Meanderings from Malmo, Sweden - Chapter 2

The trains run on time and the buses run on biogass....

This is increasingly a sustainable transport city with cyclists and pedestrians filling in the gaps that trains and buses leave. And where cars are used it seems that many have been converted or have been built for ethanol or biogass fuel systems.  Sweden has no oil reserves and has set itself the enviable task or finding other sources of energy for electricity and transport fuels. It is amazing but understandable what we can do if we really have to but also what dependency plays in our capacity to change.

Facts about Sweden: The Swedish Energy Agency is an agency for national energy policy issues with a mission to promote the development of Sweden’s energy system so that it will become ‘ecologically and economically sustainable’. The Agency provides subsidies to the municipal energy and climate advisory service that can be found in every municipality and supports the regional energy offices’ work.

Energy from wind power in Sweden increased at a record pace during 2010 with 308 new wind power turbines being installed. This makes a total of 1655 turbines. Wind power accounts for approximately 2.4 per cent of the electricity use in Sweden with a large amount of the electricity generated from wind power being produced in the region of Skåne, in the south of Sweden.

 

Biomass accounts for 32% of Sweden’s energy mix and surpassed oil to become the number one source of energy. Sweden has come the furthest on the road towards fossil fuel independence of any country. 

In 2010 the Swedish Government approved a plan to have renewable energy reach 50% of the total energy consumed by the year 2020. In addition, the country aims to be totally independent of imported fossil fuels for the transportation sector by 2030.