Icelanders protest over hydro project

A large crowd of people gathered outside the Iceland’s House of Parliament in Reykjavik last week to protest against the Kárahnjúkar hydroelectric dam and project that’s planned for eastern Iceland.

A man who threw a snowball at the Parliament was immediately arrested by police. The arrest angered the other protesters, and they began to pitch more snowballs. Police didn’t arrest the other protesters, who remained outside the Parliament most of the day shouting slogans and demanding a national vote on construction of the power plant.

The $3-billion Karahnjukar hydro project calls for the damming of two rivers, draining them through 24 miles of tunnels, and then pouring the water through turbines to generate 700 megawatts of electricity. When finished, the plant would sell power to an aluminum smelter owned by Alcoa, the world’s largest aluminum company.