Iceland has exercised an outsized voice on climate action ever since 2019, when a group of citizens bid a ceremonial farewell to a dead glacier, a victim of a warming world. The moment has received a renewed burst of attention following the release of the new documentary film set in Iceland, Time and Water. Still, it’s not all about loss. Iceland also stands in the vanguard of climate action, particularly in regards to its vast geothermal resources. Time and Water: Loss, Both Glacial And Human The 2019 ceremony commemorated the loss of the glacier formerly known as Okjökul, located in the fjord of Borgarfjörður. Okjökul measured 16 square kilometers when first charted in 1890, only to shrink to 0.7 sq km by 2012. Two years later, glaciologist Oddur Sigurðsson declared it “dead ice,” making it the first glacier in Iceland lost to climate change. Two anthropologists from Rice University in Texas, Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer, were among the scientists helping to raise the alarm over the loss of Okjökull and other glaciers around the world. Their 2018 documentary about Okjökull, narrated by former Reykjavík Mayor Jón Gnarr, led to the memorial ceremony in 2019 attended by the Icelandic Hiking Society, local residents and scientists, and renowned Icelandic author Andri Snær Magnason. The glacier is dead but the memory is alive. The ceremony sparked an ongoing effort by Howe and Boyer to draw attention to the cultural, historical, and environmental significance of glaciers in a series of memorial events and an online tracker. Now Time and Water provides an intimate, deeply human experience of the loss, through the lens of Andri Snær Magnason himself. Directed by Sara Dosa for National Geographic Documentary Films with Sandbox Films and other partners, Time and Water draws on Magnason’s personal family archive to weave themes of memory, loss, the passage of time and the significance of glaciers including their roles as vast — and rapidly disappearing — reservoirs of pure, ancient freshwater (view the trailer here and keep an eye on Disney+, Hulu, and theaters near you for screenings). Something Out Of Nothing: The Geothermal Angle In a artist statement, Dosa explains that the film is both an expression of loss and a call to action. “The future is unwritten, and what we do now matters,” she emphasizes. “Too much hope can lull us into complacency, while too much dread can convince us the future is already lost. Uncertainty, however, invites agency. It reminds us that our actions in this unstable present shape the world our loved ones will inherit,” she explains. Dosa’s statement echoes the words inscribed on the Okjökul memorial, with the name pared down to Ok as a reminder that jökul — Icelandic for glacier — is lost but not forgotten: “Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as glacier. “In the next 200 years all our main glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. “Only you know if we did it.” I was invited on a technology tour of Iceland right around this time last year, and though the tour did not include Ok, it did reveal a nation of intrepid problem-solvers who carved a highly developed modern economy out of ice and rock, which is now transitioning from an imported fossil energy scenario to one based on local resources. Geothermal energy was front and center in the tour, serving as a platform for vertical farms and decarbonization systems in addition to generating heat for electricity and thermal applications. Along with hosting home-grown projects, Iceland also provides geothermal energy innovators from around the world with a test bed for new systems. That includes the US startup Syntholene, which has developed a high-heat electrolysis system for synthesizing SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel). Geothermal Energy For SAF: Will It Work? CleanTechnica caught up with Syntholene in April, when the company announced that it was ready to begin construction on a demonstration facility in at the Husavik geothermal energy facility in Norðurþingi. That’s a head-scratcher for those of you familiar with the Husavik plant. The facility stopped producing geothermal energy in 2010. However, the 16-year hiatus did not have a significant impact on its core systems. In a press statement dated April 14, Syntholene expressed confidence that Husavik could be revived within a matter of weeks. Syntholene provided an update barely six weeks later, in which it noted that construction has been proceeding ahead of schedule. If all goes according to plan, the facility will be up and running sometime later this month. “The Company strives to become the first company to demonstrate the integration of geothermal heat with high-temperature electrolysis for synthetic fuel,” Syntholene says of itself. “The Demonstration Facility has been designed to demonstrate the cost and energy efficiencies of integrating geothermal heat with high-temperature electrolysis for the production of low-cost hydrogen as the core feedstock for synthetic fuel production,” Syntholene explains. If that sounds like e-fuels are in play, they are. E-fuels, also called electrofuels, deploy hydrogen (preferably green hydrogen with renewable energy) and captured carbon to synthesize new hydrocarbon fuels. By 2023, aviation stakeholders were already exploring the potential for e-fuels to spur rapid scale-up in the SAF industry, leapfrogging the slow pace of bio-based alternatives. There being no such thing as a free lunch, the problem is cost. Syntholene is aiming to solve that problem with its so-named Hybrid Thermal Production System, targeting a 70% savings over over comparable SAF technologies. Meanwhile, Here In The USA… At first glance it may seem that last year’s sharp U-turn in federal energy policy spelled bad news for the US geothermal industry. Not so. The new “American Energy Dominance” policy embraces three forms of renewable energy, including geothermal as well as biomass and hydropower, with marine energy tacked on as a branch of hydropower. If and when Syntholene commercializes its Hybrid Thermal Production System here in the US, it will have plenty of geothermal energy opportunities to support its business model. In recent years, advanced drilling and exploration methods have opened up vast new geothermal fields in the US that were previously thought to be unreachable or nonexistent. In addition, supportive federal policy has been moving through the pipeline. On June 2, US Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) was among the lawmakers taking note of the bipartisan Geothermal Energy Advancement Act, including a component called the Geothermal Cost-Recovery Authority Act., which passed the House of Representatives earlier this week. The Cost-Recovery portion of the bill provides for geothermal energy companies to reimburse the Bureau of Land Management for application and inspection costs related to projects on federal land. The new legislation aligns geothermal energy with other energy projects on federal lands including wind, solar, and oil and gas. As for the Geothermal Energy Advancement Act, the bipartisan legislation is aimed at speeding up the permitting process for geothermal projects. The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration, so hold on to your hats… Photo: The new National Geographic Documentary Films project “Time and Water” draws an intimate portrait of human and environmental loss, while underscoring the potential for change and restoration (cropped, courtesy of National Geographic via email/DropBox).
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