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Sweden To Be Oil-Free By 2020
Philoneist.com writes "Treehugger is reporting that the 'Minister for Sustainable Development Mona Sahlin has declared that Sweden is going to become the first country in the world to break the dependence on fossil energy.'" Sweden's hope is to have all of the country's energy supplied by only renewable resources, ridding the country of cars that run on gasoline and oil-heated homes.
... how tough is the immigration process?
The whole world will be oil free by 2020, because oil will be too expensive to use as a fuel. Do not forget, the peak is near.
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
I thought Iceland was going to "be the first"?
Heck, they already managed to change from driving on the left to driving on the right--that's more than most countries could pull off!
...but it's easy for a country covered in trees with a population of 27 people to eliminate it's dependency on fossil fuels - you just burn trees instead (or use a couple of wind turbines). The situation is quite a bit different in more densily populated countries like the UK (383 people / sq Km, Sweeded is 20 people / sq Km) or places like the US where the bulk of the population is very much concentrated in one or two general areas. In the case of the UK I doubt we have the land mass to derive all our power from renewable sources _and_ produce enough food to feed ourselves. In the case of the US I'm sure they have the space but it's a long way from where the power is needed and therefore transmission losses are going to be huge.
Sorry to any Swedish reading this I know you have more than 27 people but you have got to admit you have a lot of space per person.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
So it is a great way to combine this with other renewable energy sources like wind/sun/water ( they produce electricity). Imagine a hybrid car with bio-diesel engines and electricity engines. Could be a smooth transition into the post peak-oil age. I just have to wonder where in Sweden you could grow so much plants (colza), but maybe this could also be a chance for other countries to produce and export it.
Unfortunately the German government decided to raise a tax for plant oil in the near future, so the times when you could go to the local plant oil supplier to get your diesel car rolling for about half the price of regular diesel are almost gone. More and more people do this, so it is a welcome additional source for the government to get money. It will get about 20% (not sure) more expensive, but it will still be cheaper than diesel. Sad times for the local farmers though, was a good way to to regain independence, but there is big business again.
Regards,
Dakna
The goal of 0 deaths in traffic ("nollvisionen") is not really as stupid as you make it look. The actual goal is just that 0 people are going to die in traffic as a result of poor road construction, poor driving education, poor maintenance of the road (such as leaving them icy and snowy), etc. This figure does not include peple who crash due to driving drunk or due to recklessness, it is strictly related to things that the government is responsible for.
As for the 2010 abolition of nuclear power. There was a referendum held on the issue of if and when nuclear power should be abolished. The majority voted for abolishing it by 2010, but in Swedish law referendums does not have any real power, they are merely suggestions to the politicians on how to act and this far that line has not hade majority, at least not when it has came to actually start with concrete actions to dullfill this goal.
Ok, so I guess Volvo and Saab will be the first car manufacturers to go completely fossil free too then, huh?
... which is why the Swedes, the Germans, the Chinese, the Americans and everyone else have to get over their reluctance to embrace nuclear power. As oil gets more scarce, it will get more expensive. After our fourth or fifth hideously expensive war to secure, yet again, access to "our" oil, the politicians will finally run a cost-benefit analysis. The oil will be so expensive that it's just better to let Venezuela, Saudi Arabia or some other OPEC country go to hell and redirect our time and effort into energy independence. Not short-term BS like ANWR or LNG, but the only viable long-term energy option, nuclear fission.
"But what about all the waste?", cry the environmentalists, "don't despoil Yucca Mountain with those mountains of radioactive waste!" Sooner or later, somebody is going to wake up to the fact that breeder reactors that use fuel recycing produce less than 3% of that high level waste that would go into Yucca. When the volumes are that low, you can just glassify it, sink the glass pieces in an ingot of lead and encase the ingots in 5-ton concrete casks and put them in neat rows in a parking lot somewhere. Put up a razor wire fence and that's that. No chance of anyone stealing it for dirty bombs because the casks are so damned heavy ("physical security"), even if the concrete cracks in 30 years the glass won't go anywhere, and the local town will welcome the jobs for Buford and Billy Joe to walk around the fence thirty times a night at $17.50/hr.
Don't want a permanent radioactive waste dump on the outskirts of your town? Call it a "Temporary Cask Transit Facility" and shuffle the casks around every now and again to make it look like they aren't there permanently. "Renew the lease" on the land every 10 years to give you an opportunity to re-bribe the new set of elected officials in town, and make sure you paint the casks every year as part of "safety inspections" to keep them looking neat and safe... that will give jobs to Jim Bob and Cyrus, too.
In the end, you can spend $10,000,000 a year on each of 100 different "Temporary Cask Transit Facilities" for 100 years and still end up cheaper than Yucca Mountain, while offering 1000x the storage capacity.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
BUT I do not want to tell americans that they are wrong. They can run their country the way they want to. In such a way I am not taking sides. I do think the swedish system makes a better system for ME, americans would in general feel different.
Perhaps if you got of your high moral horse for a while you would be able to accept that different people prefer different societies.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Their goal of reducing traffic deaths has lead to tremendous innovation in the field of automotive safety. Safety glass, the three-point seatbelt, and side-impact airbags were all invented by Swedes. In addition, safety features are routinely standardized across all of their models decades before US automakers even introduce them.
Given that much of their success in the automotive safety field is driven by the zero traffic-death goal, why wouldn't a similar goal for energy usage spurn innovation in that field?