In Denmark, The World's First Self-Sufficient Green Island

SAMSO — The Vikings, masters of wind, once turned this small island lost in the middle of Denmark into a strategic place. They dug a channel and built a castle, from which they could control the courses of their longships towards faraway lands. And their descendants have planted the masts of their wind turbines on the land and in the seas. Samso is raising the flag of green energies, drawing all of its electricity from the unceasing wind, from the heat of the sun, wood or straw. It now wants to go even further by eliminating fossil fuels from its means of transport.

Reaching Samso isn't easy. From the Copenhagen airport, you must take the train to reach the coastline, before boarding one of the two daily ferries that stop at this tiny piece of land shaped like a spit-curl. It's 28 kilometers long (17 miles) and, at its widest part, barely seven kilometers wide (four miles). Approaching the shore at sunset, you can first see an alignment of 10 turbines in the water. Then you see the blades of 11 windmills dispersed above thatched low-roofed houses.

This is how Samso changed the course of its destiny. "It all started in 1997," says Michael Kristensen, a former carpenter-roofer who reinvented himself in alternative energies. "The Danish government made five islands compete with each other to become self-sufficient within the next 10 years thanks to 100% renewable resources. Our project won."

At the time, the island was slowly dying out. Cattle breeding, pig farming, potato and strawberry cultivation, renowned across the entire kingdom, were no longer enough for all the workers. The slaughterhouse, a major...