Denmark's 50 percent wind commitment and a path to fully renewable power

By James Holloway | Ars Technica

Denmark's Horns Rev offshore wind farm as it stands today

Denmark has committed to generating 50 percent of its electricity from wind sources by the year 2020, by which time the country hopes to have reduced CO2 emissions by 34 percent compared to 1990 levels. This renewed commitment to wind forms the central pillar in an energy bill that commits to obtaining 35 percent of the country's energy from renewable sources by that time. And Denmark actively aims to lower energy consumption, with 2020 usage 12 percent lower than that of 2006.

"Denmark will once again be the global leader in the transition to green energy," said Martin Lidegaard, Denmark's Minister for Climate, Energy and Building. "This will prepare us for a future with increasing prices for oil and coal. Moreover, it will create some of the jobs that we need so desperately, now and in the coming years."

The bill passed with a near-unanimous 171 votes out of the parliament's 179 seats.

"Once again" is a telling choice of words from Lidegaard, but it raises a question: if not Denmark, what country was leading the pack with renewable energy prior to the bill's passing? Certainly, wind already makes up a higher proportionate of Denmark's energy mix than it does any other country's—21 percent as of 2010, with Portugal (18 percent) and Spain (16 percent) not far behind.

Indeed, Denmark tops the wind charts whichever metric you care to throw at it: installed capacity per person, per square kilometer, per unit of GDP—as of 2010 (PDF) at any rate.

But when it comes to the contribution made by all renewable sources of energy, Denmark fell into eighth place based on installed power in 2009, behind Sweden, Latvia, Finland, Austria, Portugal, Estonia, and Romania. Even factoring in Denmark's aspirations for 2020 (according to the Renewables Global Status Report 2011(PDF), published prior to this bill), the country would only be elevated to sixth place, assuming it meets its target of a 30 percent renewable energy share. (These figures are for the EU alone.)

EU renewables shares of final energy, 2005 and 2009, with targets for 2020

Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century

But Denmark has only raised the bar by 5 percent of its total energy use, to 35 percent. Sweden met its target for a 50-percent renewable share in 2009, thanks to the gargantuan contribution made by the country's hydroelectric infrastructure. By what measure, then, does the new announcement return Denmark to the top of the league?

The short answer is, it doesn't. The government sees the 2020 targets as stepping stones to the end goal—100 percent of the country's energy to be supplied from renewable sources by 2050. But even that wouldn't leave it on top; Scotland is aiming for a 100-percent renewable energy contribution by 2020.

Wind has a tremendous role to play in Denmark's renewable grand expansion, with 1500MW of new offshore wind capacity due for completion by the 2020 deadline. A third installation, with 400MW of capacity, will be built at Horns Rev; while a 600MW farm will be built in the Baltic at Kriegers Flak (where hurricanes aremercifully absent). The latter has been described as the world's first offshore "supergrid," and will additionally provide electricity to Germany.

But it would be misleading to portray Denmark as a country putting all of its eggs into a windy basket. It isn't so much as placing a "price on carbon" as the OECD has recommended. Denmark seems to be making efforts(PDF) to ban it outright, phasing out coal power generation in favor of biomass energy and investing in geothermal energy.

At the smaller scale, Denmark is banning the installation of oil-fired and natural gas boilers in new buildings from 2013, and providing over $7.5 million to fund the conversion of domestic boilers to renewable equivalents. Further investment is being made available to industries that use renewable energy to fuel manufacture and the like, as well as for the promotion of CHP (combined heat and power) schemes.

The government also recognizes the need to modernize the grid to accommodate intermittent renewable sources (an oft-cited stumbling block for the rollout of renewable energy in the US), with an agreement being put in place with electricity distributors for remotely-readable "smart" electricity metering.

In the arena of transport, the government is making $12.5 million of subsidies available for electric vehicle recharging stations, and mandating that all fuel must be at least 10-percent biofuel by 2020. It has also committed to eliminating fossil fuels entirely from the island of Samsø, a proto-renewable energy community where 100 percent of electricity is already provided by wind power.

If you'll permit a West Wing reference, Denmark might be thought of as adopting one of President Bartlet's theories of economics and applying it to energy policy—at least partially. "Everybody's got a magic lever they want you to push. I studied economics all my life but in this job only a fool is ever certain. You don't push any one lever; you wanna push a little on them all." Denmark's certainly pulling all the levers—not a little, though. A lot.

Danish laws ban products fortified with vitamins--allege they are threat to public health

Thursday, June 02, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

So-called food safety laws enacted in Denmark back in 2004 have restricted the sale of any food products that contain added vitamins and minerals, and all on the outlandish premise that such nutrients are a threat to public health. And just recently, the country banned Marmite, a popular food spread sourced from the UK, because it contains added B vitamins.

Perfectly aligned with Codex Alimentarius and the recent EU ban of many herbal remedies, the Danish restrictions allow only the sale of fortified foods and dietary supplements that have been pre-approved by the government . And gaining approval works much the same way as it does in the US with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and pharmaceutical drugs -- pay a large sum of money to the regulatory body (mafia) in charge, and purchase approval for your product.

But apparently Marmite slipped through the regulatory cracks, as a single Danish shop that has been supplying the spread to mostly English customers for years was finally discovered by authorities. So the harmless product joins many breakfast cereals, beverages, and other consumer products with added vitamins that have already been banned in Denmark, as it will no longer be permitted for sale to Danish consumers -- unless, of course, the Marmite company decides to jump through the regulatory hoops and purchase approval.

"All the English people here are shaking their heads in disbelief and say that it is insane," said Marianne Orum, owner of the Danish shop that, up until recently, had been selling Marmite. "It's becoming impossible to run a business in this country. We are not allowed to do anything anymore. It is the way Denmark is going."

Meanwhile, efforts are underway to push the same highly-restrictive measures in the US. The recent passage of S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, represents a global effort to thwart national food sovereignty and bring all nations under the same type of regulatory system as that of Denmark .

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Marmite made illegal in Denmark
By Bruno Waterfield - 24 May 2011

According to the marketing slogan it is a taste that you either love or hate. But Danes will no longer get the chance to make up their own minds on Marmite after the British delicacy was banned under food safety laws.

The strongly flavoured dark brown spread made from brewer's yeast has joined Rice Crispies, Shreddies, Horlicks and Ovaltine prohibited in Denmark under legislation forbidding the sale of food products with added vitamins as threat to public health.

Many well known breakfast cereal and drink brands have already been banned or taken off supermarket shelves after Danish legislation in 2004 restricted foods fortified with extra vitamins or minerals.

But Marmite had escaped notice as an exotic import for a small number of ex-pats until the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration telephoned Abigail's, a Copenhagen shop selling British food, to ban the famous yeast spread.

"I don't eat it myself, I don't like it but Marmite was one of our best selling products. Not a day goes by without someone coming in and asking for it," said Marianne Ørum, the shop owner.

"All the English people here are shaking their heads in disbelief and say that it is insane. I agree but it is the law. It's becoming impossible to run a business in this country. We are not allowed to do anything anymore. It is the way Denmark is going."

The shop has now started a "Bring back Marmite" campaign to overturn a ban that is seen as discriminating against Britons living and working Denmark.

Lyndsay Jensen, a Yorkshire born graphic designer working in Copenhagen, told the British ex-pat RedHerring.dk website, that Britons would carry on spreading Marmite on their toast, even if it meant smuggling it in to Denmark.

"They don't like it because it's foreign," she said. "But if they want to take my Marmite off me they'll have to wrench it from my cold dead hands."

The sale of any foodstuff with the "addition of vitamins, minerals and other substances" must be first approved by the Danish authorities after a health scare over their effect on children or pregnant women when combined with other foods with high vitamin levels.

A spokesman for the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration said: "I cannot comment on the Marmite case because our expert is away until Thursday."

There's a Right Way and a Wrong Way to Deal With a Jobs Crisis -- Why Is Germany Doing It So Well?

Germany's success indicates that one way to fight unemployment would be some modest efforts to give U.S. employers incentives to cut hours, not workers. 

By John Schmitt, AlterNet
Posted on May 30, 2011

The Great Recession hit harder in the United States than in most of the rest of the world. Among the world's rich economies, we experienced the third largest increase in unemployment, trailing only Spain and Ireland. Most advanced economies saw substantially smaller increases in unemployment and one --Germany-- actually saw its unemployment rate decline.

Can we learn anything from countries that weathered the Great Recession better than we did? The experience of two countries --Denmark and Germany-- seems particularly informative. Denmark had a model labor market before the downturn, but ironically, offers a cautionary tale. Germany's economy has been up and down since unification in the early 1990s, but points one way out of our mess.

For most of the 2000s, Denmark had what was arguably the best labor-market performance in the world. Unlike most European countries, unemployment rates were at, or even below, US levels, and employment rates (the share of the population holding a job) were well above those here. Denmark managed this while offering high wages and comprehensive benefits such as health care, paid sick days, paid family leave, and union representation.

Denmark's success is widely attributed to its "flexicurity" system, which provides flexibility to employers and security to workers. Flexibility comes in the form of limited job protections for workers. In the United States, private-sector workers have almost no legal rights to their jobs and, absent a union contract, can legally be fired for almost any reason. In Europe, however, workers have a range of legal protections against dismissal. Denmark has more protections than we do here, but noticeably less than workers in the rest of Europe.

Danish workers accept less job security because they know that national unemployment benefits are generous and the system spends real money getting unemployed workers into new jobs. This is the "security" half of the "flexicurity" system.

A key part of this system is a set of programs that provides training, education, job-search assistance, and other services and incentives to unemployed workers. Even before the Great Recession, the Danes spent over one percent of GDP on these activities. In the United States, we spent less than one-tenth of 1 percent of GDP on comparable programs.

Flexicurity worked well when the Danish economy was booming. Training, education, and help matching the jobless to vacancies work well when there are plenty of jobs. These same policies, however, have limitations when there just aren't enough jobs: the unemployment rate in Denmark, which was just 4.0 percent in 2007, has been rising steadily since 2008, and now stands at 7.8 percent.

The Danish experience is a cautionary tale for the United States because it has become fashionable here to argue that our current unemployment is "structural." That is another way of saying that high unemployment is largely the fault of the unemployed themselves, either they lack the necessary skills or are unwilling to relocate to where the new jobs are.

But, Denmark already does far more than we could ever hope to do here to provide training, education, and other supports to the unemployed. If unemployment were "structural," the Danish response would be near perfect. Their approach has not made a noticeable dent, however, because unemployment there, like here, is the result of deficient demand, not a deficient workforce.

There is an economy, however, that has figured its way around the Great Recession. Unemployment in Germany is lower now than it was before the downturn (not to mention lower than in Denmark, now, too).

Germany has done well because its labor-market institutions encourage employers to cut hours not workers. Instead of laying off 20 percent of workers, say, a firm can instead lower the average hours of its employees by 20 percent. Both accomplish the same goal, but from a social point of view, cutting hours is much better because it shares the pain more equally and keeps workers tied to their jobs.

The German system gives employers many incentives to cut hours instead of workers. The most obvious is their "short-time work" system, which pays partial unemployment benefits to workers who have their hours reduced. German workers who lose one day of work per week are entitled to receive unemployment benefits equal to one-fifth of the usual weekly unemployment check.

Other aspects of the German system also help. Legal protections against dismissal make it cheaper for employers to reduce hours than to fire workers. And many Germans are covered by union contracts that allow flexibility around the length of the work week and the spread of hours throughout the year.

Together, these systems helped reduce the total number of hours worked in Germany by about 4 percent between 2008 and 2009. Over the same period, total employment remained unchanged. Essentially all of the adjustment to the Great Recession in Germany fell on the average hours worked by existing employees and none fell on laid-off workers. By contrast, two-thirds of the adjustment to the downturn in Denmark and the United States fell on employment and only one-third on the average hours worked.

German successes suggest that one way to fight unemployment --at a relatively low cost to the federal government-- would be some modest efforts to give US employers incentives to cut hours not workers.

Expanding the small programs already in place in 20 states to allow "part-time unemployment benefits" --sometimes called "work-sharing"-- is an obvious place to start. Implementing a new tax credit to employers that expand paid time off --paid sick days or paid family leave, for example-- is another route.

Germany used variations on these kinds of policies to lower the unemployment rate during the Great Recession. Imagine how different the world would be if the unemployment rate in the United States today were, say, 4 percent, not 20 percent.