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- Kander, Astrid
(författare)
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Economic growth, energy consumption and CO2 emissions in Sweden 1800-2000.
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Large transformations of technologies have occurred in the Swedish economy during the last two centuries, resulting in higher income, better quality of products and changing composition of GDP. An agrarian society has given way to an industrial society and lately to a post-industrial phase. The energy supply systems have changed, from traditional energy carriers, such as firewood and muscle energy to modern carriers like coal, oil and electricity, with effects on CO2 emissions. Not only the energy supply has gone through fundamental changes, but also forest management, which affects the net emissions of CO2. The interrelations of growth, energy and CO2 are analyzed in this thesis, which uses standard calculations, relative price analyses and energy quality factors, to determine the relative effects of structural and technical changes, including changes in energy carrier composition to explain the long term delinking of energy consumption, CO2 emissions and economic growth that takes place. Technical change is the main reason of energy intensity decline. Total factor productivity gains, including improvements in technical energy efficiency, saves energy in relation to output. The most spectacular energy savings took place in the sectors transportation & communications and industry. Structural changes at the sector level tended to increase energy intensity between 1870 and 1970. No correlation was found between increasing energy quality and decreasing energy intensity, but energy quality may have had an impact on economic growth rates. The consumers’ surplus was exceptionally high during the interwar period and the three decades after the Second World War, and the total energy quality was outstanding during the latter period. The most rapid relative decline in energy intensity took place between 1970 and 2000. In this period structural changes at the sector level no longer worked to increase energy intensity and the new growth direction of the third industrial revolution saved energy in relation to output. The decrease in energy intensity after 1970 was not caused by changed patterns of foreign trade for Sweden, but by changed patterns of demand in Sweden as well as abroad. CO2 intensity, when only emissions from fossil fuels are counted, shows a pattern of either one long Environmental Kuznets’ Curve, interrupted by the Wars, or of three separate EKCs. The main determinants of this CO2 intensity are energy intensity and energy carrier composition, where the latter turned out to be most influential. The three costs involved in energy consumption, purchasing cost, handling costs and environmental costs are intended to play different roles at different income levels, with effects on energy carrier composition. The estimate of CO2 emissions and sequestration by Swedish forests showed a magnitude well in parity with emissions from fossil fuels. The aggregate CO2 emissions over the period 1800-2000 were not much altered, but the pattern of CO2 intensity was profoundly altered when forest emissions were included. Furthermore the analysis of forest management questioned the idea that firewood caused net CO2 emissions in a dynamic perspective, because the demand for thin timber dimensions stimulated a rational forestry.
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| 2. |
- Levin, Mikael, 1981-
(författare)
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Att elda för kråkorna? : hushållens energianvändning inom bostadssektorn i Sverige 1913-2008
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates the development of the long-term energy consumption in the Swedish households by estimating the sector’s total energy use and moreover, by examining how structural, institutional and economic factors have affected the demand for energy in the residential sector during the period 1913-2008. The investigated period covers a transition from traditional fuels, such as firewood, to fossil fuels and finally renewable energy. Previous quantitative research in the field of energy history has mainly focused on estimates of the primary energy supply, and further, this research has primarily been supply-oriented and has therefore focused the production of energy and the supporting infrastructure. Overall, there is currently a lack of knowledge covering the long-term patterns in Swedish household’s energy consumption, including changes of the household energy mix. Identifying the central mechanisms behind these changes is the central research question in this thesis. Improved understanding of the energy transformation in Swedish households constitutes important knowledge for all actors who address energy and climate policy, not the least are knowledge about the complex factors that have affected the household consumption of fossil fuels, and thereby the household’s carbon dioxide emissions, important.- The aim of this thesis is to contribute to a better under-standing of the households' role in the energy system and how this role has changed during the 1900s until 2008. The thesis uses a structural analytical approach, based on the concepts suggested by foremost Olle Krantz and Lennart Schön, to understand how the household’s energy consumption is linked to structural changes and techno-logical development. Although the structural analytical chronology, as suggested by Schön, primary builds on the industrial sector, the households can be expected to follow a similar pattern of transformation. This since general-purpose energy technologies is central for the pattern of transformation. However, since different sectors face different conditions and different abilities to utilize the energy, it is equally plausible to assume that the households follow a different pattern than other sectors. The response could either have been faster or slower. The thesis concludes that the period covering the years 1913 to 1973 was a catching-up phase. The households lagged behind the industrial sector with respect to the transition to coal, electricity and oil. But in 1973 the households had however a similar energy mix to other sectors. The second conclusion is therefore that the households made a faster transition from oil to electricity and district heating. After 1985 the household’s energy mix took a different path compared to other sectors, which is the third conclusion. After 1985 the household’s oil consumption continued to decline as the consumption of district heating was increasing. The households were also more prone to increase their consumption of bio-fuels during the 1990s.
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