Saturday February 11, 2006

Sweden aims for oil-free economy

news.bbc.co.uk, peakoil.com (thread) -> guardian.co.uk :

Sweden is to take the biggest energy step of any advanced western economy by trying to wean itself off oil completely within 15 years - without building a new generation of nuclear power stations. The intention is to replace all fossil fuels with renewables before climate change destroys economies and growing oil scarcity leads to huge price rises. "Our dependency on oil should be broken by 2020," said Mona Sahlin, minister of sustainable development.

According to the energy committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, there is growing concern that global oil supplies are peaking and will shortly dwindle, and that a global economic recession could result from high oil prices. Sweden now gets almost all its electricity from nuclear and hydroelectric power, and relies on fossil fuels mainly for transport.

Energy ministry officials in Sweden said they expected the oil committee to recommend further development of biofuels derived from its massive forests, and by expanding other renewable energies such as wind and wave power. Sweden has a head start over most countries. In 2003, 26% of all the energy consumed came from renewable sources - the EU average is 6%. Only 32% of the energy came from oil - down from 77% in 1970.

The decision to abandon oil puts Sweden at the top of the world green league table. Iceland hopes by 2050 to power all its cars and boats with hydrogen made from electricity drawn from renewable resources, and Brazil intends to power 80% of its transport fleet with ethanol derived from sugar cane within five years. Last week George Bush surprised analysts by saying that the US was addicted to oil and should greatly reduce imports from the Middle East. The US now plans a large increase in nuclear power. The British government last month launched an energy review to consider a large increase in nuclear power.

See also :

1. Bush : 'America Addicted to Oil'
2. Addiction to oil isn't limited to U.S.
3. France will run trains free from fossil fuel

(2006-02-11 00:24:11 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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