I’ve blogged on the image of bioenergy in the past.  Recently I came across this Lego(ish) toy in Hong Kong. What does it tell us about the image of solar energy? Solar = Cool!

The market for lego district heating is pretty slim, I guess…

Yesterday I had a feature article on print in the local newspaper Adresseavisen, dealing with NIMBYism. Warning: local content! You can read the article online here.

I’ve just arrived in Linköping, Sweden,  where I will stay for a month to investigate what separates the Swedish bioenergy experience from the Norwegian. I haven’t really had a chance to do anything yet (been here for less than a day), but while jogging today I noticed something really interesting which I think might be  related to Sweden’s high consumption of bioenergy[1].

At first during this jog I was quite cautious – after all, I wouldn’t want to get lost, would I? So, Isimply  followed the sidewalk next to the highway leading in and out of Linköping. On both sides of the road there was dense, dark forrest. Typically Swedish, eh? After about five kilometres I was quite bored with the scenary, and when I discovered a path leading into this forrest I figured checking it out  couldn’t do much damage.

To my suprise, however, when entering the forrest I found it to be more of a shell than anything else. The forrest was extremely dense wherever it faced a road or any other point where it could easily be seen by many humans, but on the inside what appeared to be a traditional  forrest was in reality as much a site for heavy industry as it was “nature”. (Pardon the somewhat crappy quality of the pictures, only had my cellphone cam).

The image above is taken from what appared to be some kind of central where different types of biomass are sorted in piles and containers. This particular site of the forest exaggerates the point slightly, but the rest of the forest displayed similar characteristics.

This image is perahps more representative. It is taken from just behind the dense “wall of trees” facing the road, but shows the difference between the wall or facade, and the “interior” of the forrest. I’m obviously speculating wildly and won’t draw any conlusions based on a small jog through the forest. The trip, however, reminded me of the claims of a Norwegian policymaker I have previously interviewed, who said that Norwegians would never tollerate the types of interventions into “nature” that the Swedish have had to endure  to achieve their high levels of bioenergy production. Perhaps this was the type of thing he was talking about?

Perhaps out of sight, out of mind shold be the next large policy-slogan for renewables also in Norway?

[1] This is the second time I collect data through jogging. I should write a methods-article on it..

Many bioenergy actors in Norway are under the impression that the Norwegian public has a poor perception of bioenergy. Basically the sentiment seems to be that the products they push have an image problem. Compared to other “new” renewable energy technologies there seems to be substance in this. In a recent representative survey, bioenergy – together with on-shore wind power was the least popular of all renewables, while (very) preliminary results from an ongoing survey amongst members of parliament and venture capitalists seems to indicate the same. In other words – we don’t like it very much.

Some sources claims that Norwegian end-users perceive it as an old fashion technology, a high-maintenance technology, and an environmentally un-sound solution, while others have pointed to the fact that as technologies mature and become commercially available, potential problems of the technology become more tangible. In the case of bioenergy this could represent nasty things like smoke, smell, dirt and de-forestation. The media (and the enviromental movement)have also been given their share of the blame, focusing on potential problems, and giving more  attention to other, more “sexy” types of futuristic energy technologies.

So far, however, Norwegians have little to fear since bioenergy only represents around six percent of the nation’s energy consumption, and most of this is traditional firewood. Thus, the distaste for it seems to rest on an assumption that more of it would somehow deteriorate future quality of life.

Zoom out, scroll a few clicks east, and zoom in on Sweden. Our neighbours use a lot more bioenergy than us; in fact it represents around 30% of their energy consumption – one of the highest rates in Europe (if not the highest). Like the Norwegians, the Swedes think their product have an image problem. Their problem, however, is of a different character than “ours” – the Swedish Jane and John Doe haven’t got a clue about the fact that they use this much bioenergy. In fact, a recent representative survey [1] shows that your average Swede thinks this number is less than 10%. The Swedish bioenergy business sees this as a problem, but in an odd way this should be cheering news for the Norwegians. In a setting were bioenergy is widely utilized it is not seen as a time-consuming, environmentally damaging, smelly, ugly, unsexy, weird problem – it is simply there, and it works to such an extent that people forgets that it is there.

For the Swedish case this is all a bit anecdotal, and based on very little, of course – but certainly something I’ll investigate when I’m there – because image might be everything – right, André Agassi?

[1] Gosh, two representative surveys in one blog post. Positivism here I come!

Relevant agencies in Norway and Sweden recently released some interesting statistics concerning the countries use of energy. I won’t go into any detail on this, but I thought that the two agencies (Statistics Norway and The Swedish energy agency) introduction to their chapters on district heating was quite revealing in terms of illustrating at least one dimension where the two differ significantly.  Statistics Norway say:

The consumption of district heating in 2008 was 2 917 GWh. This represents a 5,8 percent increase from 2007 and a doubling from 2000 levels.

In other words; not bad, Norway. You get a pat on your back and an honorable mention.  As in the winter Olympics, however, the Swedes have us beat:

During 2008 the consumption of biofuels for district heating amounted to 46,2 TWh[1] (excluding electricity production)(…). The consumption of woodfuels in the district heating sector have increased five-fold since 1990.

In other words, our neighbors have us beat by around 16 times, also illustrated by the fact that district heating represents around 20 percent of net domestic energy consumption in Sweden, but just over one percent in Norway. I have plenty of ideas about why this could be so, but I won’t bother the internet with that today. I’m going to Sweden to study our peculiar neighbors in a months time, though, so watch out for reports from this promised bio-land..

[1] Yes – Terra