We drove up to Lemvig, a small village on one of the inland seas in Nørre Jylland or Northern Jutland. It was until recently a fishing town, but the old wooden boats have been replaced by steel hulled vessels that sail from larger ports. Tourism is slowly developing, but the summer season here is very short, just six weeks, from the first of July til the middle of August. Many of the tourists are Germans, but most are Danes.
The economy is now based on small and a few large industries. Vestes, a manufacturer of wind turbines, has had a major presence here, but recently they have had large layoffs. They are moving their plants overseas...to places like Colorado where they have opened two large facilities and hired hundreds. Outsourcing of jobs can clearly go both ways.
We sailed one morning past huge some of their huge wind turbines. Wind turbines are distributed throughout the country, not on huge "farms," as we create in the States, but often in groups of two or three. They currently get about 20% of their power from the wind and they have a "distributed generation" system...many small units creating power close to where it is consumed. These units receive government subsidies and incentives, but provide a means by which the country achieves a high level of energy independence.
