Energy-pioneering Austrian town exports its model

A town of 4,300 inhabitants near the Hungarian border, Guessing launched into renewable energy in the early 1990s and now produces more than it can consume. The latest project, opened last week, is a one-megawatt plant capable of producing gas from wood chips. Located in a region of crop fields and forests, Guessing used its assets -- biomass and sunshine -- to pull itself out of its economic stagnation. Since 1996, this project has been coordinated by the European Centre for Renewable Energy (EEE) and co-financed by the European Union. After discarding wind power for lack of breezes, researchers developed a number of techniques to produce heat, electricity and agrofuel using maize, rapeseed, agricultural waste, wood or sunshine. -- The town now produces more energy than it can use --