Green Fantasyland: Denmark
There's a wonderful article from Outside Magazine that shows it is possible for industrialized nations to cut energy consumption, turn to renewable sources of energy, and prosper by doing it.
In fact, Samsø has spent the past decade becoming an eco-wonderland, setting up wind, solar, biofuels, and other renewable technologies to satisfy its energy needs. The island has even gone beyond "carbon neutrality," the cherished environmental goal of zeroing out the production of CO2, the greenhouse gas most responsible for global warming.
Samsø is an island in Denmark rich in the wind resource. They get so much wind that they can't use all of the electricity their turbines produce, so they sell the excess to the main electric grid. And even individuals are leveraging the wind.
Turbines are owned by private investors like Tranberg, by the government, or by cooperatives of people who bought shares to finance their construction. The process is democratic in the way so many things are in Denmark; shares cost about $360 each. Tranberg, for his part, took out a loan to buy his $1 million windmill six years ago, but the government guaranteed him an above-market price for his power. And the wind, which blows lustily here most days of the year, proved to be an even better friend than he and other islanders had hoped. Investors have seen returns of 8 percent or so a year, which works out to roughly $100,000 per onshore turbine. Tranberg's is already paid off. "It's enough income for me that I don't have to work, but I like to work," he says. Besides, he adds, talking tough for a man in clogs, "we can't put all that shit in the sky from coal. There's too much shit in the air."
The article has much, much more about this inspiring community that clearly "gets it". Check out the link to read the entire thing.
