Iceland has mostly been governed by the center right conservative independence party, which has been quick to sell land and resources to anyone interested. Kárahnjúkar is the canonical example of this, a huge hydro plant powering aluminium smelters owned by a foreign company.

Right now, different parties have the majority rule, and their interest in projects like these are not clear. I would suspect that a motivated investor could fairly easily get them built. The hurdles would be logistics and connectivity much more than red tape.

Iceland is culturally and politically scandinavian with some influence from the US. In august there will be a vote to start accession talks with the EU. This has been a heavily contested issue for years, largely due to Iceland's unique resources.