Össur Skarphédinsson, Minister of Industry is worried about a possible energy shortage since Reykjavik Energy decided to cancel all plans of a geothermal plant in Bitra after The National Planning Agency filed a negative report about the plant’s possible impact on the environment.
“It is clear that international companies are interested in investing in pollution-free, power-intensive large-scale industry likely to create both jobs and profit” Skarphédinsson says in Morgunbladid.
Reykjavík Energy’s board decided to abandon all plans of Geothermal plant in Bitra, southern Iceland, after the National Planning Agency filed a report about the possible impacts of the plant on nature. According to the NPA’s report, the plant is unacceptable because of a serious non-refundable impact on the landscape and thus on tourism.
Skarphédinsson disagrees with the NPA’s reports and believes the report will cause a great setback in geothermal energy researche and he speculates that it may even become impossible to continue to use geothermal heat as a source of energy, this, despite the fact that electricity production by geothermal power has doubled since 2005.
Read more about the geothermal plant in Bitra here
