There’s an interesting plan being formed in Sweden: they want to be the first nation to completely wean themselves from oil, and they want to do it in 15 years:
Sweden is to take the biggest energy step of any advanced western economy by trying to wean itself off oil completely within 15 years – without building a new generation of nuclear power stations.
The attempt by the country of 9 million people to become the world’s first practically oil-free economy is being planned by a committee of industrialists, academics, farmers, car makers, civil servants and others, who will report to parliament in several months.
The intention, the Swedish government said yesterday, is to replace all fossil fuels with renewables before climate change destroys economies and growing oil scarcity leads to huge new price rises.
“Our dependency on oil should be broken by 2020,” said Mona Sahlin, minister of sustainable development. “There shall always be better alternatives to oil, which means no house should need oil for heating, and no driver should need to turn solely to gasoline.”
On the face of it, this sounds like a forward-looking, cool, and ambitious plan. And while I think it would make a good start toward a new energy future, it doesn’t take into account the pervasiveness of oil in our world. It only addresses oil as an energy source.
Let’s say for a moment that every car in Sweden stopped running on gasoline. Great! But what are those cars made of? What about all the accouterments of everyday life? They’re all made of plastic which comes from oil. Take a look around you now — at the computer screen, which is made mostly from plastic. At the pens on your desk, the telephone, the CDs, the remote controls, the iPod, the Scotch tape, the mouse, the carpet, the paint on the walls, your clothes… all of them contain some percentage of oil.
When you look at the entirety of our dependence on this substance, you can see why the pundits who talk about “peak oil” predict a future somewhat like the dark ages. How do you make a cell phone or computer without using any plastics? For that matter, how would you transport them from Asia to the markets in the US? Sailboat? Coal-fired steamers? Nuclear-powered subs?
Can we ever be free of this black goo?
