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!