Swedes cut use of imported oil

Press, 18 May 1984, Page 20

Swedes cut use of imported oil

NZPA staff correspondent Stockholm Sweden, like New Zealand, has a big forestry industry, one which turns out a quarter of the world trade in paper pulp. Also like New Zealand, Sweden has been largely dependent on imported energy, a dependence that similarly saw the country hard-hit by the sudden and steep oil price rises in the 19705.

Imported oil accounted for nearly 70 per cent of the country’s energy use' up to 1979-80, and the high costs of that helped send the Swedish economy into a recession from which it is only now recovering. In 1983 the net oil bill for Sweden was about $6 billion, nearly equal to the $7 billion the country earned in forest industry export earnings, the country’s second largest export industry.

Faced with the dramatic increase jn imported oil costs, Sweden, like New Zealand, embarked on a move to other energy sources, with a plan of 50 per cent less oil use within 10 years. The aim is a system based primarily on longlasting sources of energy, preferably renewable and indigenous — a task not helped by the country’s extensive heating needs because of the harsh climate, energy-intensive industry and long-distance transportation (Sweden is about 1600 km long).

In 1979 oil accounted for 67 per cent of energy supply, with the rest coming from coal, coke, bark and lyes (12 per cent), hydro and nuclear power (19 per cent), and wood chips (2 per cent). The estimated supply for

1990 is oil (40 per cent), peat, wood chips, etc. (10 per cent), coal (10 per cent), coal/coke, bark and lyes (15 per cent), and hydro and nuclear power (25 per cent). The forest-based industries are making their contribution through greater use of wood chips and other wood-waste products for energy. “The use of oil in the forest industries has fallen to about a third of what it was in 1975,” said an energy planning official at the Ministry of Industry. “More and more factories are making use of their own waste products and reducing their dependence on oil,” she said.

“But the biggest single measure has been reducing the water content in wood pulp, therefore using less energy in the pro-

cess.” The expertise developed through forestry using wood chips, bark and more efficient use of heat recycling for energy requirements is also being exported. Last December a biofuel system designed by the Swedish company, Flakt, was installed by a Canadian pulp mill. Called Biomasster, it converts wood waste to pulverised fuel, with flue gas from the power boiler used to dry the wood, so recovering energy. In the longer term Sweden has given itself other energy problems — environmental considerations have closed off some of the major waterways to hydro-power use and a referendum in 1980 saw Swedes call a halt to nuclear power. Parliament has now decided that all nuclear reactors will have to be phased out by the year 2010 at the latest. The nuclear plants — 10 are in operation with another two on the drawing boards — produce about 40 per cent of Sweden’s electricity, and the nation’s planners are investigating what they will do to replace that power source next century. Sweden’s copious water supply — it has more than 115 river systems, each with many branches and tributaries — and around 96,000 lakes, would lead to the assumption that the answer lies in hydro power. The first hydro stations were built in the 1880 s and there are today about 1000 in the country producing about 59 per cent of the country’s electricity. However, strong and vocal environmental interests have slowed development of further hydro projects, with the Parliament having decided that the remaining four free-flowing rivers in the north of Sweden cannot be touched. “Those rivers are worth about four or five nuclear power stations but they cannot be used because of environmental considerations,” said one energy planning official. “There is a lot of work going on at present as to how we can replace the nuclear power stations." Greater use of coal is one solution being followed but environmental aspects have to be taken into account again, although more efficient burners have lessened that problem. “The problem is not that of time but of what the substitute will be,” said the energy official.