Welcome to Iceland Guest - Your Online Travel Guide.

Iceland Guest is an information website for your travel to Iceland. On this site you can get all the tourist information you need for your vacation in Iceland. We hope that you will find this online travel guide useful in planning your holidays in Iceland.

About Iceland
Iceland is a refreshingly unconventional travel destination. The Icelandic nature is unspoilt, exotic and mystical with its spouting geysers, active volcanoes, tumbling waterfalls, towering mountains, vast lava plains and magical lakes. Iceland’s fjords, glaciers and highland plains present visitors with some of the most beautiful and enchanting places they will ever see, as well as a rare feeling of utter tranquillity.

For travelers on a quest for action, Iceland’s pristine nature offers great potential for outdoor activities such as snowmobiling, horse riding, cave exploring, hiking, swimming, skiing, river rafting, kayaking and mountain safaris on modified four-wheel drives, to name but a few. Iceland supports a surprisingly diverse Nordic flora and fauna and is an ideal place for ornithology enthusiasts, while also offering some of the world’s best whale watching destinations.

About Reykjavik
Reykjavík sometimes feels like a cosmopolitan capital and a tiny seaside village - all wrapped up in one. But Reykjavík has the best of both worlds; the qualities of a modern, forward-looking society complemented by a close connection to Iceland‚s beautiful and unspoilt nature.

Reykjavík’s legendary nightlife is bolstered by plentiful cultural and social happenings in addition to an abundance of first-class restaurants. The size of Reykjavik city centre is also limited enough to allow for easy navigation by foot. Reykjavík has been described as a young and daring city that is characterized by strong contrasts. Conveniently small, clean and safe, it is more or less free from the major problems that haunt many other capitals. Big city events are frequent, the winter lights festival finished recently with thousands of participants and more tourist at this time of the year than we are used to.

in Focus

30.4.2007

German Energy Giant to Participate in Geothermal Project

German energy giant to participate in geothermal p The Icelandic National Energy Authority (OS) signed an agreement with German energy company Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW) on Wednesday for research drilling and investigation into whether electricity can be transported from Iceland to Germany via an ocean-floor cable.

Director of OS Thorkell Helgason said representatives from EnBW had visited Iceland last fall, which is when they first became interested in the project, as reported in Fréttabladid.

“We didn’t hear anything from them for awhile, until a few weeks ago. Then they were very interested, especially regarding drilling. They want to participate to some extent and are prepared to contribute with considerable amounts of money.” Helgason said.

EnBW is Germany’s third largest energy company and has about EUR 13 billion (USD 18 billion) in annual turnover. The company has declared its goal to be sustainable energy production and a green vision for the future.

Helgason said it is not clear what role EnBW will have in the research project and added that the German company has not been promised anything.

“Their vision is that in the distant future they can transport considerable amounts of geothermal electricity from Iceland to Germany via an ocean-floor cable. Geothermal energy is considered greener than hydroelectric power,” Helgason said.

“It is not unlikely that in the not-too-distant future grants for green energy will be standardized across Europe, so national borders will be suspended. Then it won’t matter where good things come from,” Helgason continued.

The research drilling is a collaborative project between OS, the National Energy Company (Landsvirkjun), Reykjavík Energy Company (OR), Sudurnes Energy Company (HS) and several scientific institutions.

The idea is to drill holes down to a depth of five kilometers where the energy companies expect to find heat of up to 600°C and much more pressure than in conventional drilling holes used for harnessing geothermal energy, which are usually about two kilometers deep.

It is hoped that each hole can produce five to ten times more energy than conventional drilling holes.

Source: Iceland Review (www.icelandreview.com).

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