Biofuel in Sweden
Biofuels[2] can be solid, gaseous or liquid, which comes in two forms: ethanol and biodiesel and often replace fossil fuels.
Sweden has one of the highest usages of biofuel in all of Europe, at 32%, primarily due to the widespread commitment to E85, bioheating and bioelectricity.
Sweden's energy usage is divided into three sectors: housing and services, industry, and transport and is used in three different ways: to produce heating, electricity and vehicle fuels.
[4] Increased biofuel usage is the main reason why Sweden has managed to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 25% between 1990 and 2014.
A smaller part, only sorted organic matter, is decomposed in anaerobic or aerobic conditions to produce biogas or compost.
Pulp industry burns its by-products, one of which is black liquor, to create steam to bleach paper and produce electricity.
The upgraded biogas is pumped into existing gas networks in areas of Bjuv, Falkenberg, Göteborg, Helsingborg, Laholm, Lidingö, Lund, Malmö, Stockholm and Trelleborg.
[13] There can be three different types of energy carriers produced from biomass: solid fuels (wood, briquettes, pellets, charcoal etc.
), liquid fuels (methanol, ethanol, synthetic gasoline, biodiesel), gasses (biogas, hydrogen, syngas).
[21][22] Other countries have now this technology on trial under the auspicies of the BioEthanol for Sustainable Transport (BEST) project, which is coordinated by the city of Stockholm.
[21] Flexible-fuel vehicles were introduced in Sweden as a demonstration test in 1994, when three Ford Taurus were imported to show the technology existed.
Because of the existing interest, a project was started in 1995 with 50 Ford Taurus E85 flexifuel in different parts of Sweden: Umeå, Örnsköldsvik, Härnösand, Stockholm, Karlstad, Linköping, and Växjö.
The two domestic car makers Volvo Group and Saab AB refused to participate arguing there were not in place any ethanol filling stations.
[25][26][27][24] Also, Sweden has the largest ethanol bus fleet in the world, with over 600 buses running on ED95, mainly in Stockholm[28][21][29] Dozens of municipalities have started producing biogas from sewage.
[31] The recent and accelerated growth of the Swedish fleet of E85 flexifuel vehicles is the result of the National Climate Policy in Global Cooperation Bill passed in 2005, which not only ratified the Kyoto Protocol but also sought to meet the 2003 EU Biofuels Directive regarding targets for use of biofuels, and also led to the 2006 government's commitment to eliminate oil imports by 2020,[24][32] with the support of BIL Sweden, the national association for the automobile industry.
[36] As of December 2007, carmakers that offer ethanol-powered vehicles in Sweden are SAAB, Volvo, VW, Koenigsegg, Skoda, SEAT, Citroen, Peugeot, Renault and Ford.
[40] The Swedish government has a policy, which aims at the reduction of the use of fossil fuels and the promotion of the use of renewable energy sources such as biofuels.
[41] Besides these direct energy taxations, the production and use of biofuels is promoted in an indirect way by green taxes.
The law requires all filling stations that sell more than a certain amount of petrol and diesel to also supply a renewable fuel.
[43] In Sweden biofuels were exempted of both, the CO2 and energy taxes until 2009, resulting in a 30% price reduction at the pump of E85 fuel over gasoline and 40% for biodiesel.
Also, poorly conducted wood fuel harvesting can have significant effects on water quality and quantity, leading to increased soil erosion and run-off.
Investment should be directed towards crops that have the highest positive greenhouse gas balances with the lowers environmental and social costs.
Chemrec develops black liquor gasification technology for second generation biofuels such as Biomethanol and BioDME.
€335M) industrial scale experimental development biofuels plant at the Domsjö Fabriker biorefinery complex in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, using Chemrec's black liquor gasification technology.
