The Island of Dr. Samsø

At 5:44 in the morning, the sun isn’t shining in Denmark. Indeed, the sun has yet to rise. But I woke up at that ungodly hour on Thursday to catch a bus which would take us to the ferry, which would in turn deliver us to the renewable energy island of Samsø.

View from the ferry (yes, it was this gray)

In the summer, Samsø is known for its beautiful, white sand beaches, strawberry fields, and early potatoes. The island’s modest population of about 4,200 residents swells to more than 100,000 during the peak months of concerts, beach-going, and vegetable-picking. In the fall and winter, it is cold and dreary.

In 1997, Samsø won a national competition to establish an island community run entirely on renewable energy by 2008. The project, established through a governmental initiative in conjunction with the UN Conferences on Climate Change, would serve as a model for the rest of Denmark, which has a goal of 20 per cent renewable energy for the entire country by 2030. Samsø has since reduced its import of fossil fuels by 60 per cent with its eleven land turbines, which generate enough electricity for the entire island, and the development of biomass fuel (rapeseed oil) for tractors and other machinery. Many of its citizens have personally invested in solar panels and masonry heaters to improve energy usage and efficiency, thereby reducing their own energy costs. Running on biomass fuels, wind power, and solar power is cheaper than burning oil and gas.

The island now has a 140 per cent electricity output, meaning it can export 40 per cent of that energy for profit to be distributed amongst its citizens. While Samsø is 100 per cent carbon neutral, the technology for renewable energy for transportation (cars, buses, ferries, etc.) has yet to be developed, so it offsets those energy costs through ten offshore turbines that required an investment of 17 million Euros, or roughly 4,000 Euros per citizen. The offshore project, headed by the farmer we met during our field trip, has proved profitable, enabling the island to earmark 400,000 Euros for the development of its own Energy Academy where NGO representatives, government officials, and students can gather to learn about the technology involved.

The Energy Academy (and unideal conditions for solar panels)

The Energy Academy was our first stop. Frank, our guide, met us outside the eco-house, built about a foot off the ground for better energy efficiency (land temperature is so volatile that it saps the heat from the house). The gray zinc roof has both heat-retaining and solar panels to provide all the electricity and heating for the house. But I must confess: I was cold, keeping my jacket on throughout the entire visit. Even in cloudy Denmark, the house sees about 200 days of usable sunlight. Much of the heat generated inside the house is contained within another structure that slowly releases the heat to the rest of the house for better efficiency. During the summer, windows at the top and sides of the house open automatically to create a cooling wind current.

The simple, long-house style of the building was modeled after local Samsø homes by a Danish architecture firm to blend into its environment. The architects kept locality in mind for the design, wanting to construct this house using local materials by local workers. A large part of the renewable energy effort means sustainability in all aspects of the island, not just energy efficiency to hit certain benchmarks. If the island were energy efficient whilst jobs declined, the project would prove a failure for the rest of Denmark. So the house’s walls consist of small panels made of gypsum and insulated with paper wool. Gypsum is a byproduct of certain pollution, and therefore is readily available and cheap. It works just like plaster, and seals out water, making it an ideal material for an economical home. My only concern arose after learning that gypsum is “slightly more radioactive” as far as its isotopic instability. I felt that our guide slipped that fact into his speech a little too silkily.

The office

We met a photographer from National Geographic on assignment in Samsø for three weeks; the magazine will have a feature on climate change in April. I introduced myself to Andrew, asking him about life in Washington, D.C. He has only lived there for two months, and of that time he’s been on assignment for all but two weeks. So his apartment in Adams Morgan goes unused, and he has never been to Kramerbooks. I asked Andrew how he became a full-time photographer at the magazine, considering the competitive field. He had worked at a newspaper previously. “I never considered moving to New York,” he admitted, when I told him how many struggling photographers I’ve met in the Big Apple. “I always went to places where I knew I’d be the only guy and I’d get work. I built up my portfolio that way.” So far he’s been to Wales and London and will be going to China or India for the remainder of this story. One of five (I think) staff photographers, he contributes to story ideas and brainstorms. He now shoots with digital cameras exclusively. I asked him if he studied photography in school. “No, I was a history/liberal arts student,” he smiled.

After watching a film on Samsø’s story, Frank announced that fresh pots of coffee and tea were waiting for us in the lunch room. I talked with Ulla and Ar*ndh*ti about the scalability of the renewable energy initiative to Denmark and the rest of the world. Ulla, a Dane, explained the history of Denmark as one marked by cooperation (very much like Holland). Aru*dhu*i and I had our doubts. “Take India, for example,” she said. “We have a history of splintered groups that refuse to cooperate with one another. I can’t see this surviving there, not to mention the lack of public funds.” “And it’s not just the lack of funds,” I added. “In the US, we’d have so many oil and special interest groups lobbying to block any such progress. Heck, it took us until this year for our own government to admit that global warming is even happening.” Ulla explained that the Danish oil companies realize they have only about fifteen more years of oil reserves left, so they are now selling the oil abroad and investing money into alternative energy sources.

Lunch break

We climbed into our rented coach after lunch to meet Jørgen, the farmer who runs one of the eleven land windmills. As we walked up to the windmill’s base, we heard a rumble from behind as a large man with broad features driving an ATV sped up to us at an alarming pace in an unpredictable, zigzag pattern. A small white dog raced behind the vehicle, prancing in its wake. After a general Q&A, we learned that we’d be climbing the 70-meter-tall windmill. The climb is divided into sections with wooden platforms and ladders. Each platform can hold a maximum of eight people. With a group of eighteen, we had to pace the climb appropriately, ensuring that if one went up, another went down without overloading one level.

We climbed that first one, yes.

Chetna went first

Jørgen shut off the windmill and we began the ascent. I still have the calluses and sore muscles from this adventure, but it was worth it. The top of the windmill opened up, exposing the giant engine as we walked gingerly around the pod. The wind was fierce, but Andrew, the photographer, was unfazed. He stood up on top of the engine and took photographs. The rest of us were content to mimic Titanic poses and take in miles and miles of landscape and ocean. At one point, Jørgen had some fun and hit a button on his control panel. The entire windmill started turning to the right. We screamed as he laughed devilishly.

We made it to the top! Our hands are dirty and sore!

Ready to deploy a missile onto the Danish countryside (or: inside the turbine engine)

By the time we all made it down, we were giddy from the exercise and fresh, cold air. We raced over to a pumpkin patch near the bus and admired the bright greens mottled with orange and brown that was the field. Our hands were dirty from picking up pumpkins and climbing the ladder. We got back into the bus, which took us through several communities and then along a large stretch of white sand beach hemmed in by choppy blue water with white caps.

We arrived at a woodchip energy plant. A flock of curious sheep resting near some solar panels stopped to stare at us. The wood chips smelled fresh (a bit like menthol?). We went inside to inspect the factory we had just watched on film.

“Baaaaa!” said the sheep

Then it was time to visit the town of Nordby (NOT pronounced “Nord-BEE,” but more like “NOR-bu” with a very soft “oo” sound at the end), which was voted as the best preserved village in Europe a few years ago. It is a town in the north, as its name suggests, and has sea-faring roots. Samsø served as a gathering place for the Vikings, and it is believed to be the launching pad from which the Vikings set sail to conquer England and other distant lands. In Nordby, the inheritance pattern worked like this: the son received the ship or fleet, and the daughter received the farm. So the men would sail off to make their fortunes, and the women would stay home. This created a matriarchal society. In the south, where the economy wasn’t based on fishing and the sea, the men retained the farms and houses, thereby establishing a regular, patriarchal society. Perhaps this explains why Nordby remained the best-preserved village in all of Europe for so many years.

The quiet streets of Nordby

Nothing seemed to be open in Nordby except the public toilet next to the post office. We learned that Danes like to have little mirrors on their windows to see what is happening outside without having to get up. “So just because a house seems quiet, doesn’t mean they aren’t watching you,” Frank explained. We also wondered about miniature statues sitting on the window sills of almost all the homes. “If you see two dog statues facing outside, it means the master of the house is out to sea. If they’re faced inward, it means he’s home,” said Frank. Our walking tour, interrupted by rain, concluded at the Underground Café for a hot cocoa and ice cream break.

It was fun to spend the day in Samsø, a distinctly different part of Denmark. The idea expressed by the Samsø Energy Chairwoman about the energy island’s community can also be applied to Denmark in relation to the rest of the world: “In a time when bigger is better, it’s important to show that smaller entities can survive.”

For more photos, go here.