Newsletter

Subscribe to our swedish newsletter by entering your e-mail address below:

Newsletter

November 2005

The situation is much more urgent than most of us want to understand.
Oil-prices recently passed the ?all time high?. Some oil companies are claiming openly that we extract twice as much oil as we find. The global demand for oil is increasing steadily and we see more and more warning-signs for a physical shortage of oil. Daily, we hear news from the melting polar-ices, from stronger and more frequent hurricanes, from worse droughts, and from larger and more devastating flooding. And yet, at the same time, the CO2 emissions of the EU increased in 2003, which is mainly due to a growing transport-sector.

There are solutions available, and they are much easier to implement than most of us believe.
The FlexiFuel sales reached 68% of the total new-car-sales in only 28 months in Brazil. Today, all the car-manufacturers from Europe and Asia offer FlexiFuel models. The production of Ethanol is rapidly growing all around the world and it is now possible to produce Ethanol from sugarcane for less than the market-price of petrol. In Sweden, we are progressing rapidly in the production of Ethanol from cellulose. Our goal is to start building the world?s first cellulose Ethanol production unit in 2007. The first Ethanol hybrid car is close. Scania are delivering their first Ethanol buses to Europe and the overall international interest is growing by the day. The number of filling-stations that offer Ethanol in Sweden has recently passed 300 and the share of Ethanol bought from each station is increasing rapidly.

However, we are running out of time.
Göran Persson, the prime-minister of Sweden declared only last week that he will personally be responsible for the taskforce that will break Sweden?s dependency on oil by 2020. As well as the Swedish initiatives on FlexiFuel and Ethanolbuses is inspiring the rest of Europe, hopefully this political initiative can do the same!

Per Carstedt, Chairman
BioAlcohol Fuel Foundation, BAFF