What do you really associate with Iceland, as an average ignorant foreigner? Maybe volcanoes, maybe waterfalls, maybe Vikings. Fewer people probably think of computer halls - the Icelandic word for computer is computer , a composition of numbers that mean number and wolf , Nordic Nordic women.

But the fact is that the IT industry is booming in Iceland - at least the extraction of cryptocurrency. A "mining operation" that is being ripped apart by large computer systems. Iceland attracts with a cold climate that cools the computers but above all with cheap green electricity.

Since last year, crypto companies in Iceland are consuming more electricity than housing and Iceland has long been attracting electricity-thirsty foreign companies, mainly in heavy industry. The question is how green the electricity really is?

Possible double count

Part of the debate concerns the construction of hydroelectric power stations, some environmental groups linked to the bitcoin brigade's elaptite. A second part revolves around the European system of trade in "guarantees of origin".

The system was created to encourage electricity companies to produce renewable electricity rather than to burn fossil fuels and let electricity companies sell some kind of "green stamps" among themselves.

As a consequence, in 2017, only 13 per cent of the electricity in Iceland was still considered renewable. A 2016 report also warns of the risk of double counting, but some companies in Iceland have also expressed dissatisfaction.

They consider themselves to have come to Iceland just for the renewable cheap electricity, but trade in guarantees of origin means that it is not counted as such.

- On paper, it is not true that electricity is renewable because the guarantee of origin has been sold to another European country, says Fridrik Mar Baldursson, professor of economics at Reykjavik University to SVT.

At the same time - apart from the system of origin guarantees - it is also true that the electricity in the outlet is renewable, since it is the only one available in Iceland.

- Physically purely, however, it is true that electricity is renewable.

Critic: An abuse

Critics accuse Icelandic electricity companies of selling green clearance cards to foreign companies that can hold on non-renewable. Nor does it discourage fossil production in Iceland, since none exists.

- Icelandic companies are abusing the system in practice, says Petur Halldorsson, chairman of the environmental organization Ungir Umhverfissinnar.

- It is not intended to encourage renewable in general, but to phase out non-renewable in other parts of Europe.

The electricity companies emphasize that it is only the heavy industry that is not green stamped something it can pay extra for. In addition, housing and computer companies are exempted from the system, says the electricity company HS Orka in an interview with SVT Nyheter.