What’s up with Denmark?

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribeDenmark gets a large share of its power from wind and other renewables and has cut its emissions roughly in half since 1990, but independent analysts doubt it will hit its 70 percent target for 2030. Kristian Jensen, CEO of Green Power Denmark and a former Danish minister of taxation, foreign affairs, and finance, argues the next stage is electrifying how Denmark uses energy: heat, transport, and industry. I talk with him about district heating and heat pumps, EVs and vehicle-to-grid, municipally owned grid companies and hourly power prices, biomass, carbon capture, power-to-X, solar’s “fields of iron” backlash, a grid oversubscribed with data center requests (an October 1 agreement has since put most data centers at the back of the queue), and whether the country’s political consensus will hold.Chapters00:00 – Introduction: Denmark and industrial symbiosis02:44 – Is the 70% target for 2030 out of reach?06:24 – Carbon capture and storage, and the peatlands lag09:57 – Why electrification has lagged: biomass and wood pellets14:45 – Few batteries, many interconnectors16:48 – Data centers and the grid-connection prioritization bill21:34 – Municipally owned grid companies24:32 – Smart meters, hourly prices, and thermal batteries28:40 – The solar backlash and local ownership35:04 – Agrivoltaics and biodiversity37:24 – District heating: heat pumps, geothermal, and finance43:24 – The EV transition and vehicle-to-grid47:45 – Road pricing and fiscal room50:07 – Power-to-X and eSAF54:21 – Can Denmark build enough clean power?57:12 – Will the political consensus hold?