ISLAND ENERGY

Danish Island Is Energy Self-Suifficient; Samso Is An Ecological Fantasy Land That Is Carbon-Neutral
Mark Phillips, Reporter, March 8, 2007 (CBS News)
- It's a two-hour ferry ride to the Danish island of Samso…an area about 40 square miles long with a permanent population of about 4,000 — all of them living a green dream.

- Take farmer Erik Andersen. His tractor runs on oil from rape seed, which he grows. His hot water and power come from his solar panels or wind turbines. There's not a fossil fuel in site…
- Ten years ago, Andersen and the people of Samso accepted a challenge from Denmark's government: Could they run their farms; could they power their businesses; could they lead their lives in an entirely energy self-sufficient and carbon-neutral way?
- Now they have the answer. They can…
- To harness the wind, of which they have plenty, they built wind turbines. To harness public good will, they sold shares in those turbines to the islanders so the machines produce local power and local profits.
- To provide heat, they burn locally grown straw in central plants that produce super hot water and pump it through underground pipes into peoples' homes.
- It's not only more efficient than running individual furnaces, it's carbon neutral…net greenhouse gas emissions…Zero.

- It's a system that just recycles itself, says Jens Peter Nielson with the Samso Energy Authority…even after a freezing cold night, the days short and cloudy, the solar-heated hot water is still hot.
- The Samso scheme has become so successful that the island has installed a string of turbines offshore to make surplus power to sell to the mainland…
- It's a new dawn on this small island in Denmark, where they set out to do good, and have ended up doing very well for themselves, indeed.