KEY POINTS:
It doesn't look like the heart of a green revolution. The smokestacks stick up jarringly above the line of pine trees and don't make for the most scenic view as you meander around the clear blue waters of the nearby lake.
But it is this power plant that
has helped the little Swedish city of Vaxjo become arguably the greenest place in Europe.
On closer observation, the only thing emerging from the chimneys is the faintest wisp of steam. And inside it smells more like a sauna than a furnace.
That's because it is not oil fuelling the plant, but woodchips and other wood waste from the area's sawmills. And as well as generating electricity, it also supplies 90 per cent of the city with heating and hot water.
"If you look around, we are in the middle of the woodshed and we wanted to take advantage of that," explained Tommy Sandh, who works in the control room.
The gases produced as the wood burns are condensed into liquid form, and are purified before they reach the chimney. And instead of dumping this liquid, the power plant pumps it around town. Some gushes piping hot out of the town's taps; the rest is directed through plumbing that runs through individual heaters, warming homes and offices.
The pile of wood chippings out in the yard towers above head-height and takes almost five minutes to stroll around. According to Mr Sandh, that's enough to keep Vaxjo toasty on the snowiest day in winter, or supply it with hot water for a fortnight in summer, and it's a good way of using the paper industry's waste products.
As well as the centuries-old Swedish policy of planting a new tree for every one felled, the ashes swept out of the furnace each day are treated and then find their way back to the forest as fertiliser to stimulate new growth. Those that are left over have also helped to pad out the fairways on the local golf course.
It was this biomass plant that netted Vaxjo the European Union's inaugural award for sustainable development this year.
Lying in the heart of Smaland, Vaxjo has perhaps absorbed the lesson of living harmoniously with the environment the hard way. Just over a century ago, vast swathes of its population had to emigrate to the United States after disease withered crops and devastated pasture land.
But it is not just the citizens' consciences and moral histories to which the town's current-day authorities are appealing ... it's their wallets too. Oil-generated electricity is estimated to cost about 16,000 kronor a year ($3109), while the new power plant's electricity comes in at two-thirds of the price - about 11,000 kronor.
Long before Joe Public was talking about off-setting and aiming for a carbon-neutral lifestyle, the seeds of green revolution were being sown in this southern corner of Sweden.
More than 10 years ago, when oil prices hovered about a now-dreamy $20 a barrel, Vaxjo announced its aim to become a Fossil Fuel Free City. Later it set a date for that goal - 2050, and then added in intermediary steps, like halving the carbon emission per inhabitant by 2010.
Already it is well on course. It has clocked up a 25 per cent reduction in per capita emissions and officials say that at 3.5 tonnes of carbon per person, it has the lowest urban level in Europe. The Swedish average is five tonnes and the US is over 20 tonnes.
But Anders Franzen, the city's head of planning and development, sees no room for complacency.
"We have to speed up to reach our goal. The battle in the energy sector has been won, yes, but the next battleground is transport."
While the cycle paths are busy of a summer evening as residents go into town for a meal on two wheels, not four, it is still hard to get them to abandon their petrol-guzzling Volvos. The council owns a communal fleet of green cars that run on ethanol, and wants residents to follow suit.
One carrot it offers is free parking to low-emissions vehicles, and it also aims to convert the public transport system. But Mr Franzen admits the mindset still needs to radically shift, and the Government in Stockholm must play its part.
The other innovation Vaxjo is trying is wooden buildings - a novelty in northern Europe. Not only are they carbon-neutral, they blend harmoniously into the landscape, they look attractive and converts say they have "a certain breathable quality".
There is already The Wood House at the city's university, and on the shores of Lake Troemmen construction is almost finished on an eight-storey apartment block, set to be the tallest wooden structure in Europe.
The site manager reckons it's 5 per cent cheaper to build than concrete or brick structures and already nearly all the apartments, due to be ready in March, have been snapped up.
Now that climate change is the latest trendy celebrity cause, delegations are beating a path to little Vaxjo.
Mr Sandh reckons he shows at least 20 groups a week around the biofuel plant, some from Germany and as far afield as Japan.
And Mr Franzen does confess to pride at being streets ahead as the problem of global warming has suddenly dawned on the rest of the world over the past few years.
In particular, he recalls the summer of 1968, wiling away the hours at parties on Harvard University's campus, talking about music and girls with none other than Al Gore.
"It did make me chuckle to myself when he launched the whole Live Earth thing. We will try to get him to come here. He could learn a lot from Vaxjo."
- Independent
