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alexpotato • yesterday at 5:01 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

In Michael Lewis book Boomerang [0], there is a chapter about Iceland and he mentions geothermal.

My understanding:

- b/c of geothermal, huge amounts of electricity are available for low cost

- Iceland being an island makes it VERY expensive to build/transport goods back and forth

- The above combo means that aluminum smelting is the only industry where the electricity availability outweighed the costs of transport and being on an island.

0 - https://amzn.to/4j8r3bO


Replies

sghiassy • yesterday at 7:03 PM

I have heard about the benefits of aluminum smelting there before.

We already have transatlantic fiber optic cables so I don’t see why “transportation” costs apply here though

riffraff • yesterday at 5:10 PM

Crypto mining was often mentioned too, but I seldom hear of icelandic Bitcoin miners these days.