During a 3-day weekend this spring, Energy & Environment Club members went on a whirlwind trip to Iceland. Each day was packed with activities and learning planned by Lucy Oyer (MBA 2024), 2023-2024 E&E Club President, and Ian Naccarella (MBA 2025), 2024-2025 E&E Club President. Naccarella mentioned how he and Lucy initially thought that this trip might not attract a ton of interest, saying that they “only actually budgeted for ~20 people with the airlines and hotels, but the response from the E&E Club was awesome and we ended up with almost double that many people on the trip!" The group's enthusiasm was part of what made this experience so great.
Day 1:
After arriving on a red-eye flight from Boston, we had some daylight time to choose our own adventure! Some people decided to rent a car and explore the countryside, while we and some others went to see famous landmarks, like the Hallgrímskirkja Church, and found great food in the Icelandic capital city, Reykjavik.
Our first scheduled stop was an overview with our group’s host, Jesper Jolma, an Investment Manager at Baseload Capital who flew in from Sweden to spend time with us. Jesper got his Executive MBA from HBS this year and was a great guide who traveled with us and helped answer our many questions throughout the weekend. At our initial meeting, he went over what geothermal energy is, its potential for helping the world reach a carbon-zero state, and the steps Baseload is taking to help us get there.
After this introduction, we traveled to Transition Labs, a company focused on accelerating climate startups. We were hosted by Kjartan Örn Ólafsson (MBA 2005), the CEO and co-founder of Transition Labs, who gave us insight into the various projects being shepherded by the company and what it will take to move the world toward a sustainable future. We were fortunate to meet a few other team members we networked with and learned from as well.
As our time there wrapped up, everyone scattered and had dinner around the city before many of us got onto a bus tour arranged by Dennis Cha (MBA 2024) to try to see the northern lights. Unfortunately, cloudy conditions arose, and we didn’t see them that night, but our guide made it worth our time by taking us to see the active volcano, giving us a chance to experience the famous Midlina (a 50-foot walking bridge between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates), and providing a drink of homemade hot chocolate under the stars.
Day 2:
After a night of searching for the northern lights, we got up bright and early to go on a bus tour of the Golden Circle. Jesper wanted to show us how the hot water pulled from the ground for geothermal energy can continue to be used beyond the power plant, so we visited places that demonstrated the use of that water from start to end.
Our first stop was to see geothermal power up close. We went to one of Baseload’s active geothermal power plants, where we met other company members, asked questions, and saw the different pieces involved in operating the power plant, such as one of the wells and some machinery.
Next, we stopped for lunch at Fridheimer, a greenhouse where tomatoes are grown year-round. This greenhouse is also heated by geothermal water! Their restaurant is right in the middle of one of the greenhouses. The menu is simple: bottomless tomato soup and freshly baked bread. After an hour of folks competing to see how many bowls of soup they could eat (the winner had 5), we set off for our next stop.
We stopped to see Strokkur Geyser erupt several times, climbed back aboard the bus, and then headed to one of Iceland’s other famous Golden Circle stops, Gullfoss Waterfall. After many pictures and snacks from the gift shop, we started our journey back toward Reykjavik.
Once we returned from the Golden Circle tour, we had a quick turnaround to get ready for our visit to Sky Lagoon. The source of the naturally heated pools there was also geothermal! When reflecting on the entire Iceland experience, Gemma Francis (Partner 2024) spoke about how “Having worked in the net zero technology field, it was fascinating to see and hear about the ecosystem of geothermal power, DAC and carbon storage working together at some of the first of their kind commercial scale projects.” The Sky Lagoon felt like a full-circle activity to wrap up our second day of learning, and it was an excellent opportunity to get in some relaxation and reflection time with all the students and partners on the trek.
Day 3:
By a crisp 7 am local time, we had packed our luggage into the bus and were headed to Carbfix. At Carbfix, we had the pleasure of meeting Ólafur Elínarson, the Head of Communications & Community, who taught us about what Carbfix does and emphasized that this form of carbon capture is not the end-all-be-all solution. We learned about point source capture and direct air capture solutions, and he stressed the importance of adopting other methods that reduce the overall amount of carbon being emitted. In the meantime, Carbfix is here to help make a dent in the vast amount of carbon existing where it shouldn’t. After his presentation, we saw some of their facility and visited another well site.
After learning about carbon capture, we visited the Iceland Ministry of Environment, Energy, and Climate, where we met the Minister, Gudlaugur Thór Thórdarson. He generously gave us some of his time to talk about all the great things Iceland is doing to improve the environment nationally as well as worldwide. In many ways, Iceland is a perfect example of how geothermal energy could be harnessed on a larger scale. His office is making an effort to have conversations with other nations to share what Iceland has learned about geothermal energy and how it could be used around the globe.
Something that we heard expressed on this trek and even after was a common sentiment about the incredible reach of the HBS community. Ian Naccarella remarked that this trip “gave [him] a sense for how powerful the HBS network is because, through some alums that Lucy was introduced to through BEI, we were able to get access to tons of cool startups and government officials in Iceland!” We agree. This adventure was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
After we visited with the minister, we made one last quick stop for lunch. Then, we were on our final bus ride of the weekend to the airport for our flight home—and classes the next day!