Thursday 8 March 2012

Schwarzenegger announces the creation of a virtual world of overpriced energy

The former Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday announced in Geneva the creation of Sustainia, "a virtual world featuring sustainable solutions", with himself, the two other superwarmists Connie Hedegaard and R.K. Pachauri, and eternal UN sustainability queen Gro Harlem Brundtland in the driving seat:

Sustainia will be a model of the world showing what it could be like if currently available technologies and concepts to reduce emissions were put in place in cities, homes, energy stations and transportation systems. Sustainia is built on the technology behind the virtual world Second Life.

Anders Eldrup, CEO of the Danish DONG Energy, "a main partner in Sustainia" explained the thinking behind Sustainia (which is a Danish idea):

The idea behind the world, Eldrup said, is "to illustrate for ordinary people, consumers and companies how a more sustainable society could look."
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"It is possible to make significant changes over a rather short period of time," Eldrup said. "We want to broaden that to make other companies, cities and people take part in this change."
Developers are already working on Sustainia, and the world is set to launch between June and October. Once it's up, anyone will be able to visit it, inhabit it and participate in it as a sort of virtual construction site. Eventually the world is to host lectures, presentations, workshops and tours.


As the CEO of the the largest power producer in Denmark, with market shares of 49% for electricity production and 35% for heat production, Elderup was, without doubt, the right person to speak about what it means when "currently available technologies and concepts to reduce emissions" are "put in place in cities, homes, energy stations and transportation systems".


Elderup´s own Dong and the other Danish energy companies charge the highest household electricity prices in the world - about four times as expensive as e.g. Ontario (9.23 US cents/kWh) and five time as expensive as Washington (7.66 US cents/kWh) - because of energy taxes and subsidies to wind energy.


Thus, there is no real need to create a virtual "Sustainia", because a real version of it already exists -  in Denmark. However, a change of name might be useful; why not call it e.g. Expensivia, or perhaps even more fittingly, Stupidia.

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