Danish Isle Runs Completely on Renewable Energy

Imagine going from gluttonous consumption of fossil fuels to completely running on renewable energy within a decade. Sounds great, but it simply can’t be done. I mean, that’s what we’ve been told for years.

Oh, wait. It can. Look at that. Huh.

From The New Yorker, via Gizmodo:

For the past decade or so, Samsø has been the site of an unlikely social movement. When it began, in the late nineteen-nineties, the island’s forty-three hundred inhabitants had what might be described as a conventional attitude toward energy: as long as it continued to arrive, they weren’t much interested in it. Most Samsingers heated their houses with oil, which was brought in on tankers. They used electricity imported from the mainland via cable, much of which was generated by burning coal. As a result, each Samsinger put into the atmosphere, on average, nearly eleven tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Then, quite deliberately, the residents of the island set about changing this. They formed energy coöperatives and organized seminars on wind power. They removed their furnaces and replaced them with heat pumps. By 2001, fossil-fuel use on Samsø had been cut in half. By 2003, instead of importing electricity, the island was exporting it, and by 2005 it was producing from renewable sources more energy than it was using.

This is a great example for the rest of the world – what can be done when a community decides to come together to change for the better. It CAN be done, and sooner than most people think. So many people view a shift from fossil fuels to alternative energies as such a huge change that it will be incredibly difficult and even painful to accomplish. It will be tough, sure, but isn’t it worth it? And looking at the beautiful pictures of Samsø, I don’t think anyone can say that the scenery has suffered.

Link [The New Yorker] via [Gizmodo]
Photo credit: Joachim Ladefoged

Video: Danish Wind Turbine Explodes in High Winds

When wind turbines attack!

Check out this wind turbine exploding in Denmark in some kicking high wind. Wind turbines have mechanisms to stop the blades from spinning when it gets super gusty but this one obviously malfunctioned. Yikes!