this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
227 points (99.6% liked)

Europe

1546 readers
650 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in [email protected]. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)

(This list may get expanded when necessary.)

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @[email protected], @[email protected], or @[email protected].

founded 4 months ago
MODERATORS
 

The Scandinavian country has some natural advantages. 70% of Sweden is forest land. And forests are very useful when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions because they remove CO2 from the atmosphere. The country is also blessed with a great deal of wind, as well as mountains, streams and lakes — perfect for renewable energy.

But it wasn't just hitting the natural resources jackpot that got the country to where it is now. Sweden realized its natural potential early on and started investing in renewable energy sources much earlier than many other countries.

"Sweden has had hydropower for more than a century," according to Goldmann.

They also cut out fossil fuels from their energy mix back in the 1970s, when the global oil crisis hit. When countries were looking for other sources of energy, Sweden substantially built out nuclear energy.

Today, almost 70% of Sweden's electricity comes from renewables, especially hydropower and wind. The rest of its electricity demand is met by nuclear power. This means their greenhouse gas emissions for electricity production are almost zero right now.

"So, they are almost not using any fossil fuels for producing electricity. If you compare it with other countries, that's a whole other world," said Jorre De Schrijver, an energy expert from the European Environment Agency.

And it's not just electricity that's now produced without fossil fuels in Sweden — that also goes for heating and energy-intense industrial processes.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's true. It is also true that power was generated to support the polish market when half of Sweden's nuclear reactors had to be taken out of production due to some malfunction during a bad cold front in December.

Having said that, electricity is still scarce during winter which means that a lot of it is used for heating. That must end and ideally in a way that let us use the energy excess during summer for heating during winter.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Sweden has a lot of district heating already. Storing heat in form of hot water is rather easy and cheap. Large water tanks have lower outside volume and insulation is rather cheap. So one can produce heat in summer and use it in winter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Well, Yes and no. Water is a great storage, but it is hard to insulate and very corrosive in the long run. And on the grand scale of things, the amount of water that needs to be heated for city scale applications are hard to deal with. There are cities which has connected huge caves to the district heating system, but the amount of energy stored there is rather insufficient. A case in point, Mälarenergi claims that their energy store, the size of about 120 Olympic swimming pools heated to 95 degrees C, would power a city of about 100 000 people for about two weeks in somewhat benign weather conditions.

Winter is longer, though, and we need to find ways of storing more heat for longer to be able to make a real dent in demand. There are other methods though, and even better is that some of them doesn't need any carbon what so ever to be viable. And with the new EU directives (EED and EPBD) the foundations and Incentives has been given to start the race for better (district) heating solutions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Absolutely! And tests are being performed on how to actually make something that is low carbon and practically useful, like in Fjell, in Drammen in Norway. Unfortunately it's not as easy as finding an aquifer and heat it to boiling point. Here is a link to the Fjell test: https://www.muovitech.com/SE/?page=news&id=649