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Scandinavian Airlines machine in Copenhagen (archive image)
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Mathias Loevgreen Bojesen / imago images / Ritzau Scanpix
Denmark likes to see itself in the role of a model student on climate policy - and has also presented ambitious plans for the new year.
In 2025, Danes should be able to fly "green" within the country.
The country wants to make its domestic flights "completely green" by 2030, said Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in her New Year's address.
"If other countries in the world are too slow, Denmark has to go ahead and raise the bar even higher," said the Social Democrat.
“It will be difficult.
Yes.
Can it work?
Yes, I think so, «said Frederiksen.
"Talented scientists and companies are working on solutions."
How exactly domestic air traffic is to be made climate-neutral by the end of the decade and what exactly "flying green" means, she did not explain.
However, in 2022 "decisions about a new and ambitious CO2 tax" should be made, which her government had previously rejected.
Frederiksen: "To travel means to live"
At least on the technical side, on which Frederiksen also did not comment in detail, experts seem to consider the idea to be potentially feasible, according to the broadcaster DR.
The "green" flights could be carried out with fuel that is obtained by using green energy, for example from wind turbines, by electrolysis in the form of green hydrogen - in the so-called Power-to-X process.
You would then be fossil-free.
"The technology is available, the costs are affordable, the aviation sector and industry want it, the customers are willing to pay," quoted DR Henrik Wenzel from the Institute for Green Technology at the University of Odense in southern Denmark.
Jacob Østergaard from the Technical University of Denmark points out, among other things, the ambitious schedule, especially since the technologies have not yet been used on a larger scale.
Switching air traffic to green fuel is a particular challenge, said Østergaard DR. Unlike a ship's engine, for example, a modern jet engine needs particularly high-quality and pure fuel.
Frederiksen, it seems, relies above all on technical progress when it comes to climate protection.
Renunciation apparently plays a less important role: "To travel means to live," she said in her New Year's address.
And: "That's why we fly."
apr
