(bright upbeat music)
- Throughout the country, There is a network of groundwater
that gets heated up to boiling temperatures.
This happens so much that you will often see fumaroles
throughout the landscape.
This is steam escaping from the earth.
These I think are bog bilberries.
But as you see all of those little flowers there,
yeah, it's not the right season.
The Blue Lagoon is actually filled with the runoff water
from the nearby Svartsengi Geothermal Power Plant.
(bright upbeat music)
So behind me, right here, is a geothermal power plant.
And what they do is that they take the steam
coming out of the earth
and they use it to produce electricity.
But it's not pollution, that is H2O.
That is steam coming out of there.
I believe it's one third of the electricity in Iceland
that is produced by geothermal power.
And one really interesting thing
about this particular geothermal power plant
is that the water that is kind of like a byproduct
of creating the electricity from the steam
is funneled out into a nearby tourist location,
The Blue Lagoon.
And people come from all around the world
to go to the Blue Lagoon and like relax in the water.
And I think a lot of people think
that this is like natural water from the earth or something,
like a hot spring.
No, it is basically the hot water runoff
from this guy right here.
So it's still natural,
but after it's been processed by this factory,
which is really, really cool,
(bright upbeat music)
Geothermal energy has radically shifted the economy
and the environmental effect on Iceland.
According to the National Energy Authority of Iceland,
which was very helpful in making this video,
"During the course of the 20th century,
"Iceland went from what was
"one of Europe's poorest countries,
"dependent on peat and imported coal for its energy,
"to a country with a high standard of living
"where practically all stationary energy
"is derived from renewable resources.
Per capita, Iceland is the largest green energy producer
in the entire world.
Nearly all of the electricity in Iceland
is from renewable energy.
73% comes from hydro power,
and 27% comes from geothermal power.
So how does geothermal energy work?
I don't know.
For this, I'm going to refer you to an expert.
(bright upbeat music)
- Hey, how are you doing?
Okay, let me make this crystal clear for you.
You see that steam?
It's a fricking waste flying out into the air
doing nothing for nobody.
I know a guy that'll fix that problem.
When a lot of geothermal activity is found in an area,
we drill a borehole into the ground
in order to tap into that energy.
You get me?
Instead of going nowhere,
now that steam goes into this thing.
(bright upbeat music)
Hey, would you look at that?
That steam causes a turbine to spin.
The turbine activates a generator,
the generator produces electricity,
that electricity powers your TV,
and in bada bing bada boom,
your watch Wheel of Fortune.
It's as easy as that.
(bright upbeat music)
- [Moderator] Thank you, Professor.
And it doesn't end there.
After being used to generate electricity,
the water from the earth, as well as condensed steam
are then piped into people's homes
for heating and hot water.
I'll be talking about that soon, but first,
yes, that's right, more sheep.
(bright upbeat music)
All right, you know the drill,
let's go back to the Agricultural University.
This time to chat about berries.
Can you tell me a little bit
about the native fruits of Iceland?
Like what is growing out,
just outside, no greenhouse involved?
- We have the crowberry,
the black crowberries.
Then we have different varieties of blueberries
which are super sweet.
Those berries, they need snow
to be able to maintain the health.
The berries develop during the summertime
and they become ripe in August.
You can go in the morning and at that season,
lay out there and just pick your berries
and you won't notice the time flying.
- [Moderator] The Berry season in Iceland is short?
- It is short.
And you can be very unlucky
because you might have something frost,
- [Moderator] Right. - For one day,
and then it will be good for the next couple of weeks,
but all the berries have gone bad.
- [Moderator] Yeah. - Yeah.
- [Moderator] So I came here, and I was just like,
"Maybe I'll find like one berry or something"
I was like, everyone has told me like, "Nope."
- No, no, you will not find. - [Moderator] Yeah, August.
- Not at this point.
And also you should have someone with you
to help you recognize berries.
(bright upbeat music)
- Yeah, those taste like bearberries.
- Also since the tourism increased,
people are closing their lands.
You know, the farmers,
because they were having groups of people, buses,
30, 40, even 100 people coming into the land
just picking everything and stuff.
- [Moderator] Before even tourists.
- But then they also decided to try to offer the tourists
who would be interested to pick to come into the land
and at the right season.
They will introduce everything to them.
- [Moderator] Sure.
Not by the bus load on their own accord,
but touring, yeah - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Are native berries here sold at markets too
or is that purely foraging?
- Some people who have big lands,
they try to pick them and sell them,
but it's in a very small scale.
I'm not sure why they haven't been doing it
in a larger scale because I think it's possible.
- I went to the volcano,
the erupting volcano here,
and what I noticed were like an entire valley
just full of crowberry leaves, which I recognized,
but they were fruiting.
- They had like small green fruits or,
- [Moderator] Not just green, green fruits,
and some were all the way ripe,
but then dried out.
- Yeah, the ones that are black and dried out
are since last season.
The green ones are the ones who will become fresh
this fall.
- This was right by the lava field there.
You think the heat might have an effect or?
- Well, I think the can help,
it can also do bad things as well.
You can also be looking at a place in front of you
which is having a lot of crowberries, for example,
with a lot of green, small berries starting to appear,
then you will take 10 steps and then see another place
and there's nothing.
- [Moderator] Right.
- It might need some time to gather energy
an year between.
So yeah, you need to just stay focused on the ground
and search.
(bright upbeat music)
- You may be asking yourself now,
"Hey, I thought that this was about bananas.
"Why am I watching a video
"about geothermal power plants and berries?"
Well, first off, you have some attitude, Mr.
Second of all, bananas are technically berries.
Third of all, and most importantly,
I have been going down a rabbit hole
that admittedly does diverge in the beginning.
One path follows how geothermal energy is used in Iceland.
The other path is how fruit is grown in Iceland.
Well, next up, these two paths finally come back together.
(bright upbeat music)
Well, that wraps it up for part four of my six-part series
about the Icelandic banana and apparently other things.
The next episode,
we're going to get back on track again about bananas
because now the pieces are gonna start to come together
a little bit more.
We're going to be talking about how geothermal energy
is used to heat people's homes
and also how it's used to heat greenhouses.
So we're getting back on topic, guys.
I would like to take a moment to thank my Patreon supporters
including anyone who signed up recently.
Thank you so much.
It's how this channel happens.
The support that I get over on Patreon,
and now's a great time to sign up if you have not
because there's going to be a ton of exclusive content,
oh, there is a ton of exclusive content
over on my Patron page,
including the commentary for this episode
and some behind the scenes footage as well.
So check that out in the description below.
And again, thank you
to the Agricultural University of Iceland
for helping me in my adventure to find out more information
about the Icelandic banana.
I'll put links to their website
as well as other sources that I used for this series
in the description below.
Thanks a lot, guys.
I will see you next time.