CBS 11 News Alaska)

The country shares many similarities with Alaska, including its cold surface. But underneath Iceland, the earth is bursting with heat. It sits in the border of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Every year, the North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate move 2 centimeters away from each other. This tension causes magma to flow upward, creating hot water and heat, which makes Iceland one of the most volcanically active places in the world.

“This plant here produces about 50 percent more electricity than the city will ever need,” said Eirikur Hjálmarsson, head of communications at Reykjavik Energy, a utility company partly owned by the city.

In a tour of the country’s largest geothermal plant – Hellisheiði Power Station, located just north of the capital of Reykjavik – Hjálmarsson provided insight into the energy resource.

“The technology is not brand new, it’s 100 years old,” Hjálmarsson said. “But on a large scale, electricity with geothermal started in the late ’70s.”

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