WPAC Update Danish Renewable Energy Denmark is working towards zero fossil fuel use. By Gordon Murray W hile promoting Canadian wood pellets, I recently visited two of Denmark’s largest power gen-erators—Dong Energy and Vattenfall—and toured their power plants near Copenhagen. The contrast between Denmark and Canada is remarkable when considering each coun-try’s approach to energy policy and green-house gas reduction. Canada is highly reliant on energy inten-sive fossil-fuel-based industries. Not only has the fossil industries’ powerful lobby pre-vented any meaningful federal government action on global warming, it’s estimated that they receive $1.4 billion a year in govern-ment subsidies. Consequently, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 24% between 1990 and 2008, the result of economic and population growth in the absence of adequate government efforts to clean up the country’s energy systems. And without new government policies, emis-sions are projected to continue growing even more quickly. The Canadian government has now ad-opted a target to cut greenhouse gas emis-sions by 17% from 2005 levels (equivalent to 2% above 1990 levels) by 2020. But the government has produced no plan or legis-lation to meet this target, and experts agree that the government’s current policies have no chance of reaching it. It is therefore dif-ficult to avoid the conclusion that Canada’s greenhouse gas target is for the government’s public relations purposes only. This is bad news for Canadian pellet producers who eventually hope to sell their product into a domestic industrial market. Denmark has taken a different approach. Danish government policy aims for Den-mark to be a green, sustainable society by 2020 and among the three most energy ef-ficient countries in the OECD (note: the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is an organization of 34 countries, including Canada, whose goal is to stimulate economic progress and world trade). The government’s long-term vision is that Denmark will become independent of fossil fuels by 2050 while reducing green-house gases by 80–95% compared to 1990. This will require a total conversion of the Danish energy system, away from oil, coal, and gas, which today account for more than 80% of energy consumption, to green ener-gy, with wind turbines and bioenergy as the most important elements. The European Union presently has a goal of reducing GHG emissions by 20% by 2020 from the 1990 level. Denmark is urging the EU to adopt an even stricter goal of 30%. In the short term, Denmark has adopt-ed a plan to cut na-tional coal consump-tion by one-quarter by forcing power producers to switch from coal to biomass. The idea is that the country’s five largest cities will be declared coal-free areas. The government intends for this plan to be op-erational by 2011. Because Danish biomass resources are limited, this is great news for Canadian wood pellet producers, who already have a small share of the Danish pellet market along with Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Danish coal power plants are already re-markably efficient. Any coal plant makes just two things: electricity and heat. Most coal plants, including those in Canada, use only the electricity, sending the heat up the chimney as waste. Thus, most coal power plants are only about 30% fuel efficient. In Danish power plants, both electricity and heat are used (known as combined heat and power, CHP). The heat is captured and used to heat hot water, which is pumped through a vast network of super-insulated pipes to heat homes throughout the country (called district heating). Denmark’s best power plants are more than 90% fuel efficient. To-day, more than 70% of Denmark’s homes are heated by district heating, which is extreme-ly rare in Canada. One of the power plants I visited was Dong Energy’s Avedøre Power Station near Copenhagen, which provides electricity for 1.3 million homes in northern Europe and district heating for 200,000 homes in “The government’s long-term vision is that Denmark will become independent of fossil fuels by 2050 while reducing greenhouse gases by 80–95% compared to 1990.” Greater Copenhagen. Total electricity pro-duction is 825 MW and heat production is 575 MJ (megaJoules). The facility has two units. Unit 1 is coal-and oil-fired. Unit 2 uses several types of fuel, including natural gas, oil, and biofuels (straw and wood pel-lets). It is one of the world’s most efficient CHP facilities, using up to 94% of the en-ergy in the fuel. The two 55-MW gas tur-bines operate as peak load facilities when electricity and heat demand are high. The plant consumes 600,000 tonnes/year of wood pellets. I also visited Vattenfall’s Amager Power Station near Copenhagen, which has a total electricity capacity of 438 MW and ther-mal power capacity of 747 MW, which cor-responds to the heating required by about Canadian BIOMASS 31
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