Sweden aims for oil-free economy within 15 years

[Saras]

Originally posted by DaShi
How would every home, school, and office generate its own power, let alone be able to afford the process?

If every village can have its own blast furnace, so can every house have its own CHP plant

[Az]

Seriously though, there is fuel cell generation using natural gas, hydrogen, and other related substances in a way that the only exhaust produced are C02 and water. This can be more efficient than "centralised" power plants since the power plants are located far from the central city. The gas still needs to come from somewhere though.

The biggest worry in the use of fossil fuels is the CO2 emissions. All the rest of them are local pollution issues that can easily be treated with enough filtration.

[Ted Striker]

Good on Sweden

It can totally be done, and is much easier than people think.

The original diesel engine was and is designed to run on vegetable and nut oils, not this petro crap

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Japher
I think they're nuts. I doubt they will succeed, but I admire their willingness to try.

Hmmm... ethanol fuel + hydro power + wind power. It's really feasible.

[Fake Boris]

You're getting it plain wrong Oerdin.

Originally posted by Oerdin
The fool's dream that fossil fuel power plants can all be replaced with solar or wind power. They're good for a boost during peak power usage times (and so are useful) but they aren't reliable enough to replace base power production. It is telling that 50 years since after solar was invented and 50 years worth of massive subsidies it still only produces a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of an exajoule world wide. Total world demand last year was around 440 exajoules of electricity while all reknewables combined (including such spuriusly designated "reknewables" like burning garbage) account for less then 0.5 exajoules world wide. Most of that 0.5 is produced by hydro or the burning of garbage (which is extremely polluting and bad for the environment).

Contrary to popular belief wind is extremely reliable. The standard deviation from year to year is 15%. That makes it one of the more reliable source of energy, compared to hydro power (standard deviation 30%) or fossil fuels (variable prices and possible supply problems in case of a geopolitical turmoil).

Geothermal and hydro are nice if you have the specific geologic and geographic areas where they can be built; which is very few places on the Earth. For producing base load power our choices are either fossil fuels or nuclear power plants. Fossil fuels pollute to high hell and they are the cause of global warming so the only real choice for someone who actually cares about combating global warming is nuclear power.

Actually, hydro power is the perfect companion to wind power, because it is 'stackable'. Unlike nuclear reactors, hydro reactors can be activated or shut down within a 1h notice. So when it's more windy, you can shut down the hydro reactors, accumulate water in the reservoirs, and then use that extra debit when the wind goes down.
Sweden is a perfect candidate for this system: 45% of its electricity comes from hydro power.

Solar is nothing more then a toy for rich people since the average plant utilization is around 10%. That means the peak rated 10 MW solar plant which the media coos endlessly over really only produces an average of 1 MW per hour and that 1 MW is costs at least an order of magnitude more then nuclear or fossil fuel power on a per megawatt basis. Wind is moderately better but requires lots of space, can't store power generated during windy periods, can't produce power during periods without wind, and cannot scale output to demand the way other types of power plants can.

Solar power is not a viable alternative, but it can help. I remember for instance that houses built with solar captors on their roof can generate themselves as much as 25% of their required energy. I recall reading a few years ago that a German city passed a law to require new houses to come with solar captors, and that it worked quite well. Now if just 1 in 5 homes had that, you could easily 'save' 3-5% of your power output.
I don't know how cost effective that solution really is though, but as technology improves it might become standard.

That they're claiming to be against nuclear and fossil fuels just shows they are idiotic extremists who don't have a real plan to do much of anything. Instead they're just grandstanding for some free publicity knowing their claims will never get any where close to reality.

Keep in mind the SPECIFICS. They are Sweden, which is not densely populated, and it has a significant hydro potential that can be coupled with wind generators. Just because their solution couldn't work for America, Germany or China doesn't mean it can't work for THEM. In any case they fall short of being "extremists".

I used to have opinions similar to yours a few years ago, until Quebec held a public debate on the issue. The corporatist media was infecting us with their propaganda about the necessity of fossil fuels, until an independent paper published great arguments in favor of wind power. There was a gigantic demonstration in Montreal and the government backed down and adopted a long term wind strategy.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
I remember asking on OT how long it'll be before we get fusion. The answer I got back was that it's estimated to be 50 years.

Well I'm not holding my breath...

[Zoid]

Re: Sweden aims for oil-free economy within 15 years

Originally posted by BeBro


Edit - from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4694152.stm

Interesting IMO on several levels (purely from the fossil resource POV, but also politically). Is it realistic, and if so for any nation? I mean 15 years isn't that long......Discuss, if you want

This is just wishful thinking. the only way of reducing emissions and pollution is a complete change in the way we live. And that´s not going to happen, no matter how many Kyoto protocols and other bull**** agreements we sign. People aren´t willing to compromise with their comfortability and the politicians know that. That+s why they say one thing to keep the eco-hippies happy and another thing to keep the car and oil industry and it´s stooges happy...

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
I used to have opinions similar to yours a few years ago, until Quebec held a public debate on the issue. The corporatist media was infecting us with their propaganda about the necessity of fossil fuels, until an independent paper published great arguments in favor of wind power. There was a gigantic demonstration in Montreal and the government backed down and adopted a long term wind strategy.

OK, Boris. Please tell me what percentage of Canada's (or Quebecs's) total energy output is wind? I'm willing to bet is is in the very low single digits if not less then 1%.

That more then anything else shows why wind cannot be relied upon for base power output. Sure, it has nitch applications as you described and it should be used for those nitch applications but it is unsuitable for the vast majority of power output.

[Fake Boris]

It's something like 1 or 2%, but as I said, it is increasing. They'll be building 900MW of wind power in the next few years, and 2500 on the medium term. This, combined with a new 800MW dam on the Eastmain river, will be ample enough to cover our rising energy needs (and even export the leftovers to the power hungry East Coast).
And that's nothing compared to the potential of the province, especially considering that it's not even a windy place. (the number I've read is 10,000+MW).

There are many reasons wind wasn't used earlier. But the main one is that hydro power had been sufficient for a long time. As soon as we had to expand, we ended up choosing wind. Technology has improved too, and cost per megawatt has gone down, something that can't be said of gas plants. With current prices, wind is becoming increasingly feasible, and expect to see more of it in the future.

You are probably right that it can't be relied upon as a single primary source, however as I said it couples very well with hydro power. I can very well foresee a 25% share of total output in many places, and even more where it's windy.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris

You are probably right that it can't be relied upon as a single primary source, however as I said it couples very well with hydro power. I can very well foresee a 25% share of total output in many places, and even more where it's windy.

That should be doable in pretty few years. Locally wind covers 18-20 % and 25 % are expected in 2008.

That said, windpower isn't without problems - an effective storage of surplus from low consumption/high production would be nice.

A highly flexible distribution network is also a good thing. When we have high production, surplus is sent to sweden and germany and vice versa when it's more quiet.

[Fake Boris]

You didn't read my post - I said that the best complement to wind was hydro power, because you can stockpile water.

[Sandman]

I'm impressed by the Swedish commitment to heat pumps. I'd not even heard of them until a week or two ago, but they sound like a really good idea.

[Japher]

geothermal pumps are used in the state too

edit: calling them Swedisn Pumps is too Austin Powers... it's not my bag baby!

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
You didn't read my post - I said that the best complement to wind was hydro power, because you can stockpile water.

Quite contrary, but we only have one hydro power plant that now is a working museum - besides not being too big, we are also kind of flat

It's in danish, but there are some pretty pics

http://elmuseet.dk/udstillinger/tangevaerket.html

[Fake Boris]

25% is still a far cry from 100%