Cheap red wine will be used to power environmentally-friendly buses in Sweden because of an ethanol shortage, a spokesman for the Stockholm County Council said today.

The council has been granted permission by the European Union to import 5,000 tons of surplus red wine from Spain, said the spokesman, Kenneth Forslund.

"There has been a representative from the commission here checking that we are only using it for the buses," he said. Wine has to go through an industrial process to be turned into fuel.

The price of ethanol, made from wood, has jumped about 30 percent in one year, Mr. Forslund said.

Many of Sweden's buses are powered by ethanol.