Sweden Plans Wood-fueled Future

Sweden has set itself the goal of achieving total independence from oil by 2020. The country is already covering many of its energy needs with renewable resources such as bioethanol to fuel its cars and wood to fire its power plants.

If Swedish entrepreneur Per Carstedt is right, the next big energy revolution will really be a step backward. “The industrial age began with the transition from wood to fossil fuels,” he says. “Now we’re going in the other direction.”

Carstedt reaches into a bucket of wood chips. This is the raw material he wants to convert into modern society’s lifeblood — fuel. But before wood can power a car engine, it needs to be chemically processed. And that is exactly what’s happening on the top floors of the

“Government regulations,” the fifty-year-old Carstedt says with a smile. The material flowing through the pipes is quite popular on dark Scandinavian nights: alcohol — or rather ethanol to be specific. “Nobody is allowed to tap it here without permission,” he says.

The liquid produced in the pilot project of Sweden’s Bioethanol Foundation will eventually reach the tanks of so-called Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs) that run on both ethanol and gasoline. Tens of thousands of Swedes are already driving such cars. They’re an important part of an ambitious project. The government has decided that Sweden will be the first country in the world to become independent from oil — by the year 2020.

Spiegel