Speech at the opening of ICDP funded PI-and SAG-Meeting in Iceland, June 2001.

6/22/01

Valgerður Sverrisdóttir,
Minister of Industry and Commerce

Honoured participants of this meeting,

As the minister of Industry and Commerce I am most pleased to open this meeting funded by the International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP) - in relation to the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP). I understand this meeting marks the very beginning of an international research project on a new frontier in the energy production sector. It's objective is to investigate the possibility to extract energy and chemicals from a hydrous fluid at supercritical conditions in a natural geothermal system from 4-5 km depth or more. The IDDP drilling project has the potential of increasing our accessible and useful resource base, which may possibly meet a considerable fraction of our energy demand during the next few decades of this new millenium. With this in mind I welcome this ambitious research project.

Iceland depends heavily on energy as it is our second largest natural resource, after fish. Geothermal energy covers about half of the country's primary energy demand, the remainder comes from hydropower (18 %) and imported oil (30 %). Oil is used almost solely for transportation and we have basically stopped burning oil for heating purposes. Presently we are participating in a research project to decrease our use of fossil fuel, by replacing it with hydrogen as an energy source. Hopefully all the buses in this city will soon be powered by hydrogen. We consider geothermal to be a renewable and clean energy source, as well as being environmentally friendly – as you can feel in the Blue Lagoon. Even so - we still like our natural high temperature geothermal areas in the natural state and like to preserve at least some of them untouched for the future. If the drilling project you are going to discuss during this meeting is successful – it may result in that more energy can be extracted from the presently exploited drillfields and thus saving unexploited fields for the future.

In particular I like to welcome the foreign members of the Science Advisory Group of IDDP, and the suport that the International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP) has given this meeting. I am pleased to mention that Iceland has decided to join the International Continental Drilling Program under the auspices of the Icelandic Research Council. I am also most pleased to see that our leading energy producers, Landsvirkjun, Orkuveita Reykjavíkur and Hitaveita Suðurnesja – which together hold about 90 % of the energy production in the country – have joined forces in this frontier energy and science project, Iceland Deep Drilling Project.

With these words I like to open this meeting, and wish you a good and a successful meeting for the next few days. I also like to use this opportunity to welcome you all to a reception to be held in the island of Viðey tomorrow night.

Thank you.