| 1. |
- 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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| 2. |
- Levin, Mikael, 1981-
(författare)
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Energy consumption transition : final household energy consumption in the case of Sweden 1920-2010
- 2012
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This licentiate thesis examines households’ final energy consumption over the long run by measuring their final energy use and examining how structural, institutional and economic factors affected the demand for energy in the residential sector during the period 1920-2010, a period covering the transition from traditional to fossil to renewable energy carriers. I believe that wider understanding of the historical energy transition and energy consumption within the residential sector might help us gain important insights into the long-run development and the factors affecting energy consumption among the households. By providing a new historical record and analysis of final energy consumption, this licentiate thesis extends the mainly supply-driven and aggregated literature on energy in the field of economic history.The empirical account of energy use shows that the households’ final energy use in the residential sector has undergone two large energy transitions during the twentieth century. The first occurred during the period 1930-1950, when households shifted from firewood and coal as their main energy carrier towards oil and electricity. The electric grid, in conjunction with new electrical appliances, changed patterns of consumption, standards of living and domestic work. It also provided a foundation for the later shift from oil to electricity in heating in the 1970s. The transition occurred simultaneously with large investments in residential buildings and with a growing variety of electrical appliances. The energy consumption in the increased rapidly during the period 1950-1973, until the OPEC 1 crisis initiated decreased consumption and the second energy transition.The second transition was characterized by the shift from oil to electricity and district heating. The process was driven by high oil prices and relatively low electricity/district heating prices due to the expansion of nuclear power and new usages of biofuel and wind power. With a higher reliance on electricity, the households received an energy source of higher quality. Since 1979 the residential sector’s energy consumption has declined, and the sector has seen a substantial decline in carbon dioxide emissions. The reduction of energy consumption and the transition to non-fossil fuels contributed to substantial reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. For energy at large, household tended to reduce consumption when real energy prices increases more than real income. For the energy mix, household has tended to shift when relative price changes has affected the utility of consuming different energy carriers. Households shifted from oil when the price on energy services derived from electricity and district heating became relatively lower than oil
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| 3. |
- Näsman, Mattias, 1989-
(författare)
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The political economy of emission standards : politics, business and the making of vehicle emission regulations in Sweden and Europe, 1960-1980s
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to an improved historical understanding of the challenges and complexities involved in constructing systems of governance of motor vehicle air pollution. The specific aim of the study is to explore the development of regulatory vehicle emission standards in Sweden between 1960 and the 1980s as well as to analyze this development within its broader European economic, regulatory and environmental policy context by adopting a transnational approach. The overarching research question concerns the historical dynamics and processes that created obstacles to implementation of stringent vehicle emission standards in Sweden from 1960 through the 1980s. To answer this question, the study focuses specifically on expert, business, and governmental actors’ interaction in the political process in Sweden, seeking to reveal these actors’ motivations, justifications, and power to influence the outcome.The study concludes that one set of difficulties concerned the relationship between vehicle emission standards and international trade, in the sense that stringent emission standards, which in turn are dissimilar from internationally adopted norms, raise trade barriers with implications for trade and foreign relations. The Swedish government, however, implemented stricter standards than those in Europe on three occasions between 1968 and 1982. Both the Swedish and the international car industry were greatly opposed to the Swedish government’s implementation of standards that were more stringent than those adopted in Europe, though the Swedish industry was not opposed to the government’s environmental ambitions as such. On the international arena, since the late 1960s, the thesis shows that the car industry favored international harmonization of technical regulations and lobbied national governments toward this end, while the study further concludes that the Swedish car industry was unsuccessful in its attempts to oppose regulation at home. Another set of challenges was related to the knowledge creation process and the requirement that these standards should reflect technical, economic, and scientific knowledge. The thesis shows how Swedish techno-scientific experts were key actors in the Swedish system of vehicle emission governance, while techno-scientific knowledge was an important tool in justifying Swedish unilateral policies to industrial actors and foreign governments. Still, producing techno-scientific knowledge is a time-consuming process and requires considerable resources. For small countries, the relative costs of producing techno-scientific knowledge are higher than producing it in the immediate political, economic, and technical context – i.e., together with other European countries and car industries. However, the thesis further concludes that the knowledge created in the Swedish system for vehicle emission governance was an important tool for linking standards with other progressive countries: both in terms of implementing goals on air pollution control that were more ambitious than those adopted by most European countries and for coordinating implementation of these standards as well as new fuel infrastructures. This thesis contributes new historical knowledge and perspectives of relevance to several bodies of literature. By displacing the EEC/EU from the center of analysis, the thesis offers the literature on European integration new perspectives. The thesis also adds knowledge regarding the construction of technical standards by shedding light on the role of knowledge creation in developing and implementing standards in a transitional setting. The thesis, moreover, contributes to the literature on the political power of business by closely tracing the car industry’s attempts to influence the regulatory development.
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