Vattenfall AB?

Björklund vill sälja delar av Vattenfall - DN.se: "– De senaste turerna visar att det inte längre är speciellt lätt att motivera att staten ska äga ett bolag som är en internationell aktör. Det kan vara väldigt mycket problem med det, säger Oscarsson och pekar bland annat på hur svårt både den sittande och tidigare regeringar haft att styra det kraftigt växande företaget"

This affair interest me because of the conflict of government/environmentalists and concerns for the delivery of energy to customers. Politically the ratio of renewables to fossil/nuclear is up in the air until the 2010 election for Sweden as such. However, sovereign wealth funds are investing all over the place currently. Seemingly without problems.

Otherwise this sounds like a good idea. It must be very difficult to run a company if there is constant discord between the owners and the CEO. Be that unrealistic environmental demands or other matters. The insurance for accident aspect is apparently a quite normal affair in this business and it is therefore strange that the press has been trying to make that an issue.

There has been an endless stream of articles to read on this affair that I must admit I still don't understand properly. To start with there was apparently a problem with selling the Swedish grid which was 10% of the total but the largest one of 170 actors on the market. Why would this be a problem if the company had decided on this? Björklund speak of selling parts of the company. Are we then back to selling the grid?

Per Altenberg calls Vattenfall AB "Svenska Gazprom". Monica Saarinen on Studio Ett informed that Vattenfall AB emits twice as much CO2 as does Sweden itself. Apparently they for example produce 23% of the electricity in Germany. GreenPeace would say "close the damn thing". My question would be if Sweden can afford closing down companies because of environmental concerns says Hans Bergström in DN today. Vattenfall AB is getting a stain from the international ownership due to the leadership role in environmental issues of Sweden. Maud Olofsson is, however, just one of many Economics ministers that have been letting Vattenfall AB grow. Presently, of course, the row then soils the government to the favor of the opposition.

There is an article in DN today which presents Öystein Löseth, the new CEO of Vattenfall. Between 2009 and 2013 they are going to invest 6% in nuclear power, 12% renewables, 37% fossiles and 33% not yet decided. Will that be nuclear or renewables if not fossils? They are set to expand in France, Czech Republic, Schweiz and Austria.

DN claims that there is a decision taken in the Swedish Riksdag that Vattenfall AB is going to produce 10 terawatt hours renewables by 2016. The problem is that does not tell me much without a breakdown of what they actually produce today. They are also supposed to promote the transfer to renewables. The press have tried to claim that they have not done this properly as of yet. The new CEO likes nuclear power but it is unfortunately not renewable.

If this debacle continues it might be possible to understand why it causes such a fray when so little can be understood about the issue. The press serves a new fact per day approximately. Today, for example, we find out that our company hires a CEO that is a friend of nuclear power when it was not popular a few days ago that Vattenfall AB would invest in this type of energy.