Germany's Clean Energy Transforms Industrial City of Hamburg

[marmar]

Germany's Clean Energy Transforms Industrial City of Hamburg
By Osha Gray Davidson Nov 19, 2012 7:47 PM ET


InsideClimateNews.org (Hamburg, Germany) -- It was late morning when I stepped out of my hotel lobby and into the jostle of Kirchenallee Street in Hamburg's city center. I checked my watch, jotted down the time in my notebook and set out for the nearest subway station (U-Bahn in German).

The sidewalks were packed with people enjoying the glorious spring weather on May Day, a public holiday similar to Labor Day in the United States. When I arrived at a stairway beneath a large "U," I checked the time. The walk from my hotel to Hauptbahnhof Süd station had taken one minute and 30 seconds. Seven minutes later I was on a subway car speeding smoothly south.

A trip across Hamburg is like visiting the launch pad of Germany's renewable energy revolution, or Energiewende. Planners call it the "built environment," a term that includes buildings, parks and the transportation system that connects them. How a city handles these ho-hum elements determines everything from energy usage to greenhouse gas emissions to the quality of life enjoyed by residents.

Without this carefully designed platform, the Energiewende would have never left the ground. So my subway ride wasn't just a way to explore Hamburg's built environment, it was an essential part of it, starting with my short walk to the U-Bahn stop. Ninety-nine percent of Hamburg residents live within 300 meters (328 yards) of a rail or bus stop, a figure that bests any major city in Europe or the United States. It's also one of the primary reasons Hamburg was crowned European Green Capital in 2011. Germany's second largest city, which is also its busiest port, shows "how an industrial city can help lead the green revolution," as an editor at Architectural Record put it. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-20/germany-s-clean-energy-transforms-industrial-city-of-hamburg.html

[GitRDun]

1. In a word..

Wow!

[CRH]

2. Germany is not getting enough credit, ...

for what they are trying to do.

It is easy to say since giving up nuclear and having to raise their carbon signature in an interim to conversion to low carbon energy, they are hypocrites. Aren't they the only G8 economy rapidly moving toward a low carbon future not just in energy, but as well, in infrastructure, social planning, and lifestyle?

Who else is even trying?

[NoOneMan]

3. Can any nation do this without selling the junk they make to the oil-world?

Seriously...50% of their GDP comes from selling goods outside their "green" system, to the more important global system that is flooded in dirty energy.

I feel this undermines their "success" to some level, because regional success is irrelevant in a ~400 ppm world. Are they just playing a carbon shell game, or really generating a model that everyone can follow? And if not enough can follow it, such that overall emissions are actually reduced significantly, quickly, its all for naught.

Tracking the carbon investment of energy infrastructure (and reward) across a complex global economy is incredibly difficult; its probably not entirely easy to understand how coal burned in a coal factory in the US could have subsidized Germany's infrastructure as well (but on some level, it has). It can make your head spin if you are cynical enough to investigate this angle.

Good news for the corniuopiasts I guess. I just don't know. I think some people are missing the forest through the carbon smog drenched trees.