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..

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