Sweden to go oil-free

8.00.00am GMT Sat 11th Feb 2006

Sweden to go oil-free

Sweden has announced that it plans to be oil-free within 15 years - without building a new generation of nuclear power stations. If Sweden achieve this it could lead to a whole change in how the world operates - with massive investment in alternative energies and less reliance on the oil-producing nations. Incidentally a very good friend on mine has just set up a work-blog on renewables versus nuclear power I have linked to it below - please visit and have your say.

The Swedish Government said the aim "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,"

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. A 1980 referendum decided that nuclear power should be phased out, but this has still not been finalised.

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 mainly from sugar cane within five years.

Related Link:

Visit Paul Whitehead's blog on renewables verses nuclear power