Iceland, China and the Environment

Few things get Icelanders as riled up as an impending invasion it seems. Recently, Uwe Reinhardt, a professor of political economy at Princeton University wrote a column on the dailyprincetonian.com, suggesting that Iceland would be a more fit target than Iran for a US-led invasion. The column sparked some debate from bloggers in Iceland, and sadly, a large part of the populace seems to have missed the satire of it entirely. Apart from the impending invasion, environmental issues are on everybodies mind in Iceland these days. Yesterday, the city of Reykjavík introduced its ten points plan to a more environmentally friendly city. Meanwhile, the Icelandic energy companies Nýorka and Vistorka announced their plan to import 30 hydrogen cars to Iceland next fall, as part of a three-year experimental project. And if that wasn't enough, Icelandic energy companies have also entered talks with Cisco and Microsoft over the possibility of setting up energy-intensive server farms in Iceland, geothermal and hydroelectric energy. Representatives from Microsoft will soon visit Iceland to see what can be done. This would be a nice alternative to the energy-intensive heavy industry that seems to have been the only possible option for environmentally friendly energy, at least in some peoples' minds. However, according to Time magazine, the build up of heavy industry in Iceland is floating Chinese dreams. I don't know it there is a relation between the high number of Chinese workers and the ongoing talks between Iceland and China over a free-trade agreement, which would make it the first European country to reach such an agreement with the People's Republic of China. But who needs heavy industry when you can get the movie industry?