Sweden. Lantmännen ekonomisk förening

The loan has been provided for financing increased production in an ethyl alcohol plant in Norrköping, on the south-eastern coast of Sweden, in order to answer the growing demand for ethanol as a replacement for gasoline.

Lantmännen has operated an ethanol plant in Norrköping since 2001. From the current plant one fifth of the cars in Sweden can be supplied with gasoline diluted with about 5% ethanol. With the new investment, the plant will have a yearly production capacity of 210 million litres of ethanol. The ethanol will be bought and distributed by all major gasoline companies in Sweden.

Lantmännen is a member-owned economic association owned by 37,000 Swedish farmers. It is one of the largest groups within the food, energy, and agricultural industries in the Nordic region. Lantmännen’s prime task is to supply members with seeds, fertilizer, plant protection and feed, as well as receiving, storing, refining and selling the farmers’ produce.

The combination of arable land and the owner’s expertise in cultivation enables Lantmännen not only to produce food, but also to refine raw materials for energy use as for biofuel or biomass. Biofuel is produced as ethanol and rape methyl ester, while biomass takes the form of pellets and briquettes for heating.

The use of ethanol replaces the need for fossil fuels and thus decreases the amount of fossil CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. The CO2 emitted from the combustion of ethanol can be regarded as renewable CO2. Additionally, the raw material needed can be produced locally. The local direct negative effects of the increase in production are increased emissions to air and water from the plant. These are however manageable and within set limits. Environmental impacts in connection with the production of the raw material, wheat, are the use of fertilizers and the runoff from fields to watercourses, causing eutrophication in rivers, lakes and the Baltic Sea. Lantmännen works together with its suppliers on these issues in order to minimise the runoff. The expansion of the production has received the necessary environmental permit from the county administrative board.