Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
However, it became clear to the leaders of OOA that saying
“no” to nuclear was not the same as saying “yes” to the alternative
(Maegaard, 2010). They decided on 2 February 1975 at a nation-
wide meeting in Bryrup, Jutland, to form a new organisation.
Lars Albertsen, who would be a key figure in the policy-space for
wind energy, would set forth a new term “vedvarende energi”,
or
sustainable
energy,
to
describe
the
goal
of
the
new
organisation.
14
This new organisation, OVE (the Organisation for
Renewable
Energy)
was
initially
organised
similarly
to
the
OOA
disparate local networks of activists led meetings, called
“VindTræf ”, or sit-ins, to discuss and share information about
renewable energy
—
primarily wind energy (Maegaard, 2010).
Members of both the NIVE and Tvind networks attended and
contributed to the various OVE meetings. Maegaard recalls that
he went to almost all OVE meetings across the country which
included two to four a year from 1975 to 1980 (Maegaard,
2010). Beyond activism, the OVE openly promoted technology
development and information sharing. Thus, the earlier network
that had brought diferent actors together around the theme of
anti-nuclear power was an important catalyst in the development
of the OVE network which would become a critical component
of the wind energy development efort in Denmark.
One prominent group of soon-to-be OVE members came from
the Tvind folk high school of Western Jutland. Rising out of the
folk high school tradition in Denmark, the Tvind School was
actually a hub for distributed activity of the so-called “travelling
high schools” that began in 1970. The schools' principals involved
a few key tenants such as the world as a classroom, the integration
of practice and academics, and students as the drivers for
teaching and learning.
—
The teachers founded the school from
their common savings and everything became shared resources
both from an economy and a time standpoint. The school also
emphasised solidarity with those in less-developed communities
and part of the studies included bus caravans to Turkey, Iran,
Afghanistan and finally Pakistan and India where students and
teachers could experience first-hand working with community
15
14
See the “Winds of Change” Web site for more detail on the organisation's
history (OOA, 2009; OVE, 2009).
15
Much of the history of the Tvind experience is based on interviews with Britta
Jensen of Tvind, December 2010, as well as the Maegaard's (2009b) article and
the Tvind Web site.
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