Green energy makes Samso self-sustaining

08 July 2008, Copenhagen, Denmark - RESIDENTS from the Danish island of Samso are paving the way towards a greener future by running their island on renewable energy.The island's 4300 inhabitants turned to wind power, energy cooperatives and heat pumps to become carbon neutral - and now produce more energy from renewable sources than they use, The New Yorker reported.

Samso moved to become carbon-neutral after winning a renewable energy contest in 1997 and now has 11 large wind turbines and a dozen smaller turbines on land, and another 10 offshore.

The combined output is around eighty million kilowatt-hours a year - more than the equivalent of all the gasoline and diesel oil consumed on the island.

Residents initially resisted the move towards renewable energy before embracing it as a challenge, farmer Ingvar Jorgensen told the magazine.

"People on Samso started thinking about energy... It became a kind of sport."

The island is also home to three heating plants that burn straw and one that burns wood chips from fallen trees, which prevent the release of around 2700 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

Samso has also experimented with biofuels and several farmers have converted their tractors and cars to run on canola oil.

The island succeeded in transforming its energy systems within a decade, showing the rest of the world an effective way to deal with the carbon problem.

Each Samsinger was releasing an average of 11 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year before the experiment.

In comparison the average Australian emits more than five tonnes of carbon per year, according to figures published by the National Academy of Sciences last year.

Original Source: Daily Telegraph Technology - Kate Schneider