Day 29: Second day of classes at Westfjords

Today was another early morning. We woke up and ate breakfast leaving the house at 9 am. It only takes about 15 minutes to get to the university center and our first lecture begins around 10 am. Before lunch a man named Kristjan Haraldsson spoke to us about supplying electricity to the Westfjords area. He is the head of the Westfjords Power company which works seven hydropower stations. The neat thing was that right after his lecture we got to walk a couple of blocks from the university and see the generators and the diesel reserves which provide power in case of an power outage due to storms or avalanches.


The diesel reserve generators


Kristjan explaining the intricacies of the plant


A series of pipes and knobs which I thought looked cool


We then had our lunch break and reconvened around 1 pm for our second lecture. Bjarni M. Jonsson, who had just completed a thesis on tidal power spoke to us about the feasibility of implementing tidal power in the Westfjords area. It's a relatively new method of power generation in Iceland since for the past several decades a surplus of power has been supplied solely from geothermal and hydropower.

After class we stopped by a trash incinerator on the way home to see how the facility burns trash to provide heating for the surrounding area. Basically when the trash burns, the hot air is recovered and sent through a boiler. We got to see the giant crane placing the trash into the shredder and then into the incinerator. We then went up to the control room and walked through the machinery room.


The outside of the building


The crane putting trash in the shredder


Looking into the machinery room


The control room


Looking out into the yard where waste that cannot be burned is sorted


I took a nap when we got home because I was rather tired and woke up for dinner. After dinner we watched the Netherlands beat Uruguay in the World Cup match and played ultimate frisbee. My team won 7-5. Then we decided to break out Castle since we haven't played it since the first week in Iceland.

It had been a long day and despite the 24 hour sunlight I forced myself to get some rest. Until tomorrow!