Archive for Denmark
Samsø: Denmark’s Renewable Energy Island
Posted by: | CommentsSamsø began orienting island citizens about the potential and perspectives in the Energy Island project in 1998. There was a Ten Year Plan to orchestrate the project. Eleven 1 MW wind turbines would make the island self-sufficient with electricity. They were erected in 1999-2000. The wind turbines are owned by a windmill cooperative and by individual owners.
The island is 100% self-sufficient with wind-generated electricity. About 70% of island heating needs are met with renewable energy, and the transportation energy consumption is 100% compensated by the electricity production from the offshore wind turbines.
Quite a number of people are working with plans to establish a cooperatively run farm-based biogas plant to extract biogas from the major pig farms’ slurry . This biogas will be used to produce electricity and the excess heat will be used for heating purposes.
Future plans include the transport sector, that can in part be supplied with canola oil for diesel vehicles and the island’s gasoline cars can use bioethanol or can be converted to hydrogen and electricity, when technological innovation and lower prices make large scale conversion feasible.
Eco-city – Copenhagen, Denmark. [Urban project]
Posted by: | CommentsUntil recently, only smaller municipalities and communities tended to adopt sustainable development policies. By contrast, large urban administrations have been less geared towards implementing policies that demand a bottom-up strategy and the active participation of local players.
Most of Europe’s population live in urban areas, which account for the lion’s share of resource consumption, pollution and waste. It is essential, that sustainable development becomes a concern of urban government. A step in this direction was taken
in the 1990s, when experiments involving local administration of large urban areas were carried out all over Europe. The strength of local administration is that the units are smaller, more efficient, less bureaucratic and closer to local residents.
The project was funded in part by the European project and is encrypted LIFE: LIFE96 ENV/Dk/344.
