Reykjavik – inspirational sustainable city
No list of inspirational sustainable cities would be complete without a nod to Reykjavik – the capital and largest city in Iceland.Reykjavik has set itself the admirable target of being entirely free of fossil fuels by 2050. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, it is already one of the greenest cities in the world.
Published 8 years ago on February 12, 2014By Blue & Green Tomorrow No list of inspirational sustainable cities would be complete without a nod to Reykjavik – the capital, largest city and cultural hub of Iceland. Its tiny population of around 120,000 people (almost 40% of all Icelanders) lives in a city with bold ambitions to cut its contributions to climate change and become a world leader in renewable energy. Reykjavik has set itself the admirable target of being entirely free of fossil fuels by 2050. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, it is already one of the greenest cities in the world. This is thanks largely to the bountiful resources beneath its resident’s feet.
Geothermal energy powers all buildings in the city – with an electricity network generating 750 megawatts (MW) of power from steam and a hot water distribution system producing 60m cubic metres of hot water annually.
All this clean energy warms homes, lights the streets, powers greenhouses that produce most of Reykjavik’s vegetable intake and heats very popular outdoor swimming pools.It is estimated that city’s historic use of geothermal energy prevented as much as 110m tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the atmosphere in the period from 1944 to 2006. Up to 4m tons are currently being saved each year. Only around 0.1% of Iceland’s electricity is generated using fossil fuels.
Reykjavik is not a perfect model of a sustainable city, however. Public transport in Iceland is relatively underdeveloped, while it is ranked as one of the highest nations in the world for car ownership per capita.
This is due largely due to the impracticalities of providing transport infrastructure to such a sparsely populated island where demand is low.
The capital does provide a hydrogen-fuelled bus service, shared electrical cars and bicycles. #sustainability #greentransport