The Blue Lagoon, a surreal-looking spa created near the Svartsengi power plant, outside Iceland's capital city of Reykjavik, Iceland. Pumping 470 F (243 C) water from up to 1-1/4 miles beneath the earth, the plant generates electricity ? and a somewhat cooler runoff that is rich in the kind of silicates and salts loved by devotees of mineral baths. Bathing is permitted only in the 2.5-acre (1 ha.) patch of the lake in which the water temperature is cool enough. Environment. Published in the book Material World: A Global Family Portrait, pages 168-169.