According to the national energy authority of Iceland, 25% of the country’s total energy production is from geothermal energy. In the start of the 20th century, the country was poor and not very green, as most of the energy used was from imported coal and peat. However, by 2014, “85% of primary energy use in Iceland came from indigenous renewable resources. Thereof 66% was from geothermal.” (Source: http://www.nea.is/geothermal/) The country’s residents have been using geothermal energy for small projects for generations, like heating small pools or drying fish, or for making Iceland’s famous hverabrauth, or “hot spring bread”. In 1930 the country harnessed some of the heat by drilling holes and running pipes from the holes three kilometers away into a primary school, keeping it warm all year round. In the 1970s the country really started using this energy, because up until this point private homes almost entirely ran on oil. Now Iceland has become the leading expert on geothermal energy and works to inspire other countries who are looking into it, such as Germany, China, and the Philippines. A short video from Scientific American shows exactly what these hot springs are like and how their energy is used: http://video.scientificamerican.com/services/player/bcpid1753162298?bctid=1873043478
Another source (Scientific American) quotes Iceland’s renewable energy usage at 99%, leaving only 1% of their usage from a nonrenewable source. It’s no wonder that Iceland is leading the revolution on geothermal energy. In the Philippines, there is an easily accessible bank of underground heat which is not currently being used to its full potential, and in Germany a tariff has recently been introduced with 20 cents per kWH of geothermal energy. Other forms of geothermal energy have been looked at, such as supercritical steam, which the European Union, the Icelandic government, and the US National Science Foundation have worked together to explore through the IDDP, the Iceland Deep Drilling Project. The country expects to continue to grow its output of geothermal energy and hopes to share this energy with the rest of the world as they have done with a province in China which is currently being heated by Iceland’s third largest bank of geothermal energy. We can only hope that we can continue to grow our worldwide usage of geothermal energy and cut down on some of our more harmful energy sources in our attempt to preserve the world we have the way it is.
Sources:
http://www.nea.is/geothermal
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/iceland-geothermal-power/