global geothermal news: october, page-23

Oh dear - will hit the geothermal industry harder than most think

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Iceland Premier Tells Nation to Go Fishing After Banks Implode

By Niklas Magnusson

Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Iceland Prime Minister Geir Haarde has some advice for his fellow citizens after the country's banking system imploded: Go fishing.

``We are too small a country to sustain such a big banking system,'' he said in an interview. ``We have fantastic resources and an abundance of green energy and we will now utilize that and the other resources we have, the ocean and human capital.''

Over the past decade, Iceland's banks backed a buying binge that saw local investors take stakes in retailers such as Saks Fifth Avenue, jeweler Mappin & Webb, and the parent of American Airlines, while the nation's banks snapped up financial services firms abroad. That foreign adventure came to an end this week with the government seizure of Iceland's top three banks, including Kaupthing Bank hf, the nation's biggest lender.

Now residents are betting that the Atlantic island's natural resources, primarily fish and geothermal energy, will help the country survive.

``We can live off the land as there are not so many of us, and we have heating, clean water and fish,'' said Reykjavik resident Kristinn Johansson, 50, outside a branch of the now- nationalized Kaupthing. ``We will be fine. We can eat what we can fish.''