By Torben Hvidsten, 19. November 2009
The Danish Energy Association has published its vision for a climate-neutral Denmark. The Power to the People vision is a set of specific proposals stating how Denmark can become climate-neutral by 2050. The vision also sets out how Denmark can move away from the oil economy, allowing it to maintain high security of supply when the oil and gas start running out.
The vision involves using energy much more efficiently and replacing the vast majority of traditional fossil fuel consumption with electricity.
The elements of the vision are as follows:
Energy consumption will become 30 per cent more efficient
Sustainable energy will cover 80 per cent of energy consumption
Most oil and petrol consumption will be phased out. Aircraft and ferries will account for the remaining oil consumption
80 per cent of petrol cars will be replaced with electric cars, and the rest will run on biopetrol and biodiesel
20 per cent of the oil and gas boilers in homes will be replaced with electric heat pumps, and the remaining homes will use solar heating and district heating
35 per cent of the oil and gas boilers in industry will be replaced with electric boilers, and the remaining energy will come from solar heating, biomass and district heating
CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) systems will be built at Danish CHP plants, which will generate electricity from a combination of biomass and coal. The CCS systems can not only remove the CO2 emissions from the smoke from the power station – they can even help to reduce CO2 emissions from aviation, shipping and agriculture.