Swedish greentech will miss the Bush Admin
The U.S. Ambassador to Sweden appointed by Bush will likely be replaced. And Swedish greentech companies will likely miss him. He took his cross-cultural duties seriously and worked to promote the Swedish greentech companies in the American market. That matters hugely because the U.S. population is over 30 times larger than Sweden's.
The Ambassador has worked on over fifty continuing investment or vendor programs between Swedish firms and customers in America. Swedish Biofuels even got a U.S. federal grant to work on making jetfuel from biomass. Not an oil-producer Sweden has long worked on biofuels. They have lots of water and even more trees. Another Swedish firm now active in America is Sekab. Comfort Window Systems [website in Swedish] is now working to get distribution in Anmerica with energy-efficient products. Energy conservationally speaking most current American window products suck.
This diplomatic Sweden connection has led to two plants being built in Michigan, which clearly needs jobs in alternative energy. Today we learn Toyota supassed GM in worldwide car sales for first time. Fiat of Itlay looks to be taking over distressed Chrysler. Hopeless? Certainly Germany's Daimler couldn't salvage Chrysler. It's still not clear Chrysler will survive.
The two Swedish-built greentech plants in Michigan? Swedish Biogas has opened a plant in Flint, Mich. The plant uses biogas from the city sewer plant to run Flint's buses and produce fertilizer. Biogas got a four million dollar grant from the State of Michigan to encourage their plant placemwent.
Swedish company Chemrec works through a paper mill in Escanaba, Mich. There "black liquor gasification" turns the wood pulp waste into fuel. Chemrec is currently working on a new generation of biofuel technology at a Swedish plant. This will take wood pulp and turn it into biofuel dimethyl ether, DME. Volvo is currently working on cars that will burn this fuel. An un-American co-ordination of effort to produce low-carbon transport. Of course, Sweden has little solar energy, little oil, no corn, no sugar, little natural gas and great swaths of forest. They also have abundant water and hydropower. So it makes sense they would want to run their cars on renewable forest products. Know any other countries with lots of trees?
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