From BenEATH the EARTH
The niche that geothermal has really filled , though , is in electricity generation . Even for a country with fewer than 330,000 people , electricity is still in high demand . Thankfully , as demand has risen , so has supply , thanks in part to the harnessing of geothermal . In the late 1970s , geothermal began to slowly make its way into the Icelandic mainstream energy market . It wasn ’ t until almost 2007 that growth took off exponentially . Three new geothermal facilities got the country to its 2012 levels , in which the country produced 4,600 GWh , or 24.5 percent of the country ’ s total electricity production .
Iceland isn ’ t exactly a huge consumer of electricity , but its aluminum consumes the most by far . Accounting for 68.4 percent of the country ’ s energy consumption , the industry used more than 12,000 GWh in 2013 . The next closest consumer is the ferrosilicon industry , accounting for 8.7 percent of electricity consumption at less than 2000 GWh .
Almost all of electricity , some 99 percent , is produced from renewable sources , though the potential for geothermal in Iceland is still relatively untapped .
“ It ’ s been estimated that by conventional use of geothermal , the available power in Iceland could be on the order of 20 to 30 terawatthours per year ,” Ólafur Flóvez , general director of ÍSOR , or Iceland
The Blue Lagoon , a hotspring with black sands and nutrientrich mud , is a popular tourist destination
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