Sustainable Transportation: A New Way of Thinking

ÖRNSKÖLDSVIK – In the year 2000, the discovery rate of new oil reserves was approximately 10 billion barrels per year. Consumption of oil in 2006 amounted to over 30 billion barrels per year. According to the European Commission, the transportation sector relies for 98% on oil derived fuels. A staggering 70% of that oil is imported, a number that is expected to grow to 90% in 2020. On the 9th of July, the IEA published a new forecast in which it warns for a worldwide oil and gas shortage within 5 years as demand is increasing above expectations and supply is lagging behind. On top of that, a UN panel of 2,500 scientists from more than 130 nations said it was "very likely" (or more than 90% probable) that human activities led by burning fossil fuels explained most of the warming in the past 50 years. As a result of climate change, the panel projects a rise in sea levels of between 18 and 59 centimetres (7 and 23 inches) in the 21st century, threatening low-lying islands, coasts of countries such as Bangladesh and cities from Shanghai to Buenos Aires. As transportation has become the foundation for our increasingly global economy, oil proves to be an economically and environmentally unsustainable fuel.

Ethanol Statistics sat down with Per Carstedt, CEO of Sweden’s largest first and second generation ethanol producer SEKAB, to discuss his vision on the developing ethanol industry. He shared his vision for the sustainability of transportation in the future, drawing upon his experience in the Swedish market. He explained the subjectivity of cost-competitive technologies as well as the most important form of government support: a genuine sense of urgency.

Following Swedish example
Sweden was one of only two European countries to comply with the 2005 biofuel target of 2% in 2005. Since than, Sweden has created more than a 1,000 biofuel filling stations, sold over 60,000 flex-fuel vehicles and it is the only country in the EU that has 5% ethanol in all it’s gasoline. We asked Mr. Carstedt which part of the Swedish legislation has contributed most to this success and whether the EU should perhaps copy some parts of this. “It is not so much the legislation itself, but the decisiveness to really do something. In relative terms, Sweden has put in more resources, but in national terms this is still peanuts. The real difference is that since a few years, Sweden has taken climate change very seriously and challenged itself to reduce it’s dependency on oil. To do this, the automotive industry is developing vehicles that can run on renewable fuels, but they also develop more energy efficient vehicles. So the focus is not so much on biofuels, but on the concept of sustainable transportation. The consequence of this attitude has been a range of supportive legislation. Biofuels in Sweden are free of duty until 2013. When a company purchases an environmental car (hydrogen vehicles, flex-fuel vehicles and biogas vehicles), they receive lower corporate tax rates. If someone buys an environmental car for private use, he or she receives roughly 1,100 euros and some cities offer free parking. On top of that, Stockholm will only buy biofuel powered busses for public transportation and the government has decided that 85% of all federally purchased vehicles should be environmental cars. And that is really what all European governments should do. Send clear messages and set the right example”.