Renewables

After two damaging energy crises, Danish politicians’ first priority was economic restoration and political independence from Middle East regimes. Short-term environmental problems from use of coal and long-term limitations of resource availability did not have the same immediate importance. In the late 1970s and the early 1980s a number of pioneers – a combination of environmental activists, technologically curious amateurs, and small-scale manufacturers – were engaged in developing renewable energy technologies. This development is the theme of Chapter 7, where the pioneers’ motives are analysed and the expansion of a new industry is presented. It is remarkable how this new branch of technology, the wind turbines in particular, develops into a world-leading industry, partly due to support from both public authorities and share-buying fellow citizens, and partly because of – most surprisingly – American (and particularly Californian) regulations subsidizing renewable energy.