Blogging Reykjavik

In 1004 AD Leif Ericsson invented the cell phone.

He was born in Norway but after his father had to flee from prosecution (he was accused of spamming, pretty handy at carving runes or so the story goes) they escaped to Iceland where they up a new phone factory. After some traveling Leif decided to go to America to party with the Indians. During his visit he drank lots of wine and didn't get a hang over. He was from that day onwards known as Leif the lucky.



Ok so that isn't exactly what happened, perhaps this passage will shed some light on him:

It is said to this day that Leif was born around 980 (in Iceland) and was the second son of Erik the Red (Old Norse: Eiríkr rauði), a Norwegian-Icelandic outlaw, himself the son of another Norwegian outlaw, Þorvaldr Ásvaldsson. Leif's mother was Þjóðhildr. Erik had started two Norse colonies, the Western Settlement and the Eastern Settlement, in Greenland, which he had named. As far as it is known, Leif Ericson had two brothers, Þorvaldr and Þorsteinn, and one sister, Freydís. Leif married a woman by the name of Þórgunnr, and they had one son, Þorkell Leifsson.

During a stay in Norway, Leif was converted to Christianity, like many Norse around that time. He also went to Norway to serve the King of Norway, Olaf Tryggvason. When he returned to Greenland, he bought the boat of Bjarni Herjólfsson, and set out to explore the land that Bjarni had found, today known as North America.

The Saga of the Greenlanders tells that Leif set out around 1000 to follow Bjarni's circular route with 35 crew members, but in the opposite direction.[1] The first land he met was covered with flat rock slabs (Old Norse: hellur). He therefore called it Helluland ("Land of the Flat Stones"), probably the present day Baffin Island. Next he came to a land that was flat and wooded, with white sandy beaches, which he called Markland ("Wood-land"), usually assumed to have been Labrador.

When Leif and his crew left Markland and found land again, they landed and built some houses. They found the land pleasant: there were plenty of salmon in the river, and the climate was mild, with little frost in the winter, and green grass year-round. They remained at this place over the winter. The sagas mention that one of Leif's men, Tyrkir, possibly a German warrior, found grapes, and that Leif named the country Vínland after them.

On the return voyage, Leif rescued an Icelandic castaway named Þórir and his crew — an incident that earned Leif the nickname 'Leif the Lucky' (Old Norse: Leifr hinn heppni).

From our good friends at Wikipedia

More info about Leif

This statue can be found outside of Hallgríms Kirkja, or the Church of Hallgrim in Reykjavik.

- The Thor all rights reserved

There is a lot of space in Iceland, in places there is nothing but. Reykjavik is the only place where you need to really be awake. You might actually bump into something or someone if you don't pay attention.









- The Thor all rights reserved

Hydrogen is the fuel of the future. Quite a populist statement, but it might be true in parts. The main problem with hydrogen is that it is simply a storage form. Not unlike pumping water upstream when electricity consumption is low and extra energy is available in order to have it flow down stream when the electricity is needed and prices are up.

Anyway what I'm saying is that you need energy to create hydrogen. One of Iceland’s great resources is clean renewable energy. Hydro and thermal power is abundant and it would therefore be very easy to convert all the hydrogen needed to run the transportation system and shipping system also.

Availability of renewable energy, at present, is scarce at the European continent. Wind and solar power are still being developed and in the future these two can easily provide Europe with far larger share of the total energy needed in the continent. Still there are European locations that have high potential of producing clean renewable power, countries like Norway and Sweden produce large proportion of the power from renewable sources. Iceland, which all the electric power source is from renewable sources (hydro- and geothermal power), still has only utilized around 14% of it power source (after evaluating environmental aspects).

Clean (green) hydrogen is therefore not available in large quantities to the market in Europe. With the increasing interest of using hydrogen for transport and other applications there is a new market being created for hydrogen, other than using hydrogen in chemical applications. Production of hydrogen has mainly been from two sources, reforming of natural gas and by electrolysing water. Producing hydrogen from natural gas is not emission free, but electrolysing water is emission free as long as the electricity is from a regenerative source (CO2 free production of hydrogen). In Iceland this is the case and in this project the feasibility of exporting (green) hydrogen from Iceland to the European continent will be investigated.
- From Icelandic New Energy's website enter it for more information

Here are a few pictures of an actual hydrogen station, run by Icelandic New Energy and Shell amongst others. More about the future in the next post.







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The Reykjavik city code of arms or city seal is very simple in construction. It contains two parts. The ocean, and two high seat pillars. Ingólfur Arnarson the first settler of Iceland is supposed to have decided to toss his high seat pillars overboard when he approached Iceland and where he found them he would build his settlement. He found them in Reykjavik forming the first city in Iceland. It was apparently common practice for Vikings to travel with their high seat pillars and toss them overboard when approaching land. This was a good way to find where driftwood would end up but driftwood was considered a very important resource to have.





A quick history lesson:

Iceland was settled by Norwegian and Celtic immigrants during the late 9th and 10th centuries A.D. According to the medieval Book of Settlements, Ingolfur Arnarson – the first settler of Iceland – built his farm on the peninsula where Reykjavik stands today. The place was named Reykjavik – “Smoky Bay” - after the columns of steam that rose from the hot springs in the area and made such a profound impression on the original settlers.

Many centuries later, around the middle of the 18th century, a small town started to grow around the farm of Reykjavik, thanks to Royal Treasurer Skuli Magnusson, known as the Father of Reykjavik, who established wool workshops at Reykjavik as part of his efforts to modernise the Icelandic economy. This led to the beginnings of urban development at Reykjavik. Reykjavik received its town charter in 1786.

The Icelandic parliament, Althingi, was founded in the 930 AD at Thingvellir in the southwest. In 1798 the Althingi was abolished, but in 1845 it was re-established in Reykjavik, where the country’s government and administration were now located. In due course, when Iceland won Home Rule and then independence from Danish rule, Reykjavik became the capital of Iceland. With the rapid economic progress of the 20th century, Reykjavik grew steadily, but developed especially fast in the second half of the century.

from Visit Reykjavik's website Check it out, it has some pretty good tourist info.

You may find the city coat of arms all over the place. For example as the sites new icon !!


- The Thor all rights reserved

A lot can be seen from the way people move, do they know each other, are they friends, do they have an artificial leg. Motion is life.







- The Thor all rights reserved