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

Yesterday I made a guest apperance in the radioshow “Uillustrert vitenskap” at the local station “Radio revolt”. The theme of the show was “disputed” science, particularly focusing on climate science.  I’ve listened to it, shivered in horror at some of the things I said, but my inner masochist still sort of wants to show it off. The show can be read about here, and listened to here.

…or you can watch this muppets re-enactment of queens bohemian rhapsody in stead:

Whatever one thinks of Pierre Bourdieu, watching the documentary “sociology is a martial art” is time well spent. Youtube is your friend, even though the end of the documentary is missing…

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Part 6:

Part 7:

What types of exams are best suited for your students? The answer to the question will probably depend on a number of variables. The psychology department at my university, for example, have few problems with their first-year students being evaluated based on multiple-choice tests. With a turnover at around 1000 students every year, this is probably a question of economy as much as anything else.  A possible consequence for the students might be  the memorization of useless facts rather than deeper understanding of the matter, something that might be indicated by the popularity of books like “the multiple choice guide” (muliple choice guiden). Other departments at NTNU have been considering the same, but I think the most common tool in the humanities and social sciences are still the exams where you sit at one location and write for a number of hours.

The last few days I’ve been grading final exams of a third type.  The students taking a course in globalization theory at our department have been asked to complete an essay-style home exam, a task they had four days to complete. This kind of exam is great, I think, – it provides time for reflection. The students are given a real chance to mobilize the understanding they have gained through the course, instead of mindlessly regurgitating memorized facts from books. They can discuss, problematize, and bring their own experiences to the table, something they frequently do – and are rewarded for!

However, this type of exam also provides rather obvious challenges. For instance, access to the all-knowing internet represents a temptation, potentially hard to resist for those who seek to impress. This isn’t a challenge only for those writing the papers, but also for those grading it. How do you know that the impressive argument you consider giving an “A” isn’t just a mindless excercise in ctrl+c / ctrl+v? And once you’ve found one or two instances of this, how do you avoid becoming paranoid, thinking they’re all cheaters?

On the first question: basically, you don’t. For me these essays have been accompanied by an unsubstantiated creepy feeling of something being ‘off’ resulting in a Google query, again resulting in direct hits in journal articles or books. The worst example I’ve come across was a mash-up between an old article by Arjun Appadurai, and a new article in journal of economic ans social research. I know we live in a time of remix-culture, but for the cheaters out there: at least change a few words, huh? I mean, all people grading exams aren’t old men in beards, reading scrolls on how to perfect morse-tecnique. We know Google, for Gods sake, the cat’s out of the bag.

On the paranoia: just forget it, most of them aren’t cheaters, I think it’s that simple!

Last week I roadtripped with one of my colleagues to Averøya near Kristiansund in order to take a look at the construction of the worlds second largest pellets factory. Based on it’s imported biomass (From Canada, Estonia and Liberia) BioWood Norway will have an annual production capacity of around 450 000 tonnes of pellets when it opens in June next year. Heavy hitters like Hafslund are involved on the investment side. At a glance you’d think the idea is pure megalomania beyond all sanity, but up close it’s quite impressing. One thing is the sheer size of the scheme, another thing is the reasoning behind it.

There is a quite boring economical side to this, of course, but I won’t go into that. What many I’ve been talking to have been skeptical about, however, is how it adds up to be beneficial climate-wise. Won’t shipping all that lumber around the globe and back again as cause more harm than good? Of course it burns a decent amount of oil, which is bad. However, it’s main customers throughout Europe more than makes up for this. How you ask?

Well, basically you can convert coal power plants to burn wood pellets in stead of coal, or you can co-fire coal and pellets. The pellets are pricier than coal, but burning it to generate electricity is a cheaper option than both windmills and solar power. EU policies aiming to produce 20% of all electricity with renewables from 2020 has created a booming pellet market, but there aren’t enough pellets around to cater for the needs of these giant customers. This is a gap BioWood aims to fill. This will obviously mean large cuts in CO2 emissions – it’s difficult to argue against the replacement of coal, even if it means burning some oil for transport.

The factory isn’t up and running yet, and a healthy dose of wait-and-see attitude could be called for. None the less I think it’s quite exciting to see that bio energy doesn’t necessarily have to be small scale, gyro gearloose-inspired highly localized oddities (even though I really like those..). If BioWood can make money AND cut emissions they should be a source of inspiration for many green entrepreneurs.