Energy in Norway

The inside of our ferry in Oslo.

 As we begin our second day in Norway, we are beginning to appreciate the prices back home. A hamburger for $28.00 is a common find and those are at the TGIF Friday's so we know what you get and can compare it to the price back home. We are thankful we had the forethought to pack snacks before leaving home. There is just something wrong with paying that much for a meal. The cost of transportation is high as well with one hour fares within zone one costing about $7. We soon found the multi ticket of 6 rides comes out cheaper. Since we must travel each day, we have been walking alot to shed any extra weight from an ice cream cone or two. To the left you can see what the inside of the ferry looks like that we take each day to get back and forth from our hostesses house.

Enjoying the Scream

Today we wanted a little culture so we visited the Munch Museum. For those who participated in our Fine Art unit, you may remember his most famous painting, The Scream.

We also walked through the Botanical Gardens where we saw many different varieties of plants from all over the world. We saw several tropical plants such as bromeliads that we will be learning about in our Ecosystems unit next year. 

The Nobel Peace Center was also one of our stops where we saw a beautiful lighted tribute to the winners through the years.

Paraffin burns here to heat the home

Parafffin is used to heat many homes

  At the home of our hostess, she explained how they use paraffin to heat their homes throughout the winter. In her basement she showed us the tanks they must fill about twice a year. It is less expensive to fill it during the summer. They generally heat the bottom floors and allow the heat to rise to make the most of their energy source. They also have coils under the hard surface floors to heat them. They feel great on your socked feet in the morning.

When they don't burn wood, they burn dry paper here.
Another way to recycle.

She will burn dry paper goods, mail and left over mail in the main chamber of her fireplace stove again allowing the heat to permeate the home. Obviously, air conditioning is not needed here. Unlike Iceland, the electricity here is more expensive. They seem to be better conservationists than major producers of renewable energies. The main source of renewable energy found here has been hydropower. There are many hydropower plants found near the lakes and fjords. They have also just introduced the first hydrogen powered bus this May. This area is very beautiful with flowers blooming everywhere. We will post more pictures soon, probably on our Flickr page. It is amazing how much we have seen. We are loving every minute and are constantly reminding ourselves we are really here!

Creating energy

Technology Museum

The next morning we were again up early to catch the ferry and then the tram to the Technology Museum to see their excellent exhibit teaching about Energy.  Of course one problem with public transportation is it is not always working when you need it to.  We needed to catch the number 12 trolley to the last stop but when we got to the place to catch the trolley we discovered it was not running for some reason.  Off to find another alternative, only to discover that the bus you can take does not come to that stop, so back to the trolley stop and there it was.  It took us about an hour to get someplace that should have taken 20 minutes and it was not raining. 

Once we were there, we were surrounded by what seemed all of the elementary aged children in Oslo. They were everywhere exploring and participating in the many different hands-on activies. We naturally headed straight to the Energy exhibit.  Here we were able to get information on all forms of renewable energy as well as participate with interactive displays. We wish we would have had a little more time to explore  more of the museum.

We said good bye to Iceland the next day and after we landed in Oslo airport, we looked for our train into the city center. It was very easy to transfer from the airport to the train station, and soon we were on our way. We emerged from the platform to find a vibrant central station before us.

The Norwegian transit system is very efficient and varied in the ways you can get around. There is the bus, the Tube [subway], the train, the ferry, bikes and the ever popular mode: walking.

The train station was situated right across from the tram and bus station and only a block away from the Tube station. If you didn't go by any of these modes of transportation, there were bikes and pedestrian everywhere. The city center was in fact "Pedestrian only" on 4 of the streets that lead to the  hub where we were located.




 We were surprised when we found out that many people commuted across the fjord daily, and left their bikes on the Oslo side for the second leg of their daily commute.





We had agreed to meet up with our hostess Renate Ostergard in front of the train station later that afternoon when she got off work. In the mean time we enjoyed what would be one of the clearest days we had in Norway. Time flew by as we watched this busy city whiz by us, much of it run by electricity, instead of gas.

 We thought we had hit the jackpot when we found the electric car plug-in station parking lot where at least 20-25 cars could charge while their owners were at work.

The next morning we didn't head for Oslo, but to Drobec which is a small village south of the capitol city, to get a feel for the local community. This usually sleepy little town was wide awake as it was market swap day. We got to to see many cottage industry products like hand made soap, crocheted clothing for all ages as well as hand made toys and pottery.  There were also the usual personal treasures up for trade as well. Everyone was friendly and most were able to speak English quite well!




Renate shared an even better secret with us when we had wandered a bit. this town was the home of the original Christmas Store! We headed straight for this absolutely magic store and had a wonderful time  reminiscing about favorite childhood stories of this very special season. We also found out that Santa came by the post office located in the store to drop off letters to boys and girls that have been extra specially good that year. We found one of his elves hard at work when we stopped by!

 Then we walked around the village itself and fell in love with the old well kept homes and businesses.  But as captivating as the village of Drobec we had to tear ourselves away because we were headed to the Norway Open Air Folk museum to find out what kind of carbon footprint Norwegians hundreds of years ago left. We wondered if they knew how to recycle in the 10th century, and being the tough detectives that we are, we would let nothing stand in our way! Not even a few measly centuries.

What we found was that the ancient farmers of Scandinavia were the original recyclers. Everything came from the land and the land was everything. These people took everything from the forest that they needed and what they didn't need just became compost and went right back into the land.

The buildings were insulated in quite clever ways. For instance, the roof was protected by growing plants on it. It kept the farmers dry in the wet times and warm in cold times as well as cool in warm times. During the long dark winters they spun linen from flax [ a plant they grew for the grain first] and carves wonderful objects from wood.

We left the Folk-museum in awe of these first Norwegians. We knew it was a hard life back then, but we didn't realize how efficient they were in the process. This visit inspired us to persevere in our quest for 0 carbon footprint answers!

The Golden Circle of Iceland

On the bus heading to the Golden
Circle

You can see the pipeline for the heated
water and the power lines all coming
from the geothermal plant.

Day 2 in Iceland.  This morning we were up early and headed out for the Golden Circle Tour.  This gave us the opportunity to observe first hand how geothermal energy is harnessed and used throughout this country. 

 As we headed east from Reyjkavik we immediately observed the pipelines and power cables along the road.   

One of many plants turning heated
water into electricity.

 This is the process used to transport the hot waters from the geothermal plant to the city and towns.  Power lines sending electricity were located along side the pipes. We were able to see the first power plant fromm a distance. (see our Flickr page for more pics)

The Geysir in action

Gullfoss Waterfall is one of the
top 10 waterfalls in the world.

Our tour also enlightened us with the history of Iceland and its first Parliament location.  We were  able to see where the North American and European Continental plates are drifting apart.  The bottom picture to the left was taken near the rift.  The part that is in the middle is called a "micro plate".  This stop was followed by a visit to the Gullfoss Waterfall which is the result of melting glaciers.  This is the location of one of the first ecological preservation efforts, successfully spearheaded by a young local girl who was able to save the falls from commercial use.  Next stop was the "Geysir" where again geothermal activity was observed.



At the Geothermal Plant

  Our final stop was the Hellisheidarvirkjun Geothermal Power Plant. Here we were able to observe  how the extremely hot waters from the earth are processed and sent to homes throughout Iceland. Our tour guide explained that two of the three geothermal power plants had a componant that takes the gasses out of the geothermal heated water but one of the plants which serviced Reykavik did not therefore the smell of sulphur was what we had been smelling in the shower.  This particular plant services the local towns and Reyjkavik.  After our 9 hour tour it was back to the room to pack up and find a place to eat before getting to bed and prepared for a 4:45 a.m. departure for the airport.  Now it is on to Norway, where the Energy Detectives will pursue ...... Hydropower at work.  Stay tuned for more details.