By Alternative World News Network

By taxing petroleum and diesal fuel, the Swedish government has put a plan into practice that will produce an infrastructure completely independent of fossil fuel.

The plan accellerates in their 2016 budget, in which they will invest an addition $546 million into a slew of renewable energy production methods, including smart grids, renewable energy storage technology, an electric bus fleet, subsidies for green cars, climate adaptation strategies, solar panel technology and renovating residential buildings to make them more energy efficient.

They note that $58.4 million will be put, specifically, into solar power technology each year between 2017 and 2019, 8x larger than it’s currently budgeted amount.

2/3 of the country’s power currently comes from wind and nuclear. The government has stated that several of the ageing nuclear plants will be shut down and not replaced, as the country continues to drastically increase the wind power output.

“2015 is our opportunity, a chance to, in dialogue with all the countries of the world, change course towards a new development path where we can succeed in generating welfare for all, not at the planet’s cost but in cooperation with it,” a key adviser to the Prime Minister, Johan Rockström, said in a press briefing.

Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven, told the press that “Sweden will become one of the first fossil-free welfare states in the world;” and continued “when European regulations do not go far enough Sweden will lead the way.”

Växjö, Sweden is one of the greenest cities in the country.

Source:

http://www.sciencealert.com/sweden-sets-its-sights-on-becoming-the-world-s-first-fossil-fuel-free-nation