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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?
It will only be free of oil in 2020. Other renewable energy sources will first be fased out later. Which also makes more sense considering Swedens large dependancy of Nuclear Energy.
(Stupid subject length restriction)
Why are they still building houses with oil heating?
Similarly why build power stations that burn oil or gas?
They seem horribly short sighted developments to me.
Sweden should be applauded for trying to dump fossil fuels, but it will be a lot to ask for in only 14 years. However if it means the development of alternatives (where there's a market there's a will) then by the time the rest of the world starts realising they need to do it as well the technology should be a lot cheaper.
Britain is looking at generating 20% of its power needs from tidal/wave power, however I think the more sensible nuclear power station route will be taken eventually.
Iceland said the same, but aimed for 2050.
-- Ne me laissez pas tellement triste: écrivez-moi vite qu'il est revenu...
Shouldn't this be in 'Politics', not "Hardware'?
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"?
So, in 14 years, every car currently on the road in Sweden will be obsolete? Illegal? Will they be making outlaws of classic car collectors? The Swedish automobile industry must be much larger and more advanced than I had ever dreamed, to pull this off. They're going to have to develop affordable new cars with a completely different architecture, since used cars won't be usable. Is the government going to reimburse people whose vehicles are unusable and unsellable? And can every single driver in the country afford a brand new car? A brand new domestically made car, even?
Somehow I don't think they thought this through.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
Their words are back with nucle.... renewable energy weapons!
May the Maths Be with you!
To quote my grandmother, don't believe everything you read in newspapers. And to that I would like to add: don't believe everything you hear from politicians. Of course, I agree that we can't continue our dependency on oil and it's nice when people have visions. But will it happen by 2020? Sadly, I don't think so. (Bias: I'm a Swede.)
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!
No, they won't make petrol-based cars illegal. They simply move to close all gas stations or convert them to stations that supply other sources of sustainable energy.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
...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.
Get free of all the other items made using fossil fuels as well. Otherwise what are you really doing? There are many items made with fossil fuels that could be made with alternatives, provided someone would want to pay for it.
This whole idea sounds more like a "feel good" program. All those "tax benefits" to encourage the switch look good but are only to bait the hook but as with any tax used to change behaviour it will not generate the income necessary long term and new sources will be needed. Look at the "congestion tax" - do they expect vehicle use to drop so much as the original reason behind the tax is no longer applicable?
Oh well, best of luck. I think the time table is ludicrous but if they can pull it off then maybe the rest of the world can learn. If not at least one country will be slightly better off.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
These are the same people who are shutting down perfectly good and safe nuclear reactors in favor of importing electric power from dirty Danish and Polish coal plants and (oh the irony) old Soviet graphite reactors in the Baltics. Oh, and did I mention that this has led to the country not having enough power to support peak demand during winter (politicians seem to be unable to grasp the difference between electric power and energy)? The only good thing in the whole mess is that their previous pipe dream goal ("nuclear free Sweden by 2010") has no chance of being met...
They are also the same people who have set the goal of "0 traffic deaths" - and honestly believe that they'll reach it.
There's truly nothing to see here. Move along.
http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=572&a=468 440&previousRenderType=6Original article in Swedish, from the swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.l article translated, on Goverment offices of Swedens official site.
http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/3212/a/51058Origina
Now take it with a grain of salt. The article was written for the political debate section of a newspaper, during an election year.
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
Ok, so I guess Volvo and Saab will be the first car manufacturers to go completely fossil free too then, huh?
Almost everything is nuclear and water. They make up more than 85% of total electricity output. The rest is a mixture of oil, gas, wind and others.
Loads of information over at http://www.svenskenergi.se/ but unfortunately only in Swedish.
... 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
Ok Guys. There are elections in Sweden this autumn. The government have no idea how to get rid of oil. NO IDEA. The following three decisions are made:
1. Dont invest in more hydro plants
2. Get rid of nuclear power
3. Dont increase CO2-emissions
On top of this the government now says that Sweden will be independent of oil in 2020. They say so because there are elections this year, and the government is afraid of the communist party and the green party!
It's not going to be as bad as you think. The Free Market is an amazing thing. Gasoline prices are on the rise, and eventually, OilPeek or not, we are going to see $3/gal again. At $3/gal the economics of fuel start to change.
A car that gets 28 mpg on $3/gal gas costs 10.7 cents per mile, or $1286 per year in fuel (assuming 12k miles).
An electric car that gets 6 m/KWh on $0.10/KWh costs 1.7 cents per mile, or $200 per year in fuel costs. The $1086 saved per year would be $3,000-$5,000 over the life of the batteries (currently averaging 3-5 years). Battery pack prices vary (elcheapo's can be built for ~$1000, high end li packs can go for $10,000 but have much longer life spans) So the money saved would go right back into the car.
And they break even. At $3/gal (Currently $2.45 here) and $0.10/KWh (Currently 8.5 cents here). The electric system will likely have lower maintainence costs as well, but it's harder to measure that at this point with the limited market segment and history.
Katrina was a good thing in that respect, it created a huge boom in alt energy companies and funding in the US.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Since treehugger.com was too greedy to publish the link, here is the original announcement http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/3212/a/51058 from Mona Sahlin, Minister for Sustainable Development.
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.
I, for one, welcome our tall blonde petroleum free overladies! (There's always water-based.)
So they're going to stop using plastics, and tires? No more asphalt on their roads? What is their entire merchant shipping and fishing fleet going to run on? Will KLM be flying solar powered airliners?
I think it is quite an exxageration to say that they will be free of fossil fuels by 2020. Perhaps by 2120.
TFA only mentions cars and homes, but I don't see hundreds of thousands of homes retrofitted to some other heating system within 14 years.
Proverbs 21:19
Volvo is one of the few companies that manufacture passenger cars that run on diesel. To my knowledge all the others are also N.Euporean. Mr. Diesel, as you may recall, originally fueled his prototypes on peanut oil - Or so I've always been led to believe. Motor fuel is probably the easiest of the energy uses to replace with renewable resources...
You gotta start out by looking at transportation, how much of do we really need? Most of our trips are pretty pointless, flying marketeers out to prospective customers so that they can feel like the vendor values their business. Hauling our overweight asses to the grocery store to get more Snickers bars. Dragging ourselves to the office so that we can punch the clock when all the really good ideas come to us in the shower anyway.
When I was a youngster very few families had two cars, at least not where one or more weren't up on blocks. It was common to see middle aged men in suits on city busses, and those city busses were run at a profit by private entities. Now even teenagers have to have cars to park at the neighborhood school all day (felines). And the local busses are subsidized in an attempt to the keep the riffraff off of the road and so that the domestics can get to work.
Internet technologies will certainly help to reduce our dependance on frivolous travel, or it should anyway - But I suspect that even as we speak some geek is traveling to the regional director's private residence to clear the cookies or update the virus signature file.
Yeah, I think I might like it in Sweden. Do they eat lefsa there or is that just next door?
"For the duration of the Cold War it was American might parked all across Western Europe.."
For your information. There never have been and never will be any
armed-and-ready American soldier on Swedish soil. Sweden and Finland
were the only probable alternatives for Soviet to invade Europe
(they wouldn't be fools enough to cross the Iron Gate..). Sweden
and Finland took care of ourselves during this time. OK, Finland
is in NATO but Sweden is not. We have our own weapons industry,
our own air defence and air force-industry and the rest. In the
event of a war we would be pretty self-supportive. Why did we
survive during WW2 with more or less no imports?..
During the 1980's when the Swedish Armed Forces peaked we could
draft one million men and women - out of a population of eight..
How many countries do you know of can draft 12.5% of their entire
population into combat within a few days? In a huge country as
Sweden is?..
It's different now, yes. No more Cold War and terrorism is our
common enemy.
Anyway.. Just had to say that because you had troops in Germany
and UK didn't mean you protected entire Europe..
I was shocked by the number of beggars in the "rischest country in the world", as have been many of my compatriots who have also lived in the US. I found the common attitude that being poor or under-priviledged is your own fault to be extremely disturbing. There seems to be an attitude of "anyone can climb beyond his origins in the USA" which doesnt seem to be based on reality. It certainly seemed that if you were born or lived in the wrong suburb, were of the wrong ethnic background, had poor parents or a similar dis-advantage, then only the exceptional managed to avoid being trapped in poverty for life.
Quality of education in the US is based on the wealth of your suburb. Without the efforts of philanthropists there is simply no way that any but a lucky or extra determined few will gain the education needed to avail themselves of the "opportunities" your society offers.
Quality of health care is another thing I was amazed by. It is a principle of this country, that if the population has good, affordable health services then the loses due to sickness will be minimised, and as a result productivity and standard of living will rise. In the USA, even much of the rather expensive health plans seem to be focused on providing health care only in the most extreme caes of need. And the price of medications is shocking.
Having lived in "pinko socialist" country, and having lived in the "land of the free", I'll choose my higher taxes in order to ensure my children's future, rather tand take a huge bet on a risky gamble like you Americans have to do.