The department meeting was held in the oldest part of the university (circa 1950’s) in a room with dark leather couches, a fireplace and an old bar overlooking the grounds. For an hour we drank strong coffee and I talked about Western State, energy economics and my research. I explained to them that my research for the Fulbright fellowship involves investigating the socio-economic issues associated with Iceland’s transition to renewable energy to hopefully apply these lessons to Colorado’s renewable energy transition. Over 85% of Iceland’s energy is derived from hydroelectric and geothermal sources. Meanwhile, Colorado only generates 10% of its energy from renewable sources but has recently decided to begin transitioning away from carbon-based sources as well. In 2004, Colorado became the first state to mandate by voter-approval that 10% of electric energy be generated from renewable resources (by 2015). This has been modified twice and now large, investor-owned utilities are required to generate 30% of their energy mix from renewable sources by 2020. Colorado has huge coal reserves and is well situated to generate renewable energy via wind, solar and geothermal. The cost difference between coal and renewable power sources are significant and there are structural issues, such as peak load issues and a lack of transmission lines, which make the use of renewables more difficult.
Most of the faculty asked questions pertaining to regulations and industry structure. Interestingly, the Rector of Bifröst is on the board of directors of Iceland’s state-owned energy company. I’m really hoping to get a chance to discuss some of these issues with her. One of the major issues in Iceland currently is the question whether the energy company is selling renewable energy too cheaply to foreign-owned aluminum plants. Iceland has the lowest cost energy in all of Europe and has been building large-scale hydroelectric dams to meet the new demand of the aluminum smelters. One question that keeps coming up in my conversations with people here is whether Iceland is underpricing it’s electricity because it isn’t taking into account the environmental costs of its generation.
One of the reasons Bifröst applied for an economics Fulbright scholar is to help them restructure their political science, philosophy and economics major (it is all contained together). I’ve been asked to meet with that subgroup of faculty to discuss their current structure and how to coordinate these better.
At the end of the meeting, they asked about how we are adjusting to being in such a rural area and I commented that it is like ‘in town living’ for us and that the kids love living on campus because they can walk to their friends' houses and to the store for candy.
After the department meeting, I got to have soup with some of the faculty. Every second Wednesday, two people at the university volunteer to make soup for everyone (approximately 50 people). This tradition started the week after the Icelandic monetary crash in 2008. Everyone was horribly depressed. There were shortages at grocery stores because people were concerned that kronür would become worthless. Two of the faculty invited everyone to a soup lunch, where nothing about economics or the economy could be discussed. The tradition continues today and two people; Gaui (head custodian, father of one of Joslyn’s friends and leader of the Monday gönguklúbbur) and Hjalti (software tech for the university) made the Danish national soup. It had corn, carrots, onions, garlic, tomatoes, fish, stock, some curry and cream. It was delicious. I’m still trying to translate the recipe.
The seminar for the day was given in English by the director of Corporate Social Responsibility for Landibanki, which is one of the national banks that has been reborn from the ashes of the crash in 2008. It was an interesting discussion as he had been doing the same job for Alcoa in Iceland for the prior 7 years. What I learned is that altruism (getting nothing in return for good acts) is not the same as corporate social responsibility (might get non-monetary benefits for good acts) and that it is ok to spend two times the amount of money promoting the good act as you spent on performing the good act. Strange, but true.
After the meeting and seminar, Shan and I met up and headed to Borgarnes to set up a bank account so the Fulbright foundation could pay me. The Fulbright commission pays each scholar a monthly stipend in the local currency and this must go through a local bank. We had tried to open an account while in Reykjavík on Tuesday but we didn’t have our passports. Today we remembered our passports and opened an account. However, we were unable to get a debit card, which almost everyone here uses to buy everything, because we didn’t have a passport photo to attach to the application. In Iceland, all debit cards have your photo on it and is used extensively by people to prove their identity. Now we are going to have to wait until another day to get the debit cards.
We arrived home about 10 minutes before the girls got off the bus. Shan went to a yoga session (his first ever) to check it out. He seems to have liked it and since it takes place weekly for free, he is trying to talk me into going as well. For dinner we used our newly acquired raclette. This model does not have temperature control so at one point we were concerned that the meats we were cooking might set off the smoke alarm. Luckily, they didn’t. The kids are already asking when we can invite some of our friends over and use the raclette with them.
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