Swedish Town Makes Transition to Greener Ways
As the US still doesn’t see a clear path to using renewable energy and making biofuels a normal part of life, one city in Sweden is setting a great example of how to live sustainably.
The city of Kalmar, Sweden is taking control of it’s fuel issues. It is on the verge of eliminating the use of fossil fuels, for good, and with minimal effect on its standard of living.
The city of 60,000 — and its surrounding 12-town region, with a quarter-million people — has traded in most of its oil, gas and electric furnaces for community “district heat,” produced at plants that burn sawdust and wood waste left by timber companies. Hydropower, nuclear power and windmills now provide more than 90 percent of the region’s electricity. Kalmar’s publicly owned cars and buses — and a growing share of its private and business vehicles — run on biogas made from waste wood and chicken manure, or an 85 percent ethanol blend from Brazil.
Just as important, the switch from oil and gas is helping slash fuel bills and preserve jobs in a worldwide economic downturn. And despite dramatic drops in fossil fuel consumption, residents say nobody has been forced to give up the car or huddle around the dining table wearing three sweaters to stay warm.
As President Barack Obama looks for ways to revive the sagging U.S. economy, create jobs, trim the country’s dependence on foreign oil and cut greenhouse gas emissions, Kalmar’s example — achieved through a combination of political will and creativity — may prove useful.
“The technological part is possible. The bigger task is the cultural change, taking on the way of thinking,” said Jonas Lohnn, a pastor and Kalmar city commissioner.
By 2030, Kalmar plans to have no net use of fossil fuels, with any remnant use of gas, diesel or oil offset by exports of excess power generation from renewable sources, officials say. “Politicians laughed at this idea at the beginning, when it was first presented,” said Hakan Brynielsson, head of the Kalmar regional council. “Now 95 percent of politicians are convinced of the necessity of doing these things.”
Obama “is 200 percent right” about making money on energy efficiency and green retooling of industry, said Ake Hjort, Euronom’s managing director. If the company were still building oil boilers, “we’d be bankrupt,” he said.
Kalmar’s push to reduce fossil fuels is evident everywhere. A local trucking firm, which employs nearly 450 people, has taught its operators fuel-efficient eco-driving — moderate speed, no fast starts and stops — and installed computers that track fuel efficiency and have cut diesel use by 10 percent, paying off the cost of the devices in just a year. Now the company is looking to fuel its future fleet with biodiesel.
Bosse Lindholm, Kalmar city’s environment and sustainability development manager, says most of Kalmar’s ideas could be adopted anywhere. “It’s important to have small victories, to go the right direction even at low speed rather than the wrong direction at high speed,” Lindholm said.
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