Posted on 12/11/2010 10:56:02 AM PST by neverdem
KRISTIANSTAD, Sweden — When this city vowed a decade ago to wean itself from fossil fuels, it was a lofty aspiration, like zero deaths from traffic accidents or the elimination of childhood obesity.
But Kristianstad has already crossed a crucial threshold: the city and surrounding county, with a population of 80,000, essentially use no oil, natural gas or coal to heat homes and businesses, even during the long frigid winters. It is a complete reversal from 20 years ago, when all of their heat came from fossil fuels.
But this area in southern Sweden, best known as the home of Absolut vodka, has not generally substituted solar panels or wind turbines for the traditional fuels it has forsaken. Instead, as befits a region that is an epicenter of farming and food processing, it generates energy from a motley assortment of ingredients like potato peels, manure, used cooking oil, stale cookies and pig intestines.
A hulking 10-year-old plant on the outskirts of Kristianstad uses a biological process to transform the detritus into biogas, a form of methane. That gas is...
--snip--
Once the city fathers got into the habit of harnessing power locally, they saw fuel everywhere...
--snip--
The start-up costs, covered by the city and through Swedish government grants, have been considerable: the centralized biomass heating system cost $144 million, including constructing a new incineration plant, laying networks of pipes, replacing furnaces and installing generators.
But officials say the payback has already been significant: Kristianstad now spends about $3.2 million each year to heat its municipal buildings rather than the $7 million it would spend if it still relied on oil and electricity. It fuels its municipal cars, buses and trucks with biogas fuel, avoiding the need to purchase nearly half a million gallons of diesel or gas each year...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
They should burn moose limbs as an alternative fuel.
Awesome, if we could put a speck of the money wasted of fake CIA/Crown controlled false flag terror we could help reduce our “fossil†(not), but , then that brings us right round to the first point, doesn’t it?
I agree! A moose limb once kicked my sister.
I heard you can reduce use of precious water resources by drinking your own urine.
The term “Fossil Fuel” is a lie that is now built into the our language. Petroleum is produced naturally and abundantly by the Earth’s crust. It does not come from rotting dinosaurs or rotting vegetation. That assumption conveys the implication that it is a limited resource and therefore keeps the price high.
That burning “Fossil Fuel” is a bad thing is also a lie. Its complete combustion produces carbon dioxide (plant food) and water. We should burn as much “Fossil Fuel” as we can.
Incorrect “knowledge” leads to incorrect decisions and needless costs. The push for alternative fuels is astoundingly stupid.
BTW, I have a degree in Chemical Engineering. “Fossil Fuel” terminology was foisted on us, but I have learned the truth since my days in college.
If they were so green, then why do they have potato skins and stale cookies? Sounds like a lot of waste there, huh, Sweden. Why are they baking so many cookies that they go stale? Reduce the excess and save fuel costs for bakery ovens and trucking them to the store and back out to the disposal. With the reduction, put the few packages that are close to expiration dates on sale and the very little that is left over after that can be fed to pigs or goats.
As for the potato skins, most of the nutrients are in the skins. Restraurants make a fortune selling potato skins as appetizers. There should be some process that could be adapted in the potato industry to peel them adequately so as to preserve strips of peels for restraurants and home food sales. Again, feed livestock with any excess. I’ve been over there and you can hardly order a dinner without having fries as a side. So, make homefries with the skins on rather than wasting time and money on having an employee peel them. Come on, Sweden, don’t create waste just to make fuel.
That’s what everyone in Dune did but then everyone would have blue eyes. Diversity!
“It can pay for itself in about 37.9 years from savings in the cost of fuel,...”
Not even close if you account for time cost of money. The 144 million for the plant was paid in current dollars to generate a stream of benefits of 3.8 million a year. The present value of 3.8 million a year in 20 years ain’t much.
I know that’s where I actually got the idea from lol!
Thought so.
Yes, an excellent post. I surmised that you were an engineer after the first three paragraphs and before you stated it. There is so much BS out there in the general press that it makes me sick. I’m also an engineer (Electrical) and I read so much garbage in the MSM when it comes to energy that I want to scream. The average person out there without a scientific or technical background is susceptible to believing this nonsense.
I understand Russian scientists have pioneered and largely accepted abiogenic origins for petroleum for years...and have therefore had great success in their drilling.
Alexander von Humboldt and Thomas Gold are amidst some of its most famous (to the West) scientific proponents.
I can’t figure out why we don’t develop more hydroelectric. Seems like there are plenty of existing dams around that could be converted.
“it generates energy from a motley assortment of ingredients like potato peels, manure, used cooking oil, stale cookies and pig intestines. “
Hey leftist Swedes and NY Times, this energy is not “cruelty-free”, as pig guts are used. You are exploiting animals, you speciesists. Rather, why don’t these Swedes just stop using all forms of energy and go back to cave-dwelling. Or, move south.
(do I really need to use /S?)
I seem to recall Kristianstad was something of a hippie city. On FR a few years back, I think.
Soylent Green is people!
Our poor children have been force-fed a lie so long they can't process the truth, although I try to give them enough facts for cognitive dissonance.
Carbon sequestration technology already exists - in plants.
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