Positive Energy

I do 30 is all about doing good for the climate, and doing 30 on your washing machine is just one way to reduce CO2. At Roskilde Festival we met a group of young people who had some really fascinating solutions on how to save energy and help the climate. Read and get inspired.

In this amazingly cool tent at Roskilde, we met a super-duper passionate Julie, an engineering student at Technical University of Denmark, who, along with her friends, made the theme of their camp at Roskilde festival the climate and optimisation the use of energy.

The entire idea behind this environmentally friendly camp (known as Positive Energy), started a couple of years ago when Julie and her friends, also from the Technical University of Denmark, went to Roskilde and thought it would be cool to be able to recharge their mobile phone batteries themselves, instead of queuing up for the mobile charging service stands, and also to be able to host cool parties at their camp. Smart move! It began with a little windmill and a photovoltaic, which generated enough energy for 5-6 people to recharge their phones on an on-going basis. The small windmill and the photovoltaic attracted a lot of attention, and people passing by stopped and asked about it, and why they were doing it. The big speakers, which took six months to design, attracted a lot more people with their excellent sound.

We were pleasantly surprised to meet such a bunch of enthusiastic, energy-optimising  young people, so passionate and positive about their ideas. The real force behind their creativity partially came from the fact that they think it’s silly not to do something for the climate when it’s so easy and so obvious. What Julie and her friends at her camp had in common was that they thought, and think, in terms of effectiveness versus consumption of energy, and for them it’s all about optimising the resources you already have. The general feeling was that you don’t have to live in a hut of clay to save energy, and although there is not one simple, single solution to being more climate friendly, there is an attitude towards the effectiveness of energy that needs to be built in into people’s overall thoughts on energy and the climate.

Because of Julie and her friends’ camp, a friend of theirs was headhunted last year by Roskilde festival to help initiate ideas for the 2009 climate community this year, something Julie and the others thought was super cool. Julie and her friends will be back at Roskilde next year, only bigger and better, still by using the energy created by their camp. Keep your eyes open for them in 2010! 🙂