Eco in Denmark: Sailboat ride and black dolphins!

On September 2nd, a crew from Friland went on boat ride from Ebeltoft harbor, to move the sailboat from one location to another. It was beautiful weather and with my hidden enthusiasm for boats there was not a chance I would stay on land. On the boat was the two older men who owns it, three inhabitants of Friland (Morten,Cathrine and little Birk), and three wwoofers (from Switzerland,Australia and Spain). The humor was high, the food alittle unprepared and improvised, and we kept talking about everything from philosophy to real practical ecology, world unity, the value of wwoofing and energy from constructions. Well worth the trip, also for the less shallow conversations. To our happy surprise, we spotted two black dolphins swimming and jumping pretty far from the boat! We couldn't capture them on camera, as they seemed to leave, but through spyglasses we could see them clearly. Dolphins are able to swim along the boats as the social creatures they are, but hopefully we can see them again one time.

Birk and his cool viking-costume

To float is to move sustainably

Eco in Denmark: Arriving at ecovillage Friland, Djursland



Boat ride on Sept 2nd in a 4 hour sail with other wwoofers and hosts.

About time for some updates. Arriving at "Friland" (Freeland) in Djursland on August 30th and now it is the 5th of September, and many exciting things are going on here already. Right now, I am at the fantasy house of Einer's, who cannot stand squares -so all his equipment and house is formed un-square (soon to be uploaded!), and my previous host until September 4th, was Caroline and Tahir from Pakistan as posted below in the supportlink. 

Arriving at ecovillage Friland, I first started whitewashing the outside wall of my host with calc and water mixed, to cover the brownish straw bales. The house also hosted a kitchen garden, as Friland stribes to become a hundred percent self-sustained as households. Their goals are pretty ambitious, both self-sustained, but also free from all loans. And most of them, has houses and area built for less than 300.000 DKK, which includes material. There is about 100.000 for material, and 200.000 for VVS,watersupply and common area costs. The host I first arrived to is on phase 2 of Friland, which means they are houses in building after phase 1 is almost finished. Phase 3 is in planning, and right now I am just gazing at the open yellow field there. Even though there are plenty more "fantasy buildings" here than at Fri & Fro in Odsherred where I was at first, I'd say I am still waiting for that badass hippie, and most of those who came here are simply average danish families, mostly with first-born children, often from the city and tired of the noices there, and the big wavy skirts and rasta-hairdos are still nowhere to be seen... hmm. Surprising, even here.

My current host's greenhouse, where I am working

Eco in Denmark: Straw bale houses earth quake resistant

My host in ecovillage "Friland", Caroline Meyer White at Engineers Without Borders in Denmark, is currently working on a specific building project in Pakistan after the flood. She and the engineers are building earth quake friendly straw bale houses with the right technique, to shelter the homeless during the cold winter to arrive! This is for the northern parts of Pakistan, where simple tents won't be enough. And here we also learned something new about straw bale houses: When constructed as explained in the link below, they are tested as earth quake resistant! This way, their new houses will not only shelter them, but also keep them more safe in the years to come, and.. it will be much cheaper to build and easier and faster to build as the locals are brought in who already know much of such building and local material is being used.

NEW INPUT: Straw and compressed straw as one of many natural materials, is different to metal/ bricks and compact material, as straw "breathes" and makes holes and space for the air to flow within its structure, so when the ground shakes the material itself "shakes" in circles with airflow and is more unlikely to collapse than a four-edge, thick wall-structure with no natural "airflow".

From abstract: "The objective of the shake table tests was to assess the seismic response of a 14’ x 14’ x 10’ full-scale house constructed with heavy detailing. The input motion was the Canoga Park Topanga Canyon record of the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake, Mw 6.7. The house was subjected to eight levels of seismic shaking, beginning at 25% of the recorded ground acceleration and increasing at 25% increments. The house survived 0.82g, twice the acceleration of the Canoga Park record. Although severely damaged, the building did not appear in danger of collapse, even at the end of the test sequence."

(Video of shake-table test below, requires Flash):

More information here: http://nees.unr.edu/projects/straw_bale_house.html

And at PAKSBAB: http://www.paksbab.org/

Donation-site (danish): SUPPORTPAKISTAN.DK

Eco in Denmark: Leaving farm in Kyse

Good memories from the apple ecofarm, here are some goodies:

I love the ocean.

More on the "Beatle" in the background further in this post

THE WOOD PELLET STOVE: The heating came from this modern wood pellet stove, a common ecological use in Denmark for saving money and energy. Combined with solar energy for electricity, the stove has some magnificent effects on amounts of hot water. Wood pellets, bought from left-overs at wood firms etc., are heated up to the hot water storage, which delivers domestic hot water and can supply the central heating system at the lowest possible costs.

Me on the tractor for the first time, it was fun

On a bike ride to the beach at Karrebæksminde (a very popular tourist resort), here is a funny "beatle-bridge" for ship traffic and the sign in front of the bridge says: "Save the environment, turn off your engine!" to the cars arriving to cross the bridge. Again: Motivation campaign in the danish spirit!

The "Beatle" :)

Old-fashioned wind mill

Photos and descriptions from Eco in Denmark

Eco in Denmark: WATER. The household wastewater, acid precipitation and groundwater

Fresh drinking water, acid precipitation, soil water storage, as well as wastewater and groundwater, is a big problem or challenge in today's fresh water loss and biomass growth. Not only is it unhealthy for us, but also with our spill of chemicals, important vegetation is losing minerals to grow and the groundwater itself that is moving outside of the community sewer transportation would end up disturbing already fresh lakes,coastline and rivers that we are also using and animals are in. Big, growing problem... and the EU has decided that all the member countries within year 2015 will have to make sure the water condition is good.

Where to find one solution? On my very first stop on this trip, I cannot avoid telling about their very own constructed waterland system (økologisk pileanlegg)! With inspiration from Odsherred, "Fri og Fro"-ecovillage August 9 - 16:
 

 " We're refreshing our own grey wastewater in a special-designed evaportranspiration construction!" - The folder explains, which I got hold of at the ecovillage in Odsherred, Denmark. As well as our own wastewater, it also takes acid precipitation (sur nedbør) and precipitation as it evaporates (fordamper)!

HERE'S HOW:

A polyethylene-lined basin (the ecovillage in Odsherred has installed 6 basins) filled with soil is planted with clones of willow (Salix viminalis) (piler) grown as a short rotation coppice. The basin receives input from wastewater and precipitation and has no discharge, but the water is evapotranspired by the willow and nutrients are consumed by the willow biomass, which is cut down regularly. 

The species Salix viminalis was effective in evapotranspiring (fordampning). It was concluded that the yearly ETA (måling av fordampning) of the constructed wetlands is more than twice as high as potential evaporation calculated from Makkink. The average potential evaporation (Makkink) in Denmark is 582mmyear-1. The measured ETA from a constructed wetland (økologisk pileanlegg) in Jutland (Jylland) was 1332mmyear -1. (Source:Susanne Rosenild,2005).

The willows, which are fast to grow, are using the minerals in the water to grow and evaporate the water through its leaves. The evaporated water is completely clean,and the report also says the system is called "oasis effect", as it basically is a constructed oasis! Some waterland constructions also plant more vegetation and long rows of willows especially around such a site, to create yet more feedback to the ecosystem. The wastewater is conducted from the single grounds til four bottom tanks, where it gets pushed through some cords up to the waterland construction. Here there are some instruments to analyze the incoming water and water level. 

If there is something wrong in the system, the whole construction actually sends an sms and alarms one of the members of the ecovillage community! Also when there is too much wastewater. What an invention!

For more information, in danish and some english, read an environmental research report here.

Eco in Denmark: Article-bits about Samsø (in norwegian)

Copyright: "Det Beste" (Norwegian magazine)

For sharing: Idébanken (source)

Eco in Denmark: The 100% Renewable Energy Island

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS: 

Samsoe (Samsø / Samso) is an island between island Sjaelland and the Jylland in Denmark, 114 square kilometres and 4000 inhabitants. We took a local ferry to find an island with top technology from both worlds! The farmers, the scientists, the locals and the top technical equipment for becoming a leading flagship of energy. Today, after 10 years of developement, Samsoe is hosting lots of "energy tourists" and curious energy enthusiasts from all over the world. How they made it happen, is a nice story itself. The key is participation. This trip was done August 9th to discover how this island is 100% self-sustained from renewable energy, and managed to get a guided tour around the wonderful island:

Above: Air heating and conditioning system

Eco in Denmark: Copenhagen eco city

I'm in Copenhagen. Because of the ecovillage development, unfortunately city developers think that the bunch of conscious consumers are moving out of the city and that there is no need for green market in the biggest cities. That is wrong. Green implementation can be done anywhere, and eco cities are starting to see the light - with China as a frontier so far (ShannonMay's projects etc). In Scandinavia, the leading eco city is by far Copenhagen. These few days of mine here, just confirms this by walking the streets. Above is an english presentation video and here are some great articles in norwegian language from norwegian tourist information centres about Copenhagen eco city:
Budstikka.no - "øko-Køben" (in norwegian)
http://www.visitkoebenhavn.no/content/turist-norsk/se_og_gjore/inspirasjon/gronne_kobenhavn/en_miljobevisst_by

Eco in Denmark: Motivation campaigns everywhere

The danish people, from private institutes and businesses -to governmental plans, are very good at public attitude campaigns through posters,products labels and commercials about global changes and personal growth, which we do not have this much in Norway.

It came as a shock to me to discover how well organized this informal arts-campaign works all over the region! In norwegian stores, the most common bag is a plastic bag when you buy something.

In a danish store, the most common bag is a recycled bag, and it is for the same amount of cost as a backwards-plastic bag in Norway, just alittle less than 1 DKK/1 NOK almost. Whereas recycled bags in Norways would cost 1,70 DKK/NOK almost and bags of other material than plastic - about 17 DKK/NOK.
I will post some examples of the messages printed. Even on the Coke bottle, which is made of recycled plant material by the way, one has a message. 

 And every train has a garbage bag with message, as well as every station has a poster with one. Shops and retails have recommended products with HUGE signs "Ecological" on the front row in the stores, and not hidden in the back of the store. I can name examples: Superbest, Super Brugsen, Lidl, and also the smaller ones.

CORE VALUES IN CULTURE: Without glorifying the danish people as one, it is something special of danish cultural spirit to do information like this, and few people complain about the informal arts because the individuals of danes have something rare in common; to develope common ground at the bottom-up philosophy. As it is not only governmental information, it shows that private businesses care just as much about core values of the people as any rural person does.

The danish people are very proud people of their core and stable social culture, so they keep feeding it to their citizens. If things like this happened in Norway, I think people would immediately start saying there are some few leaders trying to put an idealistic view into some peoples' minds. Instead in Denmark, it is a part of their culture to motivate and engage people in social core values.