Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Project
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The Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Project, located at , involves damming two rivers in eastern Iceland (the Jökulsá í Fljótsdal — source to the famous "Milky Lake" of Lagarfljót, and the Jökulsá á Dal (aka Jókulsá á Bru)) to produce hydroelectricity to power a new aluminium smelting plant that is being built by Alcoa in the town of Reyðarfjörður. It is the largest construction project ever in Iceland, with completion scheduled for 2009. The project is funded by Landsvirkjun (The National Power Company) which will operate the dam once it is finished. The Italian company Impregilo is the largest contractor working on the dams. The total cost (2005 estimation) for the hydropower project will be 90 billion ISK (about 1.0 billion EUR/1.2 billion USD/3 000 EUR per citizen of Iceland).[1]
Five major dams are being built, of which the largest will be 193 m high and 730 m long. The Hálslón reservoir will be 57 km² on the surface, and provide a flow of 110 m³/s — enough to generate 690 MW of electricity.
The dams have been the frequent subject of protests by environmentalists; the area is at the heart of the second largest unspoiled wilderness in Europe and covers about 1000 square kilometres in total. The project as a whole has also been criticised heavily for lack of broad-sigthedness, such as in the book Draumalandið. Some criticism on staff conditions was raised during the beginning of the project. Those issues have apparently been dealt with for the most part. Notably most of the staff or about 70%, were imported from other European countries.
The building of the dam has already started. A 450 m (1476 ft) deep vertical steel lining (penstock) is currently being built in situ by the German company DSD-NOELL (Wuerzburg); for comparison, this is roughly the same as the height of the Sears Tower in Chicago, the tallest habitable building in America at 452 m (1483 ft). It will be followed by the power station, which will be located even deeper in the mountain. In total, more than 4,000 tons of steel are going to be used for the steel liner—the equivalent of 2,000 cars.
On 28 September 2006, water levels have begun rising. It is estimated that in the summer of 2007, with water from glacier rivers, the water level will reach its peak.
[edit] External links
- Project website
- Anti-dam website
- Pictures of the area
- Pictures of the area before and during its inundation, by Ómar Ragnarsson, famous Icelandic journalist
