You can’t fault the Swedish Energy Agency for ambition: Last year, it decided to increase its target for renewable energy, aiming to produce an additional 18.4 terawatt hours per year by 2030. That’s a huge amount—it would be enough to provide all the power needs for the U.K.’s 66 million citizens for just under three days. [...]
Behind this unexpectedly rapid success lies a huge push for a more sustainable energy sector. Sweden already has a cross-party agreement to have all its energy needs met from renewable sources by 2040. To date, renewables’ share of energy consumption in Sweden has risen to as much as 57 percent of the total—in 2015, a year when strong winds and heavy rain made wind and hydroelectric power plants especially productive.
By the end of this year, the country of 10 million should have 3,681 wind turbines producing power. So swift has been the proliferation of Swedish wind farms that the government is facing kickback on their site selection, both for the usual aesthetic reasons but also because they now threaten to encroach on airspace used by the military. Indeed, the expansion push has proved so effective that there are now fears that it might even risk shooting the renewable energy market in the foot. [...]
Sweden still relied on cheap imported oil during most of the 20th century, making the shock of the 1973-4 oil crisis especially sharp. The impact of the crisis on the region isn’t always understood by people whose countries were partly shielded from it by their own oil and gas production. In neighboring and equally stricken Denmark, for example, it led to the wholesale replacement of domestic bathtubs with showers, and tubs are now a rarity in that country’s homes. Faced with spiraling energy prices and a desperate need to make energy savings, Sweden hunted round for locally-produced alternatives to oil.
No comments:
Post a Comment