Dirkshof

On Friday I cycled 50km across northern Germany to the North Sea coast, to visit Dirkshof, the first publicly owned wind farm in Germany, started 20 years ago by farmer Dirk Ketelsen, who has many of his neighbours as shareholders in an extremely profitable venture bringing 10% per annum return on investment thanks to the German renewable energy law with its feed-in tariffs

Zero Carbon Sonderborg

At last I have found it - a place bold enough to make the case for zero carbon emissions (not just low carbon emissions, which is a fairly meaningless term since it can be used to mean almost anything, including 1% less than business as usual).
Zero Carbon Sonderborg has extremely ambitious proposals to get to zero emissions by 2029, and they have been carefully worked out in a plan which is about to be published.
They have a number of innovative initiatives on how to do it, including zero families; a zero plus house, which generates more energy than it uses (so you get a cheque from the electricity company, not a bill - that should go down well with the public!); Bright Green Youth which organised a conference in August this year to come up with climate solutions, which will be presented to the COP in Denmark, and implemented in Sonderborg this year; zero farming, involving energy saving ideas and using manure to generate energy; zero municipality; and business (Bright Green Business).
I meet with managing director Peter Rathje and his assistant Christian, and they explain the ideas behind Zero Carbon Sonderborg.They have solved the problem of transportation without using oil by going electric - the same idea promoted by the Centre for Alternative Technology in their Zero Carbon Britain report

Waiting in Flensburg

I have been waiting to cross the Danish border for several days now, staying with a group of energy and environment students who are planning to sail to the COP in Copenhagen - sadly, they won't be leaving in time to get me there by 8th December so I can do my presentation at the alternative Klimaforum09.
Instead, I am going to join up with Kim Nguyen, who has cycled all the way from Australia. He will arrive here at the end of November, and will reach Copenhagen on 6th December .
But I haven't been wasting my time here. I've been to an anti-nuclear, anti-'clean' coal demo, and attended a talk by Ingrid Nestle, newly elected MP for the Greens, and their speaker on energy economics. We discuss energy scenarios afterwards. She agrees that a zero carbon world is certainly possible, though we disagree on how soon; she thinks it can't be until around 2040, I think it could be much sooner, if only we had the political will.
I've also visited Energie aus Wind und Sonne . They are one of the biggest suppliers of renewable energy in northern Germany, and have a large warehouse full of solar panels, for which they are acting as wholesalers, as well as being involved in wind,solar thermal and wood-pellet-fueled central heating systems. They can source the wood from factory waste, using only 10% of it, to provide heat for 100,000 homes. There is clearly room for a lot of expansion, but a simple calculation shows that this can only be part of the solution (100% would be only one million homes), and we need to look for other forms of heat/insulation.
Last night I attended presentations by some of the students on the energy and environment course at the University of Flensburg. They were very interesting, covering means of liberalising energy markets and increasing the proportions of renewables, and the potential of wind and solar technologies. They were also in English, very useful for someone who hasn't studied German for over 40 years!
It seems that there is enough technical potential for wind power to supply seven times Germany's energy supply, and 18 times Europe's, but other factors, such as opposition from NIMBYs, and cost, cut this down.
I went to a talk by Prof Dr Olav Hohmeyer, from the University of Flensburg, and former chair of the IPCC Working group III (adaptation) last night. He said the way forward is to use renewables and energy efficiency, not nuclear power, because of the dangers of accidents and nuclear proliferation, and not carbon capture and sequestration because the available storage for CO2 will be needed later this century for storing CO2 captured from biomass burning, which will be necessary to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere

Artefact

Artefact is a truly amazing place - a little like the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales, but smaller, with far fewer tourists, they concentrate on training people in areas such as photovoltaics. They also have strong connections with the Global South; there were people there being selected as volunteers over the weekend; they also showcase examples of techniques developed in the South, such as a building from Africa which is constructed so that it requires no air conditioning.
One of the men on a photovoltaics training course had studied political science, doing his dissertation on the German renewable energy law on feed-in tariffs.
While I was at Artefact I attended the General Meeting of INFORSE-Europe (INFORSE is short for the International Network for Sustainable Energy). Paul Allen from the Centre for Alternative Technology, project director for the Zero Carbon Britain report which was the inspiration for the Zero Caravan, was present, and the meeting decided to recommend 2030 rather than 2050 as a date to aim for zero carbon by.

Bremen

Arrived in Bremen after a 65km ride through the valley of the R Weser - stopping to be photographed for the local paper at a hydro power site on the journey.
I was accompanied all the way; Johanne, Kurt and Helmut - members of BUND (Friends of the Earth) Nienburg, came to Achim, where they handed me over to Christian Gudz of BUND Bremen, who took me on to Katja Muchow's house, where I am staying the night before travelling on tomorrow to Bremerhaven where I am taking part in an event at Klimahaus.
Katja works for BUND Bremen, and her husband, Jörn, is a mathematician working on models of climate change. We have an interesting conversation about tipping points.

Nienburg

I was accompanied all the way from Hannover to my next stop in Nienburg (so even I couldn't get lost!) by members of the ADFC (the German cyclists' club), with Heiko taking me from Hannover to Neustadt along a beautiful route through woodlands (where he had to push me up a steep muddy bank) and along the River Weser, and Berthold and Ralf (on recumbents, Berthold on a bike and Ralf on a trike) taking me on to Nienburg, where we were met at the Umweltzentrum (environment centre) by Johanne, Günther, Helmut and Mechthild from BUND (Friends of the Earth) Nienburg. Johanne teaches cooking, and she had cooked us a delicious meal of pasta, cheese and spinach with a tomato sauce, followed by tiramisou (not that I needed much encouragement to eat after a 65 km bike ride).
I spent the night at Helmut and Mechthild's house, and the next day more members of BUND Nienburg joined us - Johanne and Günther again, and also Manfred and Kurt. We put the world to rights, and finished off the remains of my birthday cake.
Helmut had done a good job with the press - there was a nice story about me in the local free Sunday newspaper, and I practised my German translating it (with a lot of help - it's over 40 years since I learned German at school)
Before I left Nienburg on Monday morning I met the mayor. He isn't in a political party, and is directly elected by the people. He is very keen to do something about climate change, and was very interested in my journey. He asked if I had noticed any differences between the countries I had travelled to, and the first thing that came to mind was cycle tracks - virtually non-existent in Britain; quite a few, but often very narrow, in Belgium; the best in Holland; and a lot in Germany, but sometimes not with very good surfaces.