Valdimar told Vísir.is that he thinks it is worrying how little research has been done into the sea’s potential energy around Iceland. Most marine research in Iceland seems to be about aquaculture (fish farming) and harbour construction, he says.

He adds, however, that there is a extremely large amount of exploitable energy in the sea which is not yet being tapped. “The Irish have made a good estimate of the total amount of energy they have. They believe they could generate 240 terawatt hours a year and if we translate that over to Iceland by size that that would make 330 terawatt hours a year. That is around twenty-times the amount of energy we are using today,” Valdimar says.

Valorka has conducted pre-tests on its turbine and plans more this summer; probably off the Snæfellsnes peninsula. If the trials go well then a prototype will be made of a completely underwater turbine design. According to its owner, “Valorka is a world leader in trying to harness offshore ocean currents”.

He made his comments as a keynote speaker at the Social Democratic Party’s European Movement conference, alongside Styrmir Gunnarsson, former editor of Morgunblaðið.

Styrmir said that for his part he does not feel there is a battle in progress for Iceland’s natural resources. He says that fears around land control by foreigners probably stems from the Cold War when Icelanders were nervous of foreign military bases being built in their country.

“I was no bloody teenager when I spent four years of my life negotiating the European Economic Area contract,” Jón Baldvin retorted. He said that arguments against Icelandic EEA membership were much the same in his time as arguments against EU membership are now: “That the fishing grounds would fill with the Spanish fleet, Portuguese workers would flood the Icelandic market and that German millionaires would buy everything in the country,” Jón Baldvin said.

Styrmir said that nobody has done more to transfer natural resources to the rich than the left-wing government which allowed the individual transferable quota system. He said that at the time nobody said anything about the important fact that resources were being placed in the hands of the few. The changes created a slew of fisheries millionaires in Iceland.

According to RÚV the Presidential couple sailed out of the Argentinian port of Ushuaia yesterday and their trip will take them along the Drake Passage all the way to Antarctica. The party plans to go ashore three times, if weather allows. The trip ends on the 6th February.

The trip includes European and American scientists, the Canadian film director James Cameron, the American journalist Ted Turner and Christiana Figures, the president of the United Nations climate agency.

Al Gore’s climate change organisation, the Climate Reality Project, and National Geographic together organised the expedition.

A press release from Bessastaðir, the Icelandic head of state’s official residence, states that the goal of the expedition is to investigate the fast melting ice and to discuss how the nations of the world can best be encouraged to unite behind realistic and tangible action to fight global warming.

Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson has become known as a strong climate change campaigner among world leaders and regularly gives speeches at environmental conferences.

A deal has been signed for Statoil to acquire a 30.6 percent stake in one of the British explorer’s Greenland licenses, showing interest in the Arctic remains strong despite recent high-profile failures.

“The exact financial terms of the agreement are confidential,” Cairn said, according to a Reuters report. It added, however, that the Norwegian company would be paying some of the past and future exploration costs and a bonus on signing the deal.

Cairn has spent USD 1.2 billion on projects in the Arctic over the last two years, but has so far failed to get any conclusive shows. It is believed that the company hoped to get funding for all future drilling costs, but their lack of success so far has forced them to offer “attractive” partnership terms to investors.

“Arctic specialist Statoil’s early entry into a part of Cairn’s Greenland acreage, on attractive terms, validates the industry’s and Cairn’s long-held belief in the region’s multi-billion barrel exploration potential,” Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note.

Environmental groups have attempted to disrupt Cairn’s activities in the Arctic several times, pointing out than an oil spill in the pristine region would be detrimental to wildlife and almost impossible to clean up. It is thought, however, that Greenland could hold as many as 20 billion barrels of oil, making the semi-autonomous Danish island one the world’s biggest producers.

(Photos: Anders Peter Amsnæs)

This means that the cost of fuel weighs ever-heavier on household budgets and that ISK 5,000 gets a driver less far than ever.

Nobody in Iceland (or indeed the rest of the world) can have failed to notice fuel prices rising constantly; but many may have forgotten that a litre of petrol cost ISK 112.7 at the beginning of 2007 and now costs ISK 242.9 on average. Diesel has gone up even more; or from ISK 113 to ISK 253.5 – which is ten krónur more than a litre of petrol.

This article deliberately does not convert krónur into euros, because the króna exchange rate has changed so much in five years due to the financial crisis. Instead there is a comparison.

RÚV reports on a hypothetical car which uses ten litres of petrol for every 100 kilometres driven. On 15,000 kilometres per year, that means an annual fuel bill of ISK 364,320 now instead of ISK 169,000 at the beginning of 2007…115 percent different.

At the beginning of 2007 ISK 5,000 of petrol in the above car would get the driver from Reykjavík to Hornafjörður (Höfn). In 2009 that money got the driver to Fagurhólmsmýri and in 2010 the car would have made it to Kirkjubæjarklaustur. Now ISK 5,000 only gets the hypothetical car as far as Vík í Mýrdal. Which is half as far as five years ago. See a map of south Iceland here.

The areas for which search licences are being offered lie in the high Arctic; far north of Iceland and not too far from Svalbard. They are north of Scoresbysund between 75 and 79 degrees north. The areas are being offered in two stages; the first in 2012 and the second in 2013. Applications from oil companies to be permitted to take part must be received by the 1st March and for specific location licences, by the 15th December. The exploration licences will last for 16 years, with the option for extension up to 30 years.

It is now ten years since oil exploration licences were first offered off western Greenland and the country has since offered a new area for exploration on average once every two years, Vísir.is reports. There are some 20 licences currently active, which are held by companies including Statoil, ExxonMobil, BP, ChevronTexaco, Shell and Japan Oil. Canada’s Husky Energy has announced it will drill two test wells in Greenlandic waters in summer 2013.

The first company to find oil and gas in Greenland was the UK’s Cairn Energy in the autumn of 2010 off Disko Island, 200 km north of Nuuk. The company put its programme on hold this winter, however, after drilling eight holes at great cost, without finding enough evidence of fossil fuels to make it worthwhile.

This disappointment does not seem to have dampened the spirits of other oil companies. The head of Greenland’s oil and minerals directorate, Jörn Skov Nielsen, told reporters that all of the world’s oil giants are interested in the east Greenland prospecting auction. Norway’s now-successful oil industry had a similarly disappointing start and the idea was nearly dropped after three years of expensive and fruitless searching.

There is strong opposition to Arctic drilling among environmental groups who say the fragile Arctic ecosystem is less able to cope than other regions and that a major oil spill would be next to impossible to clean up.

The Sunnlenska.is local news website reports that the company Heilsuþorp ehf. in Flúðir has been in negotiations with the Chinese company CSST International hoping to attract start-up funding. Now it is believed the Chinese company has agreed to invest ISK 6.5 to 7 billion (EUR 40.5 to 43.6 million) in the project.

It is likely that CSST would become a significant shareholder in Heilsuþorp.

Organisers hope the health resort will be built on land near Flúðir called Gröf. The plan is for the local municipality to allow the land (which it owns) to be used for free, in exchange for a chunk of shares in the new company.

Flúðir is in a geothermal area of south Iceland and is not short of natural hot water. It is also ideally located along the popular Golden Circle tourist trail.

The accident took place overnight on the shores of Hestfjörður in the southern part of the Ísafjarðardjúp fjord system in the Westfjords, not far from the towns of Súðavík and Ísafjörður.

The Shell fuel tanker, carrying 39,000 litres of petrol, span two or three times on the icy road and its trailer went off the road, dragging the cab down on top of it.

The driver escaped with minor injuries and was taken to hospital in Ísafjörður for examination. The tank did not rupture in the crash, but petroleum soon started leaking out of vents on top and down into the sea.

The road was quickly sealed off and all available fire engines and ambulances were sent to the scene, along with a crane and three other oil tankers with the ability to pump fuel out of the stricken vehicle.

The Icelandic Roads Administration covered the area in sand and fire crews covered the truck in foam before being able to remove the cab, and with it the biggest explosion risk.

The pumping operation began just before 07.00 and took roughly an hour, after which the crane was able to pull the tank trailer back onto the road and remove it.

According to fire fighters it was extremely lucky the lorry did not crash off the road the other side, over the rock wall and into the water below.

The road was closed for several hours but has since re-opened. Experts are on the scene, but it is still not clear how much fuel leaked out.

(Photo: Hafþór Gunnarsson // BB.is)

The company called the reserve, named Havis, a “twin” of the biggest-ever find in the area, the Skrugard field. Officials from Statoil, Norway’s largest energy firm, said in a statement released that the Havis field likely holds between 200 million and 300 million barrels of retrievable oil equivalent.

Helge Lund, chief executive of Statoil, said in the company’s statement, “Havis is our second high-impact oil discovery in the Barents Sea in nine months. Skrugard and Havis open up a new petroleum province in the north,” Bloomberg reports.

Experts say the discovery will mean big changes for the region. Carl Christian Bachke, an analyst from Oslo-based RS Platou Markets, said: “This means a lot to the Barents region; it will open up a lot of new activity in the area.”

Similarly, Trond Omdal, an analysts Oslo’s Arctic Securities ASA, explained, “They said after Skrugard that this really changes how we view the Barents Sea and it will likely lead to other discoveries and this is a proof of that.”

Norway is the seventh largest oil exporter in the world and expects to see a record NOK 184.6 billion (EUR 24 billion) in industry investments in 2012. However, analysts say the country is likely to experience a slump over the next decade.

Power cuts are very bad for aluminium smelters and can cause severe damage to equipment after three or four hours, as molten metal cools. Ágúst Hafberg, the Norðurál manager, says that his plant in all likelihood escaped serious damage yesterday because they were lucky enough to get some limited power back after three hours. It was enough to keep equipment running, although production remained at a standstill. The electricity supply was not fully restored until 06.00 this morning. Salt and snow are blamed for causing a fire at an electrical substation nearby and various difficulties which left much of the country without electric.

“We can only stand about three or four hours without energy or we risk damage to the smelting pots,” Ágúst said in an interview with RÚV today. Asked if any damage had occurred, he said: “We are looking into it, we think it was nothing serious but we still have to finalise how much was done”.

He believes, however, that delays to aluminium production alone yesterday mean millions in losses for the company; but says a concrete figure is not yet available.

The nearby Elkem ferrosilicon plant was without power for around 12 hours. But production foreman Einar Þorsteinsson does not believe the plant’s equipment is seriously damaged: “As far as we can see at the moment, we don’t think so and generally it is the case that if we loses electric supply to our equipment we are not in a position that it causes major damage. It is first and foremost production losses that cost us,” Einar said.

How much was lost yesterday? “I can’t say exactly but it looks like several tens of millions of krónur,” Einar says.

ISK 10,000,000 is about EUR 63,000 at today’s rate.