Kalmar now gets more than 65% of its energy from renewable sources, more than double that of Sweden as a whole.
The city’s publicly owned cars and buses, and a growing share of its private and business vehicles, run on biogas made from waste wood and chicken manure, or an 85% ethanol blend from Brazil.
We are not eco-freaks, Carolina Gunnarsson, a sustainability officer with the Kalmar county regional council said. We’re just making it easy to change, giving people the tools.
The technological part is possible. The bigger task is the cultural change, taking on the way of thinking, Jonas Lohnn, a pastor and Kalmar city commissioner, said.
Politicians laughed at this idea at the beginning, when it was first presented, Hakan Brynielsson, head of the Kalmar regional council, said. Now 95% of politicians are convinced of the necessity of doing these things.
The region has managed the dramatic cutbacks in fossil fuel use without slowing economic growth. Thanks to lower fuel bills, government tax incentives for clean energy and a focus on turning Kalmar into a center for energy technology clean-technology industries is booming.
Euronom AB (Euronom), a traditional Kalmar oil boiler manufacturer, for instance, has transformed itself into a builder of high-efficiency renewable energy furnaces and heat pumps.
Obama was 200 percent right about making money on energy efficiency and green retooling of industry, Euronom Managing Director Ake Hjort said. If the company were still building oil boilers, we’d be bankrupt, he said.
