Greece Is Getting Rewired for the Future
The New York Times
As climate change bears down, Greece is upending its sources of energy and trying to reshape its economic destiny.
NAXOS, Greece — On the windswept western tip of one of Greece’s largest islands, an unassuming stone building above the Aegean Sea has become an unlikely outpost in this country’s fight against climate change.
Camouflaged inside is a new power station linked to an 180-mile undersea electricity cable that ties Naxos to a chain of other breezy vacation playgrounds, allowing the islands to ditch their oil-burning generators for renewable power from Greece’s abundant wind and sun.
Nearby islands have become zero-carbon laboratories for companies like Volkswagen to fan out electric cars and wire communities for clean energy. Changes are underway on the mainland too, where dirty lignite coal mines that powered Greece for decades are being fast-tracked for closure.
