Playlist: Denis Du Bois's Portfolio
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Sustaindinavia: Copenhagen's Integrated Approach to Energy
From Denis Du Bois | Part of the Energy Priorities series | 29:00
Carbon policy is a big issue. It's a great time to examine how Copenhagen Denmark has solved multiple problems by integrating energy systems right into the city.
What many North American cities would like to achieve, Copenhagen has been perfecting for a century -- Generating carbon-neutral electricity, eliminating 97 percent of the garbage that would have gone into landfills, and supplying reliable, low-cost heat to entire cities.
Scandinavia is known for modern design. It's also home to excellent examples of transit-oriented communities, clean energy, and revitalized neighborhoods. Energy Priorities looks into how they achieve sustainability, while honoring their rich history. This edition of Energy Priorities is the first in a series about sustainability ideas from Scandinavia, titled "Sustaindinavia."
Copenhagen is a veteran of combined heat and power production. Its experience converting trash to energy began in 1903, and it learned the energy security of district heat during World War I and again in WW II. In this program, Denis Du Bois takes listeners on an audio tour of a power plant that supplies electricity to the city, and heats it, by burning its garbage.The oil embargoes of the 1970s convinced Denmark to become free of fossil fuels. Copenhagen intends to be a carbon neutral city by 2025. As a member of the EU, Denmark has broader goals to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 60% to 80% by 2050.
These forces converge to drive innovation in how Copenhagen plans its new communities to be energy efficient, powered and heated by waste-to-energy plants and other renewable energy sources. Denis talks with city planners and energy company managers about how they are developing historic neighborhoods as low-energy districts.
Host Denis Du Bois founded Energy Priorities Magazine on Earth Day 2004, and is the host of the "Energy Priorities" public radio program distributed by NPR. Denis has authored over 450 cleantech articles for a variety of publications, including the New York Times, and he has been interviewed on the subject by news outlets including FORTUNE and MSNBC. In the past seven years, he has organized MIT Enterprise Forums on renewable energy, the smart grid, biofuels, and green buildings.
Conservation Gamification
From Denis Du Bois | 04:00
Earth Day 2014 -- The University of Washington is participating in a national competition to conserve energy and water on campus this month. The competition is part of a "gamification" trend -- using game mechanics to engage people to achieve non-game goals. UW views it as education outside the classroom, a catalyst that will change how students think about their lifestyles.
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- Denis Du Bois
Earth Day 2014 -- The University of Washington is participating in the Campus Conservation Nationals, a competition to conserve energy and water on campus this month. The competition is part of a gamification trend -- using game mechanics to engage people to achieve non-game goals. UW views it as education outside the classroom, a catalyst that will change how students think about their lifestyles.
It's a contest between colleges, but at UW the students in three buildings are competing against each other and that's the focus of the piece. It's not a story about a winner or a prize, or even the energy they save -- it's a story about trying something innovative to set UW students on a path to living sustainably. One expert says the change won't stick but suggests ways to improve it.
There are noisy events, excited students, and interviews with the UW staff organizer and ACEEE cultural anthropologist Susan Mazur-Stomman, who specializes in energy and behavior change.