Sweden Plans to Be World's First Oil-Free Economy

Sweden Plans to Be World's First Oil-Free Economy: "Sweden Plans to Be World's First Oil-Free Economy
15-year limit set for switch to renewable energy
Biofuels favoured over further nuclear power
by John Vidal


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.

Sweden...gets almost all its electricity from nuclear and hydroelectric power, and relies on fossil fuels mainly for transport. Almost all its heating has been converted in the past decade to schemes which distribute steam or hot water generated by geothermal energy or waste heat.

The attempt by the country of 9 million people to become the world's first practically oil-free economy is being planned by a committee of industrialists, academics, farmers, car makers, civil servants and others, who will report to parliament in several months.

The intention, the Swedish government said yesterday, is to replace all fossil fuels with renewables before climate change destroys economies and growing oil scarcity leads to huge new price rises.

'Our dependency on oil should be broken by 2020,' said Mona Sahlin, minister of sustainable development. 'There shall always be better alternatives to oil, which means no house should need oil for heating, and no driver should need to turn solely to gasoline.'

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.

Ms Sahlin has described oil dependency as one of the greatest problems facing the world. 'A Sweden free of fossil fuels would give us enormous advantages, not least by reducing the impact from fluctuations in oil prices,' she said. 'The price of oil has tripled since 1996.'

A government official said: 'We want to be both mentally and technically prepared for a world without oil. The plan is a response to global climate change, rising petroleum prices and warnings by some experts that the world may soon be running out of oil.'"