While in Copenhagen this past weekend, I enjoyed seeing smiling Danes out on a weekend stroll past the Little Mermaid, while I enjoyed the vista of the line of 250 foot tall wind turbines spinning in the harbor. Later in the day, the Danes who were briefing our congressional delegation mentioned that according to several studies, the Danish people are the happiest on earth. Maybe it is because of their advanced energy policy. Actually, it is more likely to be because of their great cheese and kippered herring, but their forward thinking energy policy hasn’t hurt them either.
As the result of a visionary policy, Denmark has cut its CO2 emissions from 90 million tons in 1997 to 63 million tons today, and are headed for their Kyoto target of 56 million tons by 2010. Our briefers, a woman from the Ministry of the Environment and a man from Denmark’s Industrial association, explained that this has been accomplished through a comprehensive suite of policies that has resulted in Denmark not only becoming the world’s heaviest user of wind power, but also the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines. The Vestas turbines we saw being manufactured are now frequently shipped into the port of Tacoma for installation at the largest wind farms in the U.S. in Washington state.
But wind turbines are just the most striking visual aspect of their policy. In transportation, they have focused on creating a system that minimizes CO2 emission and have had success, with fully one third of people commuting to work on public transportation and one third riding their sporty bicycles on their blue colored bike routes to work in the morning. I took a spin yesterday on those bike lanes and found them remarkably compatible with the car traffic, although some Danes ride bikes like Scandinavian kamikazes.
In power and heat generation the Danes have perfected what is called “cogeneration.” In a typical electrical power plant in the U.S. fully one half of the energy from the coal or gas being burned is wasted as heat, just drifting off into the air. In Denmark, their cogeneration plants burn coal to produce electricity, but they also capture the waste heat as steam and pipe it into nearby homes and businesses, providing their heat, and doubling the efficiency of the Danish power plants. This is a fantastic step forward since it is like finding money in the street. Now every ton of coal or gas that is burned provides twice the usable energy and thereby cuts their CO2 emissions in half for the same degree of electricity or heat. Now in Denmark you can enjoy seeing the old Ellsinore castle, the scene of Hamlet’s tragedy, or a nearby new cogeneration plant, the scene of a Danish success. These plants are built right in the middle of housing developments and are designed to look like a modern municipal buildings rather than a stinky old coal plant. Danes accept them right in their neighborhoods.
The Danes have also adopted a cap and trade system to limit CO2 emissions. Now all coal and gas plants have to obtain a permit to emit CO2 as well as cement and other heavy CO2 emitting industries. In this way the Danish government can create a total cap on CO2 emissions, at least from these sectors of the economy. This is part of the country’s long term goal to cut CO2 emissions another 20% by 2020 and up to 30% if the United States will join into an agreement on CO2. It was discouraging, therefore, to read in the Financial Times that morning that the Bush Administration had stiffed Europe in the G-8 talks and had abjectly refused to participate in a cap and trade system on CO2. I met a couple from Texas that night at dinner who expressed displeasure in their former governor. Here is pretty good reason for that displeasure. We are bound now to visit a biogas facility this morning and then to off to Berlin where an astrophysicist prime minister, Merkel of Germany, is leading her nation in solar energy development.
