Government Bill on Fuel Tax Increase – Not Only Rural Setback

In Sweden today, the transport sector accounts for a third of both the total energy use and emissions of greenhouse gases. Fossil fuels are still dominant in this sector and a recurring political measurement in order to meet 2030 fossil fuel non-dependency is increased tax on petrol and diesel. Even though the CO2-emissions have decreased over the past ten years mostly due to better vehicle technologies and more effective engines, the demand however for petrol and diesel has not been affected by these price increases which has resulted in private households and business dependent on cars and other vehicles left with less funds for other necessary investments and may potentially hinder development and growth not only in the countryside.

Higher tax on petrol and diesel hits hard all over Sweden; not only the rural areas, and the government bill on even higher tax increase effects private house holds as well as businesses. The government elucidates only short-term consequences for households and businesses claiming them to be different than a recent study done by the Swedish Statistiska Centralbyrån (SCB). The SCB survey shows that nearly half a million house holds induce a tax increase at around SEK 5500 over the coming three years as a result of the government’s augment of tax not only during 2016 but also the following years totaling a tax increase of 48 % over the coming ten years. For a lot of people, in their everyday life such as commuting, leaving and picking up children from school, bulk buying and extracurricular activities, a realistic and tantamount alternative to the car is nonexistent. For those for which the car is indispensable, increased tax on fuel results in a negative private economy and then especially noticeable for those with a moderate income. Emissions has been reduced by 14 % and new cars has 32 % lower fuel consumption, although the numbers of cars and driving has increased. (Skattebetalarnas Förening, 2015) Approximately one million households drives more than 20 000 km yearly and historical fuel increase has not distinctly reduced the demand for petrol and diesel as shown in the diagram below (figure 1) where red is average price for diesel and petrol and blue is the demand volume from 2001 thru 2011 (Liberala partiet, 2015). In contrast to what this diagram shows, Per Bolund of Miljöpartiet who campaigns the government bill, gains support from researcher Roger Pydokke claiming that fuel tax is the most effective management control measure in order to impinge driver behavior (Einarsson & Forsblad, 2015).
Figure 1. Diagram of relationship between fuel price and demand 2001-2011. (Liberala partiet, 2015)

The government bill on increased petrol and diesel tax affects every fifth household negatively. The motorists are already paying for the society costs such as road wear and emissions by current taxes. Emissions has been reduced by 14 % despite parallel to an increase of motor traffic and total driving range clearly showing that the excise tax is not effective on embrittle driving behavior. More efforts should instead be done developing new technologies and fuel alternatives rather than “punishing” people dependent on the car. In greater perspective, the effects of increased fuel tax may hit local spending power and business competitiveness due to increased transportation costs. It seems the government bill is especially hitting the back-country where people often do not have an alternative to the car, bearing in mind that Sweden is one of Europe’s most sparsely populated country, but also effecting urban people negatively who needs the car in their daily life. Sweden would be better off if people and business could keep their money for investments and development and things they really need rather than the government increasing the costs for going to work, impair house hold economy, making everyday life more difficult and increasing business transport cost effecting growth and export making Sweden less competitive.

References
Einarsson, P. & Forsblad. M. 2015. Höjd bensinskatt minskar bilåkandet. Sveriges television. Acquired 2015-11-26 from http://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/hojd-bensinskatt-minskar-bilakandet

Liberala partiet, 2015. Bensin och dieselpris. Acquired 2015-11-25 from http://www.liberalapartiet.se/2012/03/25/bensinskatt-har-ingen-effekt/bensin-och-dieselpris-001/

Skattebetalarnas förening, 2015. Högre skatt på bensin slår hårt över hela landet.
Acquired 2015-11-25 from https://www.skattebetalarna.se/sites/default/files/hogre_skatt_pa_bensin_slar_hart_over_hela_landet.pdf

Untapped Waste and Energy Surplus Plausible for District Heating

On various levels policies encourage use of renewable energy and reduced energy end-use in buildings laying large responsibility on end-users consumer. Comprehensive systems linking energy resources with the demand for energy such as district heating, in which the heat is distributed to a block or entire city through a pipe-network, is common in many European countries where space heating of buildings is required. However, more than a quarter of primary energy supply in Europe is wasted in terms of losses from electricity production in condensing plants. These losses are of the same order of magnitude as the total heat demand in Europe and could instead, at least partially, be utilized to cover heat demand by district heating.

District heating supply heat at moderate cost using low-cost energy sources such as waste and surplus heat to a diverse sort of buildings primarily multi-family and service premises enabling hot water and heating of space most commonly via a central borne heating system supplying the entire building. By using various energy sources, many times of local origin promoting local industry and business, district heating is a central element for forestry, power production, waste management systems and efficient energy use in industry. In Sweden district heating (DH) is parlayed extensively and contributes to half of the heat demand with more than 400 systems, one in every urban commune with more than 10 000 citizens. Half of Sweden’s DH systems are supplying heat to multi-family buildings and the other half mainly to premises such as schools and offices whilst the fraction of heat to industry and single-family hoses are growing. The fuel used today in Sweden are a mixture of a multitude of heat sources with two thirds being wood and waste fuels as apposed to being oil in the 1970’s. (Swedish Energy Agency, 2015) In comparison to other European countries, Sweden uses a significant amount of industrial energy surplus (a single pulp and paper mill could waste as much as 500 GWh per year) for its DH system, and heat pumps use heat from soil water and lakes. Carbone-dioxide emissions have been reduced significantly since the use of fossil fuels for DH is less than 15 % and in order to stress fossil fuel phase-out there is currently a carbon-dioxide tax of approximately €100 per ton which initially promoted the use of biomass. In order to further promote fossil phase-out green electrify certificates and higher electricity prices making biomass-fueled plants more economically viable were implemented in Sweden. A prohibition of disposal of combustible fuel has led to an increased market for Swedish companies collecting an incinerating waste for production of heat wherein many other parts of Europe waste is landfilled and not used as a resource. (Åberg & Henning, 2013)

Little of waste and energy surplus is used other than for district heating and it is therefore beneficial both environmentally and economically expanding existing district heating system rather than the current landfilling of waste and massive loss of energy surplus. Energy sources, such as heat from incineration waste, industrial surplus heat, heat from pulp and paper mills etc. that are difficult to use for individual buildings needs be wield for district heating in order to phase out conventional fossil fuels and minimize dependency of energy imports for heating. A huge amount of surplus heat is lost within the energy and industry sectors, bearing in mind that these same latter sector account for a third of the final energy consumption in connection to the fact that primary energy supply is dominated by fossil fuels. Utilizing surplus energy and waste should by any government be considered as an essential measure to obtain an overall sustainable energy system in a their region. In Sweden there seem be a political commitment to invest in infrastructure and reduce dependency on imported fossil fuels and thereby also an increase of district heating taking advantage of waste and energy surplus for heat production at a reasonably low cost for both producer and consumer. Other countries in Europe with a less developed district-heating infrastructure might see Sweden as a predecessor in order to converge goals of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Other measurements, a part from what Sweden has done already, could be developing of a regional heat market to encourage efficient usage of energy surplus in regions where district heating is well established and where the concentration of industries is high. Such a market could constitute to industries becoming a multiple of small producers of heat posing a significant role as heat suppliers in local or regional markets in the same way small producers of electricity has become more customary in terms of PV systems.

References
Energy in Sweden - facts and figures 2015, ET2015:46. Eskilstuna: Swedish Energy Agency; 2015. www.energimyndigheten.se (accessed Nov 2015)

Åberg M, Widén J, Henning D. Sensitivity of district heating system operation to heat demand reductions and electricity price variations: A Swedish example. Energy 2013 in press.

Smart Grid  - A Hacker’s Prey?

Even an occasional shortfall of energy could cause devastating economic loss or even worse possible loss of lives, wherefore any nation ought identify energy as one of its critical infrastructure sectors and institute appropriate intervention. Since 9/11, proactive measurements in order to increase security to prevent attacks on critical infrastructure sectors have been taken both by the US and EU. In the case of the energy sector, guidelines have been modernized on how regulators, operators and owners need implement preclusive actions in order to mitigate spiteful cyber attacks afflicting the grid. The smart grid is especially vulnerable. Precautionary and security measures need be taken on EU level in order to avoid potential catastrophic outcome as a result of a malevolent cyber attack.

Malicious acts, by using the Internet in the form of cyber attacks, on critical systems are increasing. The electric utility grid has been identified as prime target by cyber felons for disruption activities and the energy industry has become the recipient of disproportional volumes of cyber interrelated intrusions that may lead to internecine outcome. Hence, cyber security has become a major concern for governments and citizens alike in regards of the energy sector infrastructure. Not only the smart grid is operated an accessible thru Internet connected systems but most critical infrastructure sectors. The gain of automated energy management such as efficiency, cost saving, appliance and convenience unfortunately invites malevolent actors to interrupt smart grids for financial reasons or for causing destruction. (Rice & AlMajali, 2014)
A central approach has been formulated by ECIP, The European Program for Critical Infrastructure Protection, which follows required guidelines from a range of governments and industry agencies in order to minimize the threat of cyber intruders. As a response to ECIP, US wholesale electricity producers recently presented a standard-based Public Key Infrastructure, PKI, enabling users of unsecure network such as the Internet to exchange data thru encryptions obtained by authorized entity. The PKI has been well received and considered to be a scalable, cost effective and flexible secure-measurement to authenticate the massive amount of digital identities involved in the electricity market. Due to substantial implementation details, however, the system may be vulnerable if the PKI technology is executed incorrectly and standardization is therefor required. (Cerrudo, 2015)

Due to the massive volumes of interconnected and exceedingly distributed machine-to-machine communication within a smart grid the advantage and gain of automated operation appear endless. However, smart grid seem be particularly vulnerable to undesirable infringement since it is not just operated buy energy producers but also by common citizen users. In the case of the smart grid, there is a two-way cyber information flow in a relatively new system that most likely enables easier intrusion by unwanted actors resulting in a potential catastrophic risk. It seem development of the actual smart grid technology does not go hand in hand with the development of a standardized system serving to protect the smart grid. As in any security planning, the level of security and correlated risk at rupture should be incorporated by IT- and security-professionals. Governments and energy authorities need therefore confer with energy market participants and IT security professionals how to incorporate EU security standards in terms of smart grid equipment, software, and operating system to step up efforts upgrading technology including of replacing weak identification passwords with stronger measures of personal- and device-authentication. Standardizing and security-criterion need come simultaneously with, not after, the development of smart grid technology in order to avoid major potential disasters and breakdowns.

References
Cerrudo, C., 2015. An Emerging US (and World) Threat: Cities Wide Open to Cyber Attacks. IOActive Security Service. Acquired 2015-11-03 from
http://www.ioactive.com/pdfs/IOActive_HackingCitiesPaper_CesarCerrudo.pdf

Rice, E. & AlMajali, A., 2014 Mitigating The Risk Of Cyber Attack On Smart Grid Systems. University of Southern California. Acquired 2015-11-04 from https://eis.hu.edu.jo/deanshipfiles/conf111681493.pdf