According to the agreement, Sudurnes Energy Company will provide the Nordurál smelter in Helguvík with electricity; it will provide 150 megawatts for the first production stage, which could be used for producing 150,000 tons of aluminum.
“It is pleasing that this agreement has been reached,” said Júlíus Jónsson, director of Sudurnes Energy Company. “We have very good experience of cooperation with Nordurál and we look at this project as an opportunity for a profitable power harnessing which will strengthen the economy here in south Iceland and enlarge our market territory,” Jónsson added.
There was no talk of the devastation of all the geothermal areas of outstanding natural beauty and unique ecological and scientific importance that this project will entail.
The group SÓL Á SUÐURNESJUM (“Sun on Sudurnes Peninsula”) – which are resisting the Century Aluminum smelter in Helguvik and fighting for a referendum on the planned smelter in Helguvík said they were saddened by the agreement, as ruv.is reports.
Preparations for the smelter have been in place since 2005, when Reykjanesbaer council, Sudurnes Energy Company and Nordurál signed an agreement on cooperating on a feasibility study.
If everything goes according to plan, operations could begin by the end of this year and electricity for aluminum production could be delivered in 2010.
The local authorities are doing all they can to avoid a democratic referendum.
However, the nearby town of Sandgerdi have refused a planning permision for pylons for the factory which were to go through their township.