…and drinking Krap. 

Okey, most people call it the swimming in the Blue Lagoon but it reality they are swimming in the wastewater from a power plant. And Krap?  That’s the name of Iceland’s favorite blueberry slushy sold at the swim up bar in the blue lagoon.

The Blue Lagoon is Iceland’s top tourist attraction.  Like the Forest Lagoon in Akureyri it is a result of an accident.  This one grew out of the ’70s global oil crisis.  While Iceland has always heated homes with geothermal water and has abundant hydro potential, it still used heating oil for many of its homes and diesel to generate electricity.  In the 70s during the Middle Eastern oil embargos it decided to opt for energy independence.  One of the strategies was to tap geothermal energy.

HS Orka, A company formed to tap geothermal, built the Svartsengi Power Station near Grindavik, close to the international airport.  It started operating in 1976.  The technology works like this.  Orka, drilled several well deep into the earth to tap superheated groundwater which is made up of both sea water that filtered down through the lava, and fresh water.  The steam and hot water come up through the we;;s to turn turbines and generate electricity.  Hot water then goes through a heat exchange unit to heat clean fresh water for homes.  After heating homes, the water is run through pipes under roads and sidewalks for snow removal. 

Once the water has generated electricity and heated fresh water, the plant dumped it onto the lava field believing the water would seep back through the lava to become groundwater and complete the cycle.  But the water is full of silica clay and that clay clogs the lava.  Milky blue water began accumulating in pools, not sinking back into the earth.

Kids from surrounding towns began swimming in it.  Frieda from Keflavik, home of the international airport and NATO military bases told us that as teenager they snuck out to the warm pools to skinny dip.  One of the employees at the plant had severe cirrhosis, a skin disease, started swimming in the pools and found that it helped his disease.  His doctor said “Yes, I suppose the silica and algae in the waste water could helped your skin.”   

The Blue Lagoon really took off, so to speak, when a doctor and entrepreneur teamed up to open a resort, it was a combination health resort and an attraction for people who were traveling between Europe and America on Icelandair.   Icelandair was one of the original low cost carriers, informally known as the “hippie airlift.”   Keflavik was a transfer point and often people had several hours between planes.  The new owner branded their “accident” the blue lagoon.  Word spread from Icelandair passengers and Blue Lagoon became the country’s top tourist attraction.

We took the Holland America tour because, at the time we booked it, we thought we would have to be back at the ship by 4:30 and their tours guarantee the ship will wait if it is late.  We ended up with more flexibility.  But on the bus ride to the lagoon we had a good commentary on the history of the place and the geology of the land.

We drove through new lava fields.  Less than 2 years ago a fissure opened up near the lagoon taking out its parking lot and threatening the power station, the lagoon and Grindavik, which was evacuated, its residents still can not live at home.  A gravel road now leads to the lagoon as a new paved road is planned, They are building a dyke to hold lava if the fissure opens up again. 

The new parking lot is a short walk from the lagoon along ponds of the milky blue water dumped into the lava that are not part of the lagoon.  Given the supply of lava fields and water the lagoon has a lot of potential for expansion.

In the lagoon we enjoyed a soak for about two hours.

The day before our trip to the lagoon we visited the Hellisheidi Geothermal Power Plant run by Orka  Natturunnar that has an interpretive center and kids’ activity room to explain, not only how the water is heated and sent by pipeline over tens of kilometers to warm houses, but how power is generated. 

At Hellisheidi Orka Natturunnar also has a Carbon Recovery plant, Carbfix, built in cooperation with the Swiss company Climeworks.  It is one of two industrial scale carbon removal ‘factories’ they run in Iceland.  It sits across the highway from the powerplant.

The plant runs air through filters that absorb CO₂.  When the filters are “full” geothermal heat is used to desorb the CO₂.  In the past Climeworks used this captured CO₂ in greenhouses where plants convert it oxygen and tomatoes, or in making carbonated drinks.  In this case they devolve it in water and pump it into the basalt rock in the lava field where it becomes a carbonite rock and is permanently sequestered.  You can see a video on the process here.

This all sounds very green and hopeful, and it is.  But there is no free lunch.  A study by the Icelandic health care system showed higher medical costs for people living around the power stations near the Blue Lagoon (Svartsengi) and Hellisheidi.  This triggered an investigation.  The plants were emitting sulfur dioxide which becomes sulfuric acid. This can trigger asthma and other raspatory and cardiovascular problems.  The plants now try to dilute the sulfur dioxide with water in the cooling towers but there is fear that this is not good enough, so they are looking at ways to reinject the SO₂ back into the wells.