Danish Island Goes Green

Samso Denmark gets all its electricity from green sources.

SAMSO, Denmark (Reuters) - Concerns about energy security may run high elsewhere in Europe, but on the windswept Danish island of Samso the inhabitants have achieved a decade-long target of self-sufficiency in renewable power.

It's a challenge their government set the island in 1997 and which has been largely funded through local taxes and individual investments, in one of Europe's wealthier countries -- Denmark's GDP per capita was more than $35,000 in 2006.

Now the islanders have shown that where there's a wind, there's a way -- and in the process mounted a global showcase for one of the prize export industries in Denmark, which is home to the world's largest wind-turbine maker, Vestas.

Mostly wind but some solar. It can be done if there is a will.