Saving Iceland Blockades Century Smelter at Grundartangi

GRUNDARTANGI – Saving Iceland has this afternoon closed the single
supply road from Highway 1 to the Century/Nordural smelter on
Hvalfjordur and the steel factory Elkem – Icelandic Alloys. Saving
Iceland opposes the planned new Century smelter at Helguvik and the
expansion of the Icelandic Alloys factory. Activists have used lock-
ons (metal arm tubes) to form a human blockade on the road and have
occupied a construction site crane.

Century Aluminum, a part of the recently formed Russian-Swiss RUSAL/
Glencore/SUAL conglomorate, want to build a second smelter in Iceland
in Helguvik with a projected capacity of at least 250.000 metric tons
per annum. The planned site is designed to accommodate further
expansion. Grundartangi has this year been extended to 260.000 mtpa.

Currently, an environmental impact assessment (1) is under review for
the Helguvik smelter, produced by the construction consultants HRV
(Honnun/Rafhonnun/VST).

“It is absurd that an engineering company with a vested interest in
the smelter construction could be considered to produce an objective
impact assessment. The document makes absurd claims, such as that
pollution is really not a problem because Helguvik is such a windy
place that the pollution will just blow away,” says Saving Iceland’s
Snorri Páll Jónsson Úlfhildarson.”

“This smelter will demand new geothermal power plants at Seltún,
Sandfell, Austurengjar and Trölladyngju. In addition to the Hengill area
which has already been seriously damaged by Reykjavik Energy. The impact
assessment does
not take these into account, nor the impact of the huge amount of
power lines and pylons required. The plants will ruin the natural and
scenic value of the whole peninsula. Also, the recquired capacity,
400 MW, exceeds the natural capactity of the geothermal spots, and
they will cool down in three to four decades (2). And Century admits
it wants the site to expand further in the next decades. So it is
obvious that this smelter will not just ruin Reykjanes but also need
additional hydropower.”

The impact procedure seems to be completely irrelevant anyway, since
the company has completed an equity offering worth $360 million to be
deployed for partly financing the construction of the Helguvik
smelter project (3). This indicates that Century already has high
level assurances that the project is to continue no matter what.

This completely contradicts the claims the new government of
Iceland, and particularly it’s environment minister Þórunn
Sveinbjarnardóttir, is opposed to new smelter projects.

Icelandic Alloys wants to expand its facility for producing
ferrosilicon for the steel industry. It is in fact one of Iceland’s
largest contributors to greenhouse gases and other pollutants (4).

“Expansion of Icelandic Alloys and Century considerably contribute to
Iceland’s greenhouse emissions. If there are no further expansions of
heavy industry beyond Grundartangi and ALCOA Fjardaal, Iceland will
emit 38% more greenhouse gases than in 1990. If other expansion plans

continue, levels would rise to an incredible 63% above 1990 levels.
(5). That is completely irresponsible.

This shows that all the talk about ‘green energy’ from hydro and
geothermal is, in reality, a lie. Icelanders have to rise up against
these foreign corporations,” says Úlfhildarson.


More information:
 http://www.savingiceland.org



Notes and references:
1. Environmental Impact Assesment, HRV, may 2007,  http://www.hrv.is/
media/files/Frummatsskýrsla_2007-05-02_low%20res.pdf
2. Landvernd, Letter to national planning agency, 28th June 2007,
 http://www.landvernd.is/myndir/Umsogn_Helguvik.pdf
3. Credit Suisse, June 12th 2007,  http://www.newratings.com/
analyst_news/article_1548857.html
4. Icelandic Ministry of the Environment, March 2006, http://
unfccc.int/resource/docs/natc/islnc4.pdf
5. Idem.