From Energy Crisis to Industrial Adventure: A Chronicle - Wind Power for the World: The Rise of Modern Wind Energy - page 185

areas of coal, oil and uranium to be considered. Consequently, it
became quite diferent—virtually unknown enterprises in Jutland
harvested the fruits of the new industrial sector, which in the course
of some years would obtain a billion turnover while many of the
old enterprises lost turnover or vanished into darkness.
When F. L. Smidth & Co. throw their hand in, many Danes felt
that no one else had the capacity to carry through wind power. “But
we cannot manage this task on our own,” said CEO Benned Hansen
from the industrial conglomerate, which had in 1942 successfully
been able to develop a modern windmill from scratch in only nine
months. F. L. Smidth were not interested in research grants from the
state in order to continue work on the plans, but generously ofered
to place their knowledge at the state's disposal, if the latter would
take an interest in wind power, said Benned Hansen.
The retreat of F. L. Smidth & Co. did not mean that the dream
of wind power had failed. Wind power had a symbolic value far
stronger than anyone could imagine at the time. Through hundreds
of years, the Danes had become conversant with wind power as a
source of energy, and particularly in times of crisis they turned to
wind power. During the Second World War windmills provided
light in many homes. With a windmill on one out of three farms,
for the Danes wind energy was a symbol of the progress of the
cooperative movements and farming.

7.3 Responsible Solutions

The energy crisis in the 1970s put a definitive end to the belief
in progress. Whereas the interest in wind energy formerly had
vanished, as soon as wars and periods of energy shortage were over,
there was now a new realisation that the resource shortage and
environmental problems had come to stay. It was a crisis without
an end; the industrial era with its squandering of coal and oil could
not last forever. Consequently, a change to renewable energy was
the only responsible solution to the energy problems in the long
run. So said the people, who had looked into the future. And popular
logic agreed.
In local communities people struggled on with energy solutions.
One of the well-known projects of 1974 was some grandiose plan to
supply the small island of Tunø with heating from the wind. Being