Sweden beyond oil: Nuclear commitments and solar options

The project “Energy and Society”, sponsored by the Swedish Secretariat for Futures Studies, has studied different indigenous alternatives to imported oil in Sweden. Having no domestic oil, gas or coal, Sweden is 70% dependent on imported oil. This will have to change, either due to resource depletion within the next several decades, or due to oil-rich countries limiting export. Both Nuclear Sweden and Solar Sweden make use of the presently used indigenous energy sources. In designing a uranium based energy system we have used technologies available or planned by the nuclear industry. Energy plantations are assumed to contribute as much as 280 TWh requiring 2.9 million hectares at an average yield of 90 MWh/hectare per year. If annual labor productivity increases by 2% overall, and by 5% in goods production, the doubling of the total Swedish economy assumed by the year 2015 is compatible with an increase in the cost of energy by a factor 2 or 3.