Day 18 – 2012/August/15

                Hardly an exciting day…  rain in the morning, with a lecture about different ways that geothermal energy is being used here in Iceland- and a challenge to find other ways to use it.  Then we toured the headquarters and plant of Carbon Recycling International.  The plant electrolyzes water for H₂ and combines it with waste CO₂ from the Svartsengi geothermal plant (on the Reykjanes peninsula) to generate methanol (CH₃OH).  During the discussions and talks, it was the first I had ever heard anyone mention of the future being a “methanol economy.”

                Next we went to the R&D center for the Blue Lagoon.  We did not get to go swim;  but we saw their labs and saw the projects they were working involving the silica from the Svartsengi plant wastewater (which is what gives the Blue Lagoon its color- and makes it a tourist attraction), and how they extract it and are making cosmetic products (they say that the silica is good for the skin).   I never imagined myself touring the R&D department of a cosmetic manufacturer…  On the bright side, they did receive licensure recently to make food-grade salt from the water, which is more down my alley.

                All evening was report-writing time, documenting more details from the individual field trips for turning in (I had contemplated simply sending ágúst [ow-goost] a link to the blog…  but I don’t know that it would completely fulfill the requirements).  I did the typing at the University (to minimize distractions), and wound up leaving ~1:30 in the morning, mostly finished.  The bike trails were quite dark and I was marveling over how the darkness of “night” has changed so drastically over the past couple weeks.  And then I looked up.

                There was a bright curtain of green light simply snaking through the middle of the sky overhead, weaving between the few clouds that sat above.  There was a light fog that was setting in there on the shore of the bay where I was riding that fortunately did not obscure the sky as yet.  The Aurora simply mosied across the sky like a cosmic snake biding its time.  I pulled out my camera in the hopes of capturing the event, but unfortunately it did not pick any of it up (possibly due to the excess of light from a nearby light pole.  It flowed for only a minute longer after I began watching, and the tail of the curtain receded behind the horizon, continuing its journey across the universe.

                Yes, I think the trip here is about complete…  though tomorrow’s trip around the Golden Circle will be nice- and provide for much more video and pictures…  as well as dinner at Sam’s with some of the REYST students to celebrate the leaving of those of us enrolled in the 3-week course.

                And I need to finish writing my report at some point…