Comment by belorn
17 hours ago
There is a national election in Sweden this year. Which parties or blocks are against construction of thermal power plants, and which are against it? Thermal power plants are primarily fueled by oil or natural gas. Party platforms are public and posted on their websites.
A few years ago EU voted to define two technologies as green. One was natural gas, and the other was nuclear. Which parties voted for natural gas, and which parties voted for nuclear?
There is a EU decision to phase out ICE in cars. A good continuation would be to issue a similar decision to phase out ICE in the energy grid. It would be nice if both sides could just join together on such decision.
For me, it has degraded to the point where I simply presume that no significant promises are going to be kept after the election anyway. The respective parties will promise what they think they need to get the votes, and will then target whatever is relevant for the ever-evolving social-media driven zeitgeist.
"A completely fossil-free energy system" ("Ett helt fossilfritt energisystem" (1)) yesteryear and now lower fuel prices than 20 years ago (adjusted for inflation, yes).
(1) https://moderaterna.se/app/uploads/2022/03/220326FemVallöfte...
Fuel prices is one of those things where people will complain about Iran war driving prices up, and then in the next sentence complain that low fuel taxes will encourage consumption. The reduction in taxes has basically removed half of the price on gasoline, but with the increase in global market price this has only resulted in a minor price reduction in total. For diesel the price is still above that of last year.
It will be interesting to see if researchers will find any significant behavioral change from having half the fuel prices compared to nearby countries. Personally I doubt it will be a significant statistical difference, but it is a perfect time to get some real data if people treat fuel as a necessity and pay what the market demands, or if its a luxury product where consumption goes up and down based on price.