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Sweden wants to stop using oil to power its cars by 2030 as part of a plan for the country to become completely oil free.

The announcement was made by the Swedish government earlier today as it showed the next stage in its plans to develop all of its energy requirements from alternative sources.

That’s a more relaxed timeframe for an oil-free economy from the original date of 2020, announced in 2006. Now the Swedish government wants its carbon emissions cut by 40 per cent by 2020....Read the full article

I think we'd all do well to follow their lead- and not for any B.S. 'climate change' motivation, but simply to remove our dependence on oil and therefore our vulnerability to OPEC politics.

kerrecoe:

our vulnerability to OPEC politics.

what's OPEC got to do with it? OPEC members control no more than 40% of oil production. Their recent ouput cuts have done next to nothing to support the price of oil. The price of oil is controlled by how many dollars the US Fed prints and how many trillions the US Treasury has in any one week promised to spend to reflate a bust economy.

Trust a nutter eco feminist like Olofsson to dictate a whole counrty and people as 'oil free' just at a time when oil was settling back to its near long-run cost. And why should a govt. plan such matters? If oil is truly scarce and about to run out the price would go sky high, naturally promoting alternatives. Hasn't the project to unlock billions of barrels of oil from oil shale in the US and Canada been stopped due to the fall in the oil price. If oil goes back up over $60 say that project will come back.

There is no shortage of oil. What there is is a floundering marxist agenda to brainwash people to accept much more costly 'green' alternatives, which the end customer will pay through the nose for. The Global Warming argument is failing/failed, so the marxist, one-world govt. control freak nutters are falling back on 'oil is running out, the sky's falling in!' crap. Due to the herd mentality of the majority of the people today, spoonfed at school and brainwashed at home in front of the TV, this will probably succeed. It's not popular or 'cool' anymore to go against the flow.

 Can't say anything right these days!

:-)

Perhaps I should have said 'vulnerability to oil producing nations'? Would that have passed your quality control systems Mr Horse?

I agree entirely with you that our children are being brainwashed by all this BS. Ours come home with the 'opinion' that the earth is about to burst into flames unless we all wear hemp trousers and travel on cardboard bicycles. I feel compelled to contradict what they are told at school and frequently tell them to question the information they are given.

It doesn't have to be cool to go against the flow. There just have to be enough people doing it.

kerrecoe:

Can't say anything right these days!

you just did. Good man.

Horseandcart - what a load of crap.

 Where to start?

 OPEC is currently 40% of production. Have a look at what happens when OPEC stamp their feet REALLY hard. Also look at global reserves - OPEC has about 60% of remaining proven reserves - making them more and more important to global oil supply in the future.

 Security of supply is very important to countries and while Norway could be seen as a pretty stable supply of oil + gas for the next 20, 30, 40 years, Sweden have obviously decided they want to rely on no-one but themselves. I see no problem with that.

The Global Climate Change argument is stronger than ever - but the denial and ignorance of disbelievers is stronger than ever. Is Sweden cutting its dependence on oil going to make one iota of difference? No. Yet man is having a very real effect on the global climate patterns and processes through burning of fossil fuels (if you want me to start quoting figures, carbon sinks, past patterns, etc you'll have to wait until I have time at the weekend). Now transport is only responsible for 30% of carbon emissions, private transport even less than that etc etc. The point to be made is that even if a 5% overall cut can be achieved then it is part of the 60% or so needed by 2040/2050.

 Finally - "oil is not running out". Currently supply and demand are pretty evenly matched. A year ago this was NOT the case. We have experienced a supply shock - a very high oil price (combined with a whole load of other factors) preceeding a recession. During and for a while after a recession there is traditionally a period of low oil prices - due to reduced demand. While that is the answer based around the "short term" availability of oil you also have to consider the long term availability of oil. Oil IS a finite resource - it will run out at some point. Several things have to be considered here:

1. We keep finding new oil "all the time" (we find 1/3 of new reserves of what we're using, in 1960 we were finding 3 times what we were using). There will be a ceiling or threshold for technology for how we discover oil resources - there is evidence that ceiling is approaching.

 2. "We are getting better at getting oil out of the ground" - we have fancy drills that can basically score your initials in the bedrock they're that clever at drilling in pretty much any direction. Again - when will be the threshold on this technology? We need $60 a barrell to exploit the oil shales - which is a very energy intensive way of getting at oil (it needs lots of oil to get even more oil - compared to some sources). If we want to get at oil that's even harder to exploit the oil price will have to be even higher. Can we sustain $100 a barrell with current usage? Can we sustain $200 a barrell? Oil prices have to be high for oil companies to invest in finding new reserves and exploiting difficult deposits - without those exploited supply will not meet demand, the price will rise and eventually they may be exploited, but obviously at a high cost.

 I suggest you stop reading authors like Peter Huber and look at some hard, unbiased science and economics.

I'm glad I'm not living in Sweden...also glad I won't be paying crazy amounts in taxes to support this "one man show".

Despite the price of crude oil dropping, the price of petrol has crept up due to our oil companies cutting back on refining capacity - you see, these nice chappies are also keeping a close eye on the global economy and they are also laying people off like every other sector so that they can keep their production costs to a minimum and ensure that they don't flood the market with refined petrol or diesel....otherwise their multi billion pound profits may take a slight dent...you'd think that now would be the time to fix up their failing infrastructure right?  How silly of me to think that - that would require major capital investment which would dent their profits....no, lets leave things well alone and when demand picks up again lets let our refineries break down to spike up the cost of petrol again....As a basic utility, oil, like water, electricity and gas should be regulated to ensure stable supply and pricing - governments should enforce this and this would have prevented the mess we are in now, thanks to $140/barrel killing all industries.

There is NO imminent danger of oil supply shortage due to diminishing resources.  There was NO supply shock a year ago - the shock was purely market driven by some w*****s who messed up in real estate and tried to salvage what they could by investing in a safe haven such as energy stocks.

theonlydt:

The Global Climate Change argument is stronger than ever - but the denial and ignorance of disbelievers is stronger than ever.

My god, the truth will out. GW is truly a religion with believers, deniers, those awaiting to hear the good news and presumably heretics. So be it. I, like Luther or Copernicus then, am happy to be a denier, disbeliever and heretic. Looking forward to the rack and burning at the stake to progress your religion to 100% believers.

I hate that word 'denial'. It has so many appalling overtones and has no place in normal debate on a matter of open argument based on science. There is no GW Law. There is a GW Agenda backed up by bought and paid advocates.

On the subject at hand I hope the otherwise intelligent Swedes rebel aganist this totalitarian policy, unless the males up there are all neutered and tethered to their mothers/wives' apron strings, in which case they deserve it.

Greg1,

amen to all that.

horseandcart:

My god, the truth will out. GW is truly a religion with believers, deniers, those awaiting to hear the good news and presumably heretics. So be it. I, like Luther or Copernicus then, am happy to be a denier, disbeliever and heretic. Looking forward to the rack and burning at the stake to progress your religion to 100% believers.

I hate that word 'denial'. It has so many appalling overtones and has no place in normal debate on a matter of open argument based on science. There is no GW Law. There is a GW Agenda backed up by bought and paid advocates.

On the subject at hand I hope the otherwise intelligent Swedes rebel aganist this totalitarian policy, unless the males up there are all neutered and tethered to their mothers/wives' apron strings, in which case they deserve it.

made me chuckle

We are brainwashed by eco communists who just utter plain crap and such an attitude on part of a government is akin to dictatorship in the name of false greenish bad reasons!!!!

Swedes are just saying that- in 20 years they know they won't have a car industry!!