The City of Copenhagen has announced the establishment of its first hydrogen fueling station, alongside a mini-fleet of fuel cell vehicles, and hopes that the move will help it towards the ambitious goal of becoming the first carbon-neutral capital city in the world by 2025.

Following the recent news of a growing hydrogen fueling system in Germany, the new facility also opens up the intriguing proposition of a cross-border European hydrogen infrastructure.

According to grandly titled Technology and Environment Mayor Klaus Bondam, “Today we are putting Copenhagen on the map as a champion of clean transport. Together with [fuel cell vehicle integrator] H2 Logic, Copenhagen is setting in motion the development of hydrogen transport in Denmark and in northern Europe, because the hydrogen filling station in Copenhagen will help provide future hydrogen-powered vehicles from Scandinavia and Germany with hydrogen.”

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Home of the upcoming climate change conference, Copenhagen is #4 in this great bicycle city photo tour series. With about 55% of trips being by bicycle, Copenhagen is an amazing place to visit or live if you like bicycling.

The photos to follow give you a taste of this great bicycle city. From dogs on bikes to bikes on bikes, from bikes in ice to bike counters, enjoy these great bicycle photos.

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Yesterday, Obama hopped a plane to Denmark for a whirlwind Scandinavian tour where it was thought that his presence and pitch might push Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics across the goal line. Instead, ChiTown did not make it out of the first round of balloting. Safe to say that if the White House knew that, Obama would not have made the trip. The failure marked the first - and probably last - time that a sitting US President schilled in front of an IOC selection committee.

The miscalculation is a familiar one. Just after Labor Day, POTUS addressed a joint session of Congress to drive home his point on the urgency of health care reform happening this year. Now barely into October, the only Senate health care bill thought to have a chance on the floor emerged from committee with no bipartisan support. And, as October begins it is clear that if any health care reform bill is signed in 2009, it will not include the now notorious “public option.”

In both cases, the White House made the decision to put their guy out there, but - evidently - no one counted the votes beforehand. The situation is eerily similar to the early administration flubs in the appointments process (i.e., the Daschle false start and the Judd Gregg quagmire). Any good party whip knows that you do not bring a bill to the floor until you know how the roll is going to be called.

As a result of Denmark, Obama winds up wearing a piece of a defeat that was inevitable and it was not even his fight. The Chicago Olympics story is clearly being played up for everything - and more - than its worth by the Right, but it is worth considering why - given that the Chicago bid was circling the drain - Obama let himself get dragged down with it?

When the call came asking for his support, White House staffers should have told the Chicago team to spend 48 hours having coffee with everyone who held a vote, and bring back their tally. If it looked close, then Obama has a tough call to make. But, if they cannot bring back a straw poll or if they bring back numbers that show the Windy City being blown away, then the White House has an easy answer: “love to help, but…”

As the world closes in on December’s big UN climate change conference — back in Copenhagen — it begs the question: is the White House strategy informed by good ground-level information on where other parties sit? Clearly, that strategy includes putting pressure on reluctant Senators with the prospect (read: threat) of EPA regulation of emissions in the absence of comprehensive legislation, even something as watered-down as Waxman-Markey. The upside to handing things off to Lisa Jackson is that it may force the hands of some of the upper Midwest Dems Obama needs to get to 60. And, even if it is not enough of a prod to move a bill through the Senate, it allows Obama to fly his flag in Copenhagen.

But, what if they are not close to 60? What if the lever is not the right one to swing the votes they need. Based on their recent due diligence, it is difficult to say whether the White House even knows where their votes are, who can be swung, and how. That said, should they roll the dice with an EPA plan? How will the inevitable backlash inside the US look on the global stage?

Strong political interests are already lining up against the idea of an executive power move on carbon, and with a lot of Dems looking more vulnerable for the mid-terms in 2010, you have to wonder if the move does not just paint Obama back into a corner and have allies running in the other direction on climate change.

On the campaign trail - in spite of Reverend Wright - Obama earned the gloss “No Drama Obama.” A little less than a year into his tenure as President, the shine is wearing off.

Flickr photo by RobBeer.

Kids & Kids’ Bikes in Bike Buckets (i.e. Bike Minivans)

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart. ~Iris Murdoch, The Red and the Green

If you like these, make sure to check out the kids on bikes on p.4 of the Paris photo tour and babies on bikes on p.6 of the Groningen photo tour. Many more photos there and some very cute ones!

Image Credit 1: gargola87 via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Spacing Magazine via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: fuzzytnth3 via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Great Bike Parking — Tons of Bikes Everywhere

Big Bike Lanes Great for Group Bike Rides

Image Credit 1: Spacing Magazine via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: xrrr via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: Bjørn Giesenbauer via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 4: Riv via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 5: Boonerator via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 6: ezioman via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 7: madsflash via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 8: Spacing Magazine via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Happy Dogs on Bikes, Bikes on Bikes, People on Octopus Bikes

Image Credit 1: Stig Nygaard via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Gullig via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: tuplang via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Blue Bikes Lanes at Critical Intersections

This last one also fits on the kids on bikes page.

Image Credit 1: malouette via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: malouette via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: malouette via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 4: complexify. via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Bikes in Ice & Snow

Image Credit 1: jack_g via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Ø via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Traffic Counter, for Bicycles!

3,340 bicyclists going by here by about 1:00pm in the afternoon!

Image Credit 1: James Cridland via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Bike Sharing — 2nd Generation

Copenhagen has a very successful 2nd generation bicycle sharing program, where you can borrow a bike by putting a cash deposit in where the bike is locked and you get the deposit back when you return the bike. Although not as sophisticated as Paris or Barcelona’s 3rd generation bicycle sharing programs, this is a good one as well.

Image Credit 1: norrebrograde via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: supervillain via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: quatro.sinko via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Bikes & Trains

The bikeway here is right next to the rails. Not sure how that would be, but would like to try it myself.

Trains all over Europe have bike cars, but nice to see such a big bike symbol painted on the car here — easier to see when the train is rolling up.

Image Credit 1: hdport via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: hdport via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Bike Art & Art on Bikes

Not sure what this one below is about.

For more bike art, art on bikes, and interesting pictures, check out the #10 Basel, #9 Bogota, #8 Barcelona, #7 Berlin, #6 Groningen, and #5 Paris great bicycle city photo tours.

Copenhagen might have been higher on the list, but the pictures were not the most spectacular in my opinion. Hope you enjoyed these, but if you missed the others, I encourage you to check those out, too. Copenhagen might have been closer to #10 on the list if I didn’t consider it to be the best or second best large bicycle city in the world.

Also, I can tell you that the top three bicycle photo tours will have some amazing bike photos really worth seeing, from three different continents and completely different styles.

So, to keep yourself updated on the next three photo tours, keep your eye on EcoWorldly or subscribe to its feed or email list. Have something extra to add? Comment below!

Image Credit 1: richardmasoner via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: caspermoller via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: Passetti via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: only alice via flickr under a Creative Commons license

The campaign targets 11 EU countries — Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The campaign will involve celebrities from the various participating countries.

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Though green roofs are reemerging in the most advanced building designs around the world, for centuries, people constructed buildings out of materials immediately available to them in their surrounding environment. It is only a relatively recent luxury, for example, that people have easy access to roofing materials like asphalt shingles made hundreds, perhaps, thousands of miles away.

On the island of Læsø, Denmark there still stand a handful of buildings that are excellent examples of what communities would do with what was immediately available to them — if only they had any of it left.

In the Middle Ages the island of Læsø became famous for its salt industry. Hundreds of salt kilns were built, throughout the island, requiring constant fuel for the important final stage of commercial salt concentration. But on the island of Læsø—a community with a finite availability of natural resources—constantly feeding the hundreds of salt kilns eventually led to the island’s deforestation.

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France

The vast majority of the electricity generated in France comes from its 59 nuclear reactors. It has not been considered a global leader in renewable energy, but France has taken some bold steps recently to support growth in this industry.

The government plans to have 23% of its electricity generated from renewable energy sources including hydroelectric by 2020. A feed-in tariff of 30 Euro cents for commercial buildings has been introduced to encourage solar energy growth.

France now exceeds Denmark in wind energy capacity after adding 950 MW in 2008. The country currently has 3,400 MW of wind power and plans to increase this to 25,000 MW by 2020.

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We recently learned that Denmark plans on building the world’s largest wind farm. With a net installed capacity of 209 MW, Horns Rev 2 (companion to Horns Rev 1) will provide power to 200,000 homes. The North Sea offshore wind farm is scheduled for completion later this year.

For info on the construction process of Horns Rev 2, check out the MSNBC video below.

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Both “clean coal” and carbon trading are lies. They are huge scams perpetrated by massive energy companies that are choking our planet. Over twelve thousand students converged on Washington D.C. to demand an end to polluting coal plants, and that the United States start to lead the world in creating truly sustainable clean energy and green jobs. Students filled the halls of Congress, lobbying their elected officials to fight global warming and demanding an end to polluting coal.

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“Schools have an important part to play in helping young people to build a greener future for us all and it’s young people that will lead the way in creating a healthy environment for future generations,” says Secretary Benn.

Run by Keep Britain Tidy, the Eco-Schools program encourages children and teachers to make their school more environmentally-friendly and sustainable.  They follow a simple seven step process covering themes including waste, healthy living and biodiversity.

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N55 takes the notion of assembling the world into a sustainable community with a fair mechanism for exchanging resources and simplifies it to its very barest elements.  You will find little elaboration on the N55 site.  You will find little philosophical jargon.

But what you will find is astonishing innovation, ingenious trial concepts that simplify and minimize our human needs into manageable, bite-sized alternatives (like HYGIENE SYSTEM and MICRODWELLING).  You will also find a series of solutions and protocols for interaction that can be cut and pasted onto just about any society of human beings.

Take ROOMS, for example.  The following is excerpted from their “Manual for ROOMS.”

“ROOMS gives access to rooms. Any person can use ROOMS. ROOMS can be established anywhere supplying different functions like rooms for sleeping, making food, reading, meeting, producing things etc.

“ROOMS is a system that can be used for sharing rooms with other persons. ROOMS consists of rooms in different places in the world. The rooms are included in ROOMS by persons who guarantee that anybody can use them according to the function they are initiated with and within given periods of time.

“Any person can expand ROOMS by providing one or more rooms. These rooms can be in existing buildings, they can be mobile rooms, or they can be built for ROOMS. Positions of ROOMS can be found in Manual for ROOMS. The manual is continuously updated. A current version can also be obtained by contacting N55.”

It’s the cleanest, simplest definition possible–as a result, it can be easily adapted and interpreted for the diverse situations and peoples found across the planet.

You or I could add a ROOM.  You or I could use ROOMS.  The same is true for LAND, SHOP, FACTORY, etc.  Talk about universal!

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The Australian government has given the green light to a plan to establish one of the world’s largest electric car recharging infrastructures, powered entirely by renewable energy.

The A$1 billion ($676 million) project could see the establishment of as many as two million recharging points, as well as more than 500 battery swap stations, where drivers can exchange depleted batteries without the need to wait for a recharge.

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Danish company AC Sun recently made news with the “invention” a new solar-powered air conditioning system.The new systems are pollution-free, low-noise, and use only 10% of the energy of conventional systems. The only problem is they’ve already been invented, several times over.

Lars Stigel, director of Østjysk Innovation, an investor in AC Sun, spoke with enthusiasm about AC Sun’s design. “It is a groundbreaking technology in relation to renewable energy and energy savings,” he says.

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What if your house could simply walk away from natural disasters? This house can. Designed by an art collective in Denmark, the 10 foot high house is solar and wind-powered and can walk across a variety of terrain. It is equipped with a living room, bed, toilet, kitchen, and wood stove, and is controlled by an internal mainframe computer.

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The UK government announced today that Britain has overtaken Denmark to become the world’s biggest producer of offshore wind power.

The rise to the top of the global league table follows the construction of a new wind farm off the coast of Skegness, Lincolnshire, which increases the UK’s total electricity generation from offshore wind sources to 590 megawatts (MW), enough to power 300,000 homes.

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Connie Hedegaard is a Danish blogger, journalist, and politician. She serves as Minister of Climate and Energy in Denmark, one of the countries leading the world in forward-thinking renewable energy policies.

Denmark benefits as alternative energy leader

Denmark is an exemplar of successful sustainable energy policy. Today, around 20% of Denmark’s energy is supplied by wind power. Not only is the country energy independent, its energy consumption hasn’t risen since the ’70s, despite 50% economic growth, according to Flemming Hansen, former Minister of Transport and Energy.

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Students of the KaosPilots International Education in Aarhus, Denmark spent this past spring living and working in Shanghai, China. OurTheir mission: explore the term “Social Innovation”.

The result of their research, study and exploration is a book: A Travel Guide to Social Innovation. It will be for sale as of Sept. 12, 2008, but they offer a PDF version via their Web site: http://socialinnovation.biz/.

via Ode Magazine

Kids & Kids’ Bikes in Bike Buckets (i.e. Bike Minivans)

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart. ~Iris Murdoch, The Red and the Green

If you like these, make sure to check out the kids on bikes on p.4 of the Paris photo tour and babies on bikes on p.6 of the Groningen photo tour. Many more photos there and some very cute ones!

Image Credit 1: gargola87 via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Spacing Magazine via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: fuzzytnth3 via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Great Bike Parking — Tons of Bikes Everywhere

Big Bike Lanes Great for Group Bike Rides

Image Credit 1: Spacing Magazine via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: xrrr via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: Bjørn Giesenbauer via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 4: Riv via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 5: Boonerator via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 6: ezioman via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 7: madsflash via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 8: Spacing Magazine via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Happy Dogs on Bikes, Bikes on Bikes, People on Octopus Bikes

Image Credit 1: Stig Nygaard via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Gullig via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: tuplang via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Blue Bikes Lanes at Critical Intersections

This last one also fits on the kids on bikes page.

Image Credit 1: malouette via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: malouette via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: malouette via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 4: complexify. via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Bikes in Ice & Snow

Image Credit 1: jack_g via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Ø via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Traffic Counter, for Bicycles!

3,340 bicyclists going by here by about 1:00pm in the afternoon!

Image Credit 1: James Cridland via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Bike Sharing — 2nd Generation

Copenhagen has a very successful 2nd generation bicycle sharing program, where you can borrow a bike by putting a cash deposit in where the bike is locked and you get the deposit back when you return the bike. Although not as sophisticated as Paris or Barcelona’s 3rd generation bicycle sharing programs, this is a good one as well.

Image Credit 1: norrebrograde via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: supervillain via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: quatro.sinko via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Bikes & Trains

The bikeway here is right next to the rails. Not sure how that would be, but would like to try it myself.

Trains all over Europe have bike cars, but nice to see such a big bike symbol painted on the car here — easier to see when the train is rolling up.

Image Credit 1: hdport via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: hdport via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Bike Art & Art on Bikes

Not sure what this one below is about.

For more bike art, art on bikes, and interesting pictures, check out the #10 Basel, #9 Bogota, #8 Barcelona, #7 Berlin, #6 Groningen, and #5 Paris great bicycle city photo tours.

Copenhagen might have been higher on the list, but the pictures were not the most spectacular in my opinion. Hope you enjoyed these, but if you missed the others, I encourage you to check those out, too. Copenhagen might have been closer to #10 on the list if I didn’t consider it to be the best or second best large bicycle city in the world.

Also, I can tell you that the top three bicycle photo tours will have some amazing bike photos really worth seeing, from three different continents and completely different styles.

So, to keep yourself updated on the next three photo tours, keep your eye on EcoWorldly or subscribe to its feed or email list. Have something extra to add? Comment below!

Image Credit 1: richardmasoner via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: caspermoller via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: Passetti via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: only alice via flickr under a Creative Commons license

In an Aug. 9 op-ed column titled “Flush with Energy,” Friedman drew a stark contrast between America’s energy policy and that of Denmark.

That the United States – the all-powerful, lone (for now) superpower –  can so easily be trumped by little Denmark is shameful.

It only adds salt to the wound that so many foolish, ignorant and willfully oblivious Americans still insist that they live in the “Greatest Nation on Earth” despite so many shortcomings, such as displayed by this stay-the-course mentality that leaves us in the energy policy dust of forward-thinking nation’s like Denmark.

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In the nineties, the island of 4,300 people imported all their energy, mostly in oil tankers, and paid little attention to where it came from. In a fascinating article in The New Yorker magazine, Elizabeth Kolbert reports that:

“Then, quite deliberately, the residents of the island set about changing this. They formed energy coöperatives and organized seminars on wind power. They removed their furnaces and replaced them with heat pumps. By 2001, fossil-fuel use on Samsø had been cut in half. By 2003, instead of importing electricity, the island was exporting it, and by 2005 it was producing from renewable sources more energy than it was using.”

Image Credit: Joachim Ladefoged, The New Yorker

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]]> http://cleantechnica.com/2008/07/16/danish-island-becomes-energy-self-sufficient-the-lesson-of-samso/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/21/sas-cuts-emissions-by-flying-slower/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/21/sas-cuts-emissions-by-flying-slower/#comments Wed, 21 May 2008 14:05:43 +0000 Pem Charnley http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/21/sas-cuts-emissions-by-flying-slower/

SAS flies slower to save fuel and lower carbon emissions.

Well, when I read this headline, conflicting views sprang to mind.

Firstly of course, being an Englishman with no sense of irony, I immediately leapt to my feet and saluted my queen and her armed forces.

Then I faltered slightly, and thought, if a crack team of SAS marines were being air dropped into some war-torn despotic state, surely, speed is of the essence, to ensure that the paras can be in and out again with time for a cup of tea a mere hours later.

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