Iceland Moves Full Steam Ahead

Kerry Trueman December 4, 2007 | 10:50 pm EST

By Kerry Trueman

You’d think a chilly-sounding place like Iceland would burn through its share of the world’s oil, but in fact, this North Atlantic island is so rich in renewable energy that it hardly uses fossil fuels at all.

Instead, Iceland harnesses the energy generated by its many active volcanoes, by drilling and capturing “the blistering hot steam as it shoots up from underground,” as NPR’s Richard Harris reported Monday on All Things Considered.

Harris noted that a new series of steam wells currently being drilled will eventually produce 100 to 200 megawatts of energy” enough for 200,000 households. The only catch? The entire island of Iceland doesn’t have that many households.

Whether Iceland will entice industries from other countries to set up shop there to take advantage of the island’s surplus steam remains to be seen, but one thing’s clear; Iceland’s abundance of geothermal energy has blasted it to the top when it comes to relying on renewable energy.