[9급 국가직 영어 2014년 12번]

It's amazing what a little free beer can accomplish. Samso, then known for its dairy and pig farms, would become Denmark's showcase for sustainable power, eventually going carbon-free. How that would happen, however, was far from clear, since the government initially offered no funding, tax breaks or technical expertise.

(A) So Hermansen showed up at every community or club meeting to give his pitch for going green. He pointed to the blustery island's untapped potential for wind power and the economic benefits of making Samso energy-independent. And he sometimes brought free beer.

(B) It worked. The islanders exchanged their oil-burning furnaces for centralized plants that burned leftover straw or wood chips to produce heat and hot water. They bought shares in new wind turbines, which generated the capital to build 11 large land-based turbines, enough to meet the entire island's electricity needs. Today Samso isn't just carbon-neutral—it actually produces 10 % more clean electricity than it uses, with the extra power fed back into the grid at a profit.

(C) Given that almost all its power came from oil or coal—and the island's 4,300 residents didn't know a wind turbine from a grain silo—Samso seemed an odd choice. Soren Hermansen, though, saw an opportunity. The appeal was immediate, and when a renewable-energy project finally secured some funding, he volunteered to be the first—and only—staffer.