Sweden plans to be world's first oil-free economy...

chubbygristle · Post by **chubbygristle** » 10 Feb 2006, 11:06

http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,,1704954,00.html

"? 15-year limit set for switch to renewable energy
? Biofuels favoured over further nuclear power "

hmmm....

I have no idea how self-sufficient Sweden is in food and if it has the same kind of crazy centralised distribution systems like here (I guess it no where near as mad as us) or if it is localised and organic / bio intensive, but there is yet again, no mention of reliance on oil for food production here. Seems to be far from the minds of a lot of the writers of such articles when they talk about becoming 'oil-free'

Excuse my ignorance of Sweden

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 10 Feb 2006, 11:39

I'm a peaknik living in Sweden, and I have followed the "oil independence commission" as close as I can, and have a couple of comments:

Kjell Aleklett has managed to get the message trough to the PM - G?ran Persson and he appointed a commission, but that's it. The guys in the "commission" have their heads so deep up their a**es that they will need sonar to find them.

Sweden is a country with 9 million people and a hell of a lot of trees. Most of the fellows in the commission cant make simple calculations, and those who can think that we can make most of the fuel we need from our forrests. What they tend to forget is that Sweden dont exist in isolation, and that anything of value produced from the forrests is tradable internationally.

My dear! They apply the same thinking as in the 1700's when some king wanted Sweden to be "self sufficient". It failed then, but was the basis for some of the early work by Carl von Linne who travelled around the contry making inventories of useful resources.

I used to think that at least it was a Good Thing to have a debate on fossile energy started, even if the commission appears as a bunch of heavy drinkers, but the irony is that British media have a better coverage of this than Swedish media!

The largest morning paper, DN, actively refuse to publish anything of or about Kjell Aleklett. They briefly allowed a professor Christian Azar to critisise ASPO (under "culture"), but would not allow a reply from Kjell!

Pretty thick layers of denial.

skeptik · Post by **skeptik** » 10 Feb 2006, 14:39

MacG wrote: Sweden is a country with 9 million people and a hell of a lot of trees. .

Make that a hell of a hell of a lot of trees. And mountains and lakes.

For a mental comparison Sweden is slightly bigger in land area than California. but the population is only 9 million, as opposed to the UKs 60 million - most of who are crammed into England.

Swedens hydro power potential is enormous. I'm guessing thats going to be a growth industry for Sweden in future. Building dams and selling electricity (or Hydrogen) to the rest of Europe.

Agriculture is mainly cows and pigs, grains, fruit, veg - whatever you can grow in a short summer, and mainly in the South. The Southern tip of Sweden is up somewhere North of Newcastle and he Northern tip way into the Arctic.... Pretty basic family farming. They wont be growing sub-tropical exotics out in the open like my friends on the South Cornwall coast can. As in the UK a lot of the more interesting food is imported.

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 10 Feb 2006, 14:54

skeptik wrote:Swedens hydro power potential is enormous. I'm guessing thats going to be a growth industry for Sweden in future. Building dams and selling electricity (or Hydrogen) to the rest of Europe.

Nops. All major rivers were fully "developed" already in the 1960's.

skeptik · Post by **skeptik** » 10 Feb 2006, 15:12

MacG wrote:
skeptik wrote:Swedens hydro power potential is enormous. I'm guessing thats going to be a growth industry for Sweden in future. Building dams and selling electricity (or Hydrogen) to the rest of Europe.
Nops. All major rivers were fully "developed" already in the 1960's.

I stand corrected.

Just goes to show that you cant figure out everything thats going on down on the ground by looking at a map!

On delving into the subject it seems a decision was made in '69 to cease hydropower development on environmental grounds.

There is a large undeveloped potential - there are four major rivers in Northern Sweden with *no* hydropower on them at all - Torne, Kalix, Vindeln and Pite - and oportunity for further developments on rivers where powerstations already exist - but thats the way its going to stay, apparently.

Current annual Hydropower production is 65 TWh, undeveloped hydropower production estimated in excess of 35 TWh source

even if the commission appears as a bunch of heavy drinkers

Isnt that everybody in Scandanavia? The only way to fend of the boredom of a country composed almost entirely of christmas trees is booze and sex - hence the Swedish character...or so Im told

Probably also explains why the Vikings prefered to be berserking anywhere else in Europe rather than sitting at home knitting their own underpants and looking after a cow. Mad with boredom, they were

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 10 Feb 2006, 15:30

skeptik wrote:There is a large undeveloped potential - there are four major rivers in Northern Sweden with *no* hydropower on them at all - Torne, Kalix, Vindeln and Pite - and oportunity for further developments on rivers where powerstations already exist - but thats the way its going to stay.

Well, in the case of Torne, the geography stinks. Like putting hydropower in the Thames. Dont know about the others, but this thing about "environment" is ususally not allowed to influence desicions until the profit margins have disappeared. Look at our national parks up there, Sarek, Padjelanta and those -I've been hiking up there- it's the most unproductive land imaginable and not even the native Lapps had much use for it. Summer grazing for the reindeer only.

DamianB · Post by **DamianB** » 11 Feb 2006, 01:34

This news item is a real pain to board moderators - is this the second or third time in the past three months that they've PR'd it or someone picks up and old story.

We have three threads already going.....
Sweden to end dependency on fossil fuels by 2020
Sweden "to break oil dependency by 2020"
look at Sweden!!!

.... all of which I've now locked

Please look out for any further new occurances

and let me know. TIA

RookieJr · Post by **RookieJr** » 12 Feb 2006, 10:31

The last thing Sweden should be doing is assuming trees are an alternative fuel supply. Yes trees are renewable, over time, but 9 million people dependant on trees = no trees left and we all know how vital trees are to the ecosystem.

Post by **mikepepler** » 12 Feb 2006, 20:11

Loss of forests is a theme running right through the book "Collapse".... I'm sure there must be a lesson there.....

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 12 Feb 2006, 20:42

mikepepler wrote:Loss of forests is a theme running right through the book "Collapse".... I'm sure there must be a lesson there.....

Every bloody person in Europe will come here to cut down trees! The last words heard will be "Burn Everything!".

Like those old western movies where a train is chased by bandits/indians and they burn the carts to try to get away.

Billhook · Post by **Billhook** » 12 Feb 2006, 22:30

I've a lot of time for Sweden's aspiration to sustainable forestry - for all there have been past mistakes.

Thus if there is one culture in Europe I'd choose to set the standards for forest energy it is Sweden.

Forest energy is patently a key component of the global powerdown -
knocking it on grounds that it might be done wrong - rather than advancing the requirements for sustainability-
is classic environmentalist/isolationist myopia -

and must be music to the ears of the N & HC Fossil energy industries.

regards,

Bill

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 13 Feb 2006, 07:38

RookieJr wrote:The last thing Sweden should be doing is assuming trees are an alternative fuel supply. Yes trees are renewable, over time, but 9 million people dependant on trees = no trees left and we all know how vital trees are to the ecosystem.

There are lots of numbers aailable from http://www.forestindustries.se/facts.asp

It seems that Sweden's amount of standing timber is steadily increasing and is projected to cotinue increasing. Despite the best efforts of those of us who use paper (which is the biggest use of the timber) the Swedes are growing trees faster than we can use them.

Now if Tesco were to use paper bags instead of plastic... See

from VitalTrivia

AllanH · Post by **AllanH** » 13 Feb 2006, 12:40

MacG wrote:skeptik wrote:
Swedens hydro power potential is enormous. I'm guessing thats going to be a growth industry for Sweden in future. Building dams and selling electricity (or Hydrogen) to the rest of Europe.

Nops. All major rivers were fully "developed" already in the 1960's.

Don't forget about non-river hydropower (eg Pelamis system from Ocean Power Delivery or the systems by Marine Current Turbines), these are still being developed but I'd imagine Sweden could make good use of them.

Certainly it'd be better than trying to rely solely on forestry (if they try though we might experience a global shortage of matches - most of those come from Sweden if I remember).

AllanH

Billhook · Post by **Billhook** » 13 Feb 2006, 16:04

Allen -

I well agree over the potential, and major relevance, of Sweden investing in Offshore Wave & Current Powers -
They have both exceptional marine resources locally and the engineering & shipbuilding expertise to accelerate global R&D in this area.

Forest Energy can't be seen as the sole solution by any sane society that has other choices - diversity of supply is plainly a critical component of energy security -
but it can be seen as being a predictably necessary, if not sufficient, component of the mix wherever trees will grow,
since, given the ease of storing the fuel-wood feedstock, it can readily supply heat, gas, liquid fuels & power on demand.

In this Forest Energy has very few companions from among the huge range of sustainable energy technologies.

regards,

Bill