Super Eco

Photo credit: rottweiler, stock.xchng

A sense of urgency does wonders for greener energy plans. The Maldives, a tiny country located off the coast of India, is staring down the barrel of global warming that threatens to submerge this string of 1,200 atolls. With 80 percent of his homeland rising a mere one meter above sea level, President Mohamed Nasheed has been thinking about the future for some time now. Just last year, he went so far as to announce that he was in the market to purchase a new homeland for his country's residents.

But the little nation isn't merely holding its collective breath, waiting for the inevitable. The president has now announced a radical new energy plan that will make his country carbon neutral within the space of a decade. The plans eliminates the use of fossil fuels on the islands, relying instead on a network including "a new renewable electricity generation and transmission infrastructure with 155 large wind turbines, half a square kilometre of rooftop solar panels, and a biomass plant burning coconut husks." Battery backups banks kick in when the wind and sun are not being cooperative. Vehicles would be required to have electric motors.

Nay-sayers undoubtedly got a good smirk at the plan's costs, estimated at about £110M per year for the next ten years. In the end, however, the measures should pay for themselves, because the Maldives will no longer need to import petroleum products. "Climate change is a global emergency," said Nasheed. "The world is in danger of going into cardiac arrest, yet we behave as if we've caught a common cold. Today, the Maldives has announced plans to become the world's most eco-friendly country. I can only hope other nations follow suit."