This month's New Yorker features a very interesting article on the victory of a Danish community over carbon emissions.
According to a local farmer, once people on the island of Samsø began thinking about energy, it became a kind of sport. The island sits in what is known as the Kattegat, an arm of the North Sea. For the past decade it has been the site of an unlikely social movement. From a conventional attitude towards energy, Samsingers deliberately switched to a green mindset and formed energy cooperatives and organised seminars on wind power. They removed their furnaces and replaced them with heat pumps. By 2001 they had cut fossil-fuel use in half. By 2003 instead of importing electricity the island started exporting it! And by 2005 Samsø was producing more energy from renewable resources than it was using.
Samsø has eleven large land-based turbines and a dozen additional micro-turbines. Of course the island is aided by its geography and the fact that the wind blows practically continuously. Still, Denmark's renewable energy island is not inhabited by a community of do-gooders, intellectuals or hippies for that matter. Its people are mostly conservative farmers. They did not receive a prize or special tax breaks or even government assistance for their voluntary investment in wind energy. They simply opted for the turbines because the project made sense to them and protected their environment and their health. Of course in 1997, when it all started, many people were skeptical about the project's cost-effectiveness, but little by little nearly all the residents got bitten by the energy bug!
Each land-based turbine cost the equivalent of $ 850,000. The offshore turbines cost about $ 3 million each. Some of them were erected by a single investor, others were purchased collectively. At least 450 residents on the island own shares in the onshore turbines and a roughly equal number own shares in those offshore. Shareholders, who also include nonresidents, receive annual dividend cheques based on the prevailing price of electricity and how much their turbine has generated. People care about the production because they own the turbines.
"Being part of it we also feel responsibile."
All told, the Samsø initiative has a minimal effect on global CO2 emissions of course, but it is an example of what a community can do to make use of its natural, eternally renewable resources to ward off climate change.
Even without investing in our own turbines, most of us Europeans can do our bit for the environment by opting for green energy. With the EU-wide liberalisation of the energy market, most of us can tear up our contracts with coal-fired providers and sign up to 100 % green energy providers without incurring any penalties or paying heftier bills.
Belgian residents can check out Greenpeace's recommendations here. By switching from Electrabel (watch this video to see how Electrabel has been ripping us off!) to a green energy provider, you will also stop funding the nuclear sector. All it takes is a phonecall!
For more information on the Samsø initiative, refer to Elizabeth Kolbert's article "The island in the wind", The New Yorker (July 7 and 14 2008).
According to a local farmer, once people on the island of Samsø began thinking about energy, it became a kind of sport. The island sits in what is known as the Kattegat, an arm of the North Sea. For the past decade it has been the site of an unlikely social movement. From a conventional attitude towards energy, Samsingers deliberately switched to a green mindset and formed energy cooperatives and organised seminars on wind power. They removed their furnaces and replaced them with heat pumps. By 2001 they had cut fossil-fuel use in half. By 2003 instead of importing electricity the island started exporting it! And by 2005 Samsø was producing more energy from renewable resources than it was using.
Samsø has eleven large land-based turbines and a dozen additional micro-turbines. Of course the island is aided by its geography and the fact that the wind blows practically continuously. Still, Denmark's renewable energy island is not inhabited by a community of do-gooders, intellectuals or hippies for that matter. Its people are mostly conservative farmers. They did not receive a prize or special tax breaks or even government assistance for their voluntary investment in wind energy. They simply opted for the turbines because the project made sense to them and protected their environment and their health. Of course in 1997, when it all started, many people were skeptical about the project's cost-effectiveness, but little by little nearly all the residents got bitten by the energy bug!
Each land-based turbine cost the equivalent of $ 850,000. The offshore turbines cost about $ 3 million each. Some of them were erected by a single investor, others were purchased collectively. At least 450 residents on the island own shares in the onshore turbines and a roughly equal number own shares in those offshore. Shareholders, who also include nonresidents, receive annual dividend cheques based on the prevailing price of electricity and how much their turbine has generated. People care about the production because they own the turbines.
"Being part of it we also feel responsibile."
All told, the Samsø initiative has a minimal effect on global CO2 emissions of course, but it is an example of what a community can do to make use of its natural, eternally renewable resources to ward off climate change.
Even without investing in our own turbines, most of us Europeans can do our bit for the environment by opting for green energy. With the EU-wide liberalisation of the energy market, most of us can tear up our contracts with coal-fired providers and sign up to 100 % green energy providers without incurring any penalties or paying heftier bills.
Belgian residents can check out Greenpeace's recommendations here. By switching from Electrabel (watch this video to see how Electrabel has been ripping us off!) to a green energy provider, you will also stop funding the nuclear sector. All it takes is a phonecall!
For more information on the Samsø initiative, refer to Elizabeth Kolbert's article "The island in the wind", The New Yorker (July 7 and 14 2008).
1 comment:
Wow. Such examples show that it can be done! Of course, it would be harder for a city community to do something like this but still ... the message is that we can do far more than what we are currently doing. Thing is, we lack initiatives, information ...
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