This morning I awoke before the sun had risen and, having made myself a cup of tea, turned on the local news to see if anything interesting had happened. The newsreaders were in a state of mild excitement because the night had been the coldest in 26 years. Yes, outside my window it was a nippy -18C, with parts of the country experiencing lows of -23C (-9F).

This, of course, is seriously cold. High pressure has been the dominant atmospheric force this past week, making for beautiful clear blue skies, frozen lakes that you can skate on incredibly sunsets. At least in Denmark, that is. Elsewhere in Eastern Europe the cold weather has caused chaos, and several hundred deaths as homeless people have frozen where they lay. Denmark, of course, doesn’t have any homeless people, and the only people who end up freezing to death are usually young drunks walking home in rural areas.

But all this cold weather has got me thinking about what would happen if the hot water, which is piped underground from power stations to most apartment blocks around the country, faltered and failed. Denmark, it must be said, likes to burn stuff. They are generally not fussy about what is fed into power stations, as long as it is flammable. Danes use plenty of coal in their energy mix, and some of it comes from far off places like South America, but the other combustibles of choice are oil – which Denmark still has some of – and post consumer waste i.e. trash.

I’ve written before about Denmark’s enchantment with garbage, which has led it to become the biggest producer of trash in the EU, and the effect this has on the national mentality with regard to over packaging and then throwing stuff out (almost everything in my apartment has been thrown away by someone else). But what about when the trash runs out? We know that North Sea Oil is in steep decline, and we know that transporting coal long distance will become more and more expensive, but what about all the trash? Peak garbage anyone?

Anyway, this is all a roundabout way of an introduction to one of my favourite pastimes of late, a mental what if? game that I call Fantasy Collapse. Anyone familiar with Fantasy Football will already have an idea of what I’m talking about – you pick a team, or in this case a country – and predict how well it is going to do over the season (or coming decades) based on your projections. If one of your projections is realised you earn some points, with the winner being the one with the most correct predictions.

Obviously, this isn’t the kind of game that many people would be interested in playing, so I just have to play it in my own head, with my only ‘opponent’ being Danish government spokespeople. So, for example, whenever one of them pops up and says that Denmark will soon have a countrywide smart grid that allows the entire national fleet of vehicles to run on wind power, I will make an opposing prediction that this will be a spectacular failure. Instead, I’ll predict that when Denmark runs out of domestic oil it will turn to its friend Norway to keep the black stuff flowing (they have far more reserves) for a little while longer – and any talk of there being a smart eco grid will be drowned out by voices crying out to allow for more oil exploration in Greenland.

Clearly, this game takes time to play, but here are some of my tentative predictions for Denmark in the coming 50 years, divided up into several categories.

Electricity. As mentioned above, Denmark is pretty stuffed when it comes to getting an uninterrupted supply of energy at the levels it is used to. Oil and gas are fast running out and Germany may well want to keep hold of its coal when it phases out nuclear fuel. Denmark is part of a pan-Scandinavian electricity grid, however, and Sweden and Norway have plenty of energy reserves – Sweden in the form of nuclear power and Norway in the form of hydroelectric. If thorium reactor technology ever gets off the ground – which I sincerely doubt – Norway is poised to be in a position to use it, given that it has the world’s third largest reserves of the stuff. Denmark’s own, quite admirable, use of renewable energy is already hitting the stumbling blocks as the rare earth minerals used in a most renewable energy technology become, er, rarer.

Heat. Obviously, this is closely connected to the above. It shouldn’t take a genius to figure out that a useful amount of heat is very hard to produce using renewable energy in a country often blanketed in thick cloud. For six months of the year solar water heaters will probably prove to be very useful investments, but during the winter months my guess is that the country will become more reliant on burning one particular resource of which Scandinavia has a lot: wood. Sweden, as most people know, is liberally endowed with pine forests. The only problem with this is that those pine forests tend to be quite far away from Denmark, which geographically speaking is a transition zone between northern Germany and Scandinavia proper. Transporting wood, or any fuel, over long distance considerably cuts into its EROEI (energy return on energy invested – the effectiveness of any particular energy source divided by the energy expended in extracting and producing it). At one point in time, when gushers gushed and oil erupted easily from wells in accessible areas, its EROEI was up to 300. This has now fallen to the woefully low level of around 7:1 in Saudi Arabia and 4:1 in Venezuela and the figure for wood is likely to be a fair bit lower. Needless to say, a further reliance on using areas of the Earth’s surface to feed the insatiable demands of a system designed for and predicated on an abundance of cheap oil is not likely to be pretty, in ecological terms.

Housing: Danes love flats. They just can’t get enough of them and there is constant talk of a shortage of available ‘housing’ i.e. apartments. On the plus side, apartment blocks are a very efficient way of storing people. With an average size of 80m2, most apartments here are highly insulated and in good condition. They are perfectly adequate for a couple or a small family, but when the numbers rise over, say five, things can get a little cramped. Many are communal projects, with people sharing kitchen and cleaning facilities, so these are long-sighted and likely to do well. Where flats show shortcomings, however, is the above mentioned umbilical reliance on heating as provided by large thermal power stations burning stuff. It’s a serious weakness, because if they fail for whatever reason, people will have no way of heating their apartments (I have never seen an apartment with a chimney). It is of course possible that apartments could be retrofitted on a grand scale to incorporate wood burners which vent into the very ducts now used for ventilation – this would at least be a step away from efficiency and towards resilience.

Another failing is that if everyone lives in flats they have no productive space to run small businesses or grow food. Modern apartments are designed for people in a rush who have a job to go to and supermarkets where they can purchase their food. A modern Danish apartment, which is likely to be highly minimalistic in its décor and furnishings, is a kind of just-in-time way of living. There is hardly any space for inventory or food storage – and it relies on complex and globe spanning supply chains functioning like clockwork to keep it that way. Take any of these prerequisites away and people will soon learn the limitations of this mode of living.

Once the office jobs dry up and the benefits of living in a city become a lot less attractive, I imagine a lot of people will return to their rural roots. Right now a largish 140 year old stone fixer-upper farmhouse with barns, a cobbled inner courtyard and a few productive acres costs as little at 750,000 kroner (130,000 US dollars) – here’s an example of one – , whereas a small flat in Copenhagen can set you back the best part of a million dollars – here’s another to compare. Rural property is practically the only thing that is cheap in Denmark – the country where a cup of coffee costs around 8 US dollars.

But one bright spot for Danes is the fact that so many of them own a second home in the countryside – or even in the cities. Whole areas are set aside as ‘colony gardens’ and the idea came in more straitened (and possibly sensible) times to allow the urban workforce access to a patch of land. There is one such area very close to my flat, which you can see on the Google maps image below. At present, most of the plots have small wooden houses on them, which owners are allowed to stay in for a certain number of weeks each year. Gardens are mostly given over to flowers and lawns, but there’s no reason why they couldn’t be quickly turned over into productive spaces and extra accommodation in a crisis.

Food: Denmark could be self sufficient in food. There are only around six million inhabitants living on very productive soils. That’s a lot of space. Of course, a lot would need to change in the way of what is considered as food. At present, a huge amount of pork is produced here, which is obviously something that could be cut. The nation, as a collection of islands, is surrounded by seas which for the time being still have fish in them – (although it was once said that you could dip a bucket into the Baltic here and it would come up full of herrings – these days I’ve never even a live one). People who claim that Denmark is a small country have no idea of how small they themselves are. I once calculated that everyone in the world – all seven billion of us – could stand comfortably on the Danish island of Zealand – which is not particularly large.

Organic food is very popular here, in fact is some ordinary supermarkets it makes up about 50 percent of what is on offer. Danes hate chemicals and have an instinctive fear of poison which many other countries don’t seem to have. Another promising thing is the popularity of Bonderøven (which translates as ‘farm arse’) – a prime time TV show about a man with his family who eschews modern living and has gone back to a pre-industrial way of living off the land.

Transport: Denmark will not have too many problems when it comes to transport. Practically all options exist and it is well known that the country is one big cycle network, constructed in the wake of the oil shocks of the 1970s. Cars are unpopular here (and taxed at 200 percent of value) so the kind of psychological attachment prevalent in the US and, to a lesser extent, Britain is absent. What’s more there is a good train network and boats are likely to make a big comeback as a means of getting around (and Denmark, a maritime nation, still has a great attachment to boat building which goes back all the way to before Viking times).

People: In any country its primary resource is its people. That’s what makes a country an abstract human construct rather than just a chunk of geography. I have both doubts and hopes about the way Danes will react to the long descent. On the one hand nobody seems to have swallowed the whole religion of progress hook line and sinker more so than the Danes – so there will be psychological problems to overcome as well as physical. People criticise the Danes for being aloof and condescending and for seemingly thinking themselves as somehow immune from the world’s ills. Needless to say, this kind of attitude is not very useful when confronting the predicament we all find ourselves faced with. What’s more, high standards of living in Denmark have left many people soft in mind and body and with no real idea of how to fix things if they break down or get by on limited resources.

But … I like to think that Danes might be a bit like large hobbits, with hidden capacities for endurance. The concrete social cohesion makes for a smoothly functioning society and it has often been suggested that Denmark is not a nation but a tribe. People pull together and there is none of the internecine conflict that renders other nations paralysed and unable to act in the face of crisis. Traditionally, Denmark has been an introverted nation, little interested in the wider world – and this attitude served them well. It is my guess that they will return to this attitude, which is the antithesis of the attitude required by globalisation, but hey ho.

One further prediction along these lines concerns religion. Denmark has been notionally Christian since Harald Bluetooth erected the Jelling Stones in around 970. I say notionally because it seems to me that the old gods remain. They still teach children the myths and legends in schools and my daughters have more than one little friend called Thor. What’s more, Christmas isn’t really Christmas here – it is Jul (meaning ‘wheel’ the old pagan festival celebrating the turning of the year at winter solstice) and you’ll never see images of Jesus or anyone like that around this time. Thus, it would not surprise me in the least if social cohesion was strengthened in the coming decades by a return to the old Norse gods. Let’s face it, their mythology is more interesting.

Okay, I could talk about other aspects of Fantasy Collapse, mentioning how Denmark might cope with climate change (let’s not forget how low lying some areas are), military invasions (Russia being a prime contender) and the likelihood of a return to a new Golden Age of the arts – but that will have to wait for another post.

9 Comments on "How will Denmark react to peak oil?"

DC on Sun, 5th Feb 2012 3:01 pm 



A well written and articulate article. I could write a similar one about North America, but I would hard pressed to find much too put in the positive side of the ledger. At least Danaish flats are well built and designed, hardly the case in North Amerika. This is not a function of price. If your ‘flat’ is in the slums, or has a notational value of say, 750,000 US or Canadian for example, it will leak energy just as bad, and be just as poorly built. It wil just be more tastefully furnished and have a better view probably. But thats about it. I have yet to own or visit any condo or apartment that could house its occupants for more than…what? 3 days…a week at most if the fossil-fuel utilites failed for any length of time. And that includes the one im sitting in right now as i type this. Everyone I look in N.A., and all I see now is a vulnerbale and expensive, not to mention toxic way to live. But, thanks to big corporations and gov’t, there is quite literally, no alternatives for 99% of us. And that is a feature of North American liveing, not a bug.

MrEnergyCzar on Sun, 5th Feb 2012 4:24 pm 



Nice article. We in the states are 1,000 times more vulnerable than Denmark. You can’t even compare the two…

MrEnergyCzar

Kenz300 on Sun, 5th Feb 2012 7:47 pm 



Every individual, business and politician needs to develop a plan to deal with higher energy prices and less supplies of energy. As humans we tend not to react until we are forced to. Those that plan now and reduce their energy consumption will save themselves some grief going forward. In a world with a growing population and limited resources something has to give. We need to move to a more sustainable future.

BillT on Mon, 6th Feb 2012 1:52 am 



DC, I was in construction and designed a lot of custom homes in my career. You are correct…$50,000 or $500,000, it doesn’t matter. They are built to the MINIMUM building standards and with the same cheap materials and workmanship. Only the finishes are better in the expensive homes, but they will all fall apart at the same rate…fast. Most homes built in the last 30 years will not last 50 years without major repairs. They will not last that long when they cannot be heated with cheap fuels.

If you want a good home, buy something made in the 19th century out of brick or stone. The best home I owned was a log cabin built in the 1700s. I could be heated with a wood stove and had an artesian spring in the basement that could be tapped for water. The next best was a home I built for myself with extras in all of the areas that mattered like framing, insulation and roofing. It was built to be heated by a fireplace on the first floor if necessary, and since I did the work, it was sealed and was built to the max of the standards that I could afford. It cost $20,000 extra, but was worth it.

Americans are in for a lot of rude awakenings soon.

kervennic on Mon, 6th Feb 2012 2:41 am 



Back to the land… Right, danish farmer are probably going to give away their land. I personnaly tried to buy some in france, fucking expensive ad not sold to people without a viable professional project and the right education.

Does the author really have connection to the countrside ? Plenty of land, right …there is less than one ha per habitant in DK that is less than half ha of cultivated land per person out of which you have to get all from milk to clothes and wood for cooking, building, heating, forging etc. Do a real calculation and you will see how tight this is.

I agree that we will have to go back to land, but better be armed.Farmer will shoot at all these hungry city dwellers trying to settle on their property.
At least in france, hat is what i heard them say.

DC on Mon, 6th Feb 2012 5:38 am 



Thank you for the insight BillT. Ive to come to the opinion that home ownership and its attendant costs are a fraud only exceeded by the amerikan TBTF investment ‘banks’. I do have a question however, do you think 50 years is perhaps being overly generous? I have seen reports from the amerikan state of california where abandoned NEW homes in still semi-populated projected looked gawd awful. And that was only after less than a year. Many allready required extensive repairs to just make them livable again, if anyone wanted to that is.

This near-new overpriced place I live in now, I doubt it will last 50 years. And if somehow it did, It would no doubt consume staggering sums of money and energy along the way just to keep from falling in on itself. And it will still look like crap.

To try to get a small idea of how bad things can get, Yahoo or Google,

‘Leaky Condo Crisis’ -Vancouver Lower Mainland. As huge as that was, its still a drop in the bucket compared to the housing bubble scam. I have no sympathy for people that couldnt afford to keep liveing in the clapboard robo-signed homes they were scammed into buying. The leaky condo crisis, depending on you talked too, probably cost the Lower Mainland over a billion dollars(Can.) alone. No one really knows for sure.

BillT on Mon, 6th Feb 2012 12:51 pm 



DC, most American homes would not last 50 years. Some may not last until the last mortgage payment. The materials that go into most tract homes cost the builder maybe $30 per square foot. I built a 2800 sf home myself and the materials cost less than that and were above average in quality and quantity, including HVAC, 400 Amp electric service and copper plumbing.

The best thing anyone who is underwater on their mortgage can do is walk away. Their home will never be worth what they paid for it unless inflation makes dollars like Charmin. Meanwhile, by making payments, they will be bailing out those same bankers that knew their home was not worth what they loaned on it. We all make mistakes, but the system has primed us to believe that homes are an investment when they are only shelter and a money pit.

Kenz300 on Tue, 7th Feb 2012 5:08 pm 



Lots of bicycles in the picture. Denmark uses bicycles for a significant part of their transportation needs. In the US the Republicans in Congress want to reduce funding for bicycle lanes and mass transit. The oil lobby and the Republican members in Congress seem to block any alternatives to the automobile.

Timson on Sat, 11th Feb 2012 5:39 am 



Nice farm. I won’t show the picture to my wife :-). We’ve been looking for something like this in Belgium for ages, but if you don’t have a million euros in the bank you can forget it…