The Danes prepare to eat our lunch
WorldChanging has an excellent article on Denmark and its move into renewable energy on a grand scale.
In 1973, during the Yom Kippur war, Denmark was 98% dependent on foreign oil for its power. Today, thirty-two years later, the country derives 21% of its energy from wind and is a net exporter of energy.
They’re investing 10 billion dollars of R&D money into renewables over the next 10 years. And this, my frineds is where the rest of the world will be eating North America’s lunch in the decades to come, as oil gets more and more expensive more and more of our money will be going overseas not just to pay for oil, but to pay for any kind of alternative energy infrastructure as well. Meanwhile we drop another 100 million dollars trying to get another reactor working a the Pickering nuclear plant.
But the best part of the article, for me, was this quote from Svend Auken, a member of the Danish Parliament and former Minister for Energy & Environment:
Finally, he envisions the pathway to a bright green future, saying that �it need not be dull, it need not be boring, we don�t have to give up our lifestyle, we just have to be a little bit more smart about how we live.�
Amen brother.
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- March, 22, 2005