Life on board ESS

The ESS Industry Day took place at the Royal Library in Copenhagen, Denmark on the 19th of February 2010. More than 400 representatives from European business and industry took part and gained information about how to get involved in the construction of the ESS (Photos by Wojciech Zajac and Johan Långberg).

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I gave a presentation to NCC about ESS the other day. NCC is one of the leading construction and property development companies in the Nordic region.

After lunch I had the pleasure of joining the NCC crew on a guided tour down the Malmö City Tunnel.

The City Tunnel project is a project where almost everything happens in large numbers. This includes the amount of concrete used – in total about 400,000 m3 along the 17 kilometres of railway path with a 6 kilometre long tunnel running under the city of Malmö.

We went some 25 meters below ground to visit a 250 meters long and 14.5 meters wide railway platform beneath the really centre of Malmö called Triangeln. This train station will become the second largest in Sweden when it comes to the amount of daily passing travellers.

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The weekend of November 13-15th brought together young people from around the world to meet in Lund and discuss climate change ahead of the climate summit in Copenhagen, COP15. The 300 participants at Klimatting ETT increased their knowledge by listening to lectures on, among other things, climate policy and the carbon footprint of food. The new skills were used in the three tracks that would develop proposals to be submitted to COP15, to start climate related projects and to create recommendations to improve each individual's ability to reduce their climate impact. On Sunday, a vote was held in order to bring forward the three best ideas from the weekend.

The outcome of The Climate Gathering in Lund was presented to a panel consisting of:

- Mats Helmfrid (Mayor and Chairman of the City Executive Board)
- Karin Loodberg (Head of Environmental Strategy Development)
- Håkan Samuelsson (Climate Municipalities, Coordinator)
- Thomas Björnsson (Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, Klimatnätverket)
- Dimitra Papoudimitriou (Caretakers of the Environment International, CEI, Greece)

Here are some of the youths recommendations to COP15:

• Global bank, 2GDP: Introduce a global bank for Climate Action, to which all countries must pay 2 percent of GDP.
• Education, practical & emotional: The young people stressed most of all the importance of education in climate and sustainability issues. Most votes received a proposal that recommended a strategic investment in education for sustainable development, ranging from nursery, primary and secondary schools to politicians, adults and seniors in the community. Formal, informal and non formal education for sustainable development are all crucial pieces in order to establish this.
• Campaign project against plastic bags: "Plastic bag kills", and with the intention to promote taxes on environmentally harmful products.

In addition to these proposals came several other ideas that might become a reality. For example, how about a system equivalent to Weight Watchers points, but on greenhouse gases?

Among the many reponses from the panel were Thomas Björnsson saying that the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation should take these ideas further the Climate Action Network, CAN.

Mats Helmfrid thought the global bank, 2 GDP, was a good idea and that we can influence to make that happen.

Thomas Björnsson commented that Sweden could start - "We don't need international negotiations and agreements before we start here locally and become a role model."
(huge applause from the audience..).

A young woman in the audience asked which of the questions being put forward by the Climate Gathering, that the panel considered being the most important.

Thomas Björnsson responded: "Setting up the global bank."

Mats Helmfrid thought it was important making it legally binding. That every country must contribute. Also the USA and China.

Karin Loodberg agreed on the importance of collaboration between western world and other parts like the developing countries.

The general concern in the panel seemed to be that the COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen will have a really difficult job to achieve when it comes to commitment from all countries.

The young woman in the audience told that she, and many with her, will also participate at the COP15, perhaps not in the official meeting rooms, but out in the streets, in alternative gatherings.

From Lund, negotiations are under way right now for the proposals from KLIMATTING ETT to get a space at the EU pavilion during COP15, but many of the youngsters are already determined to go to Copenhagen and attend whatever the outcome!

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November 14th, during the second day of the Lund Climate Gathering, ESS attended a tree planting ceremony led by the Bishop of Lund, Antje Jackelén. There were some 150 people gathered in front of the Cathedral in Lund to enjoy this event.

"If this tree lives to be 100 years it will consume about 1 ton, 1000 kilogram, of CO2", said Antje Jackelén.

Every tree absorbs about 12 kilogram CO2 per year and produce oxygen for four humans.

The City of Lund, where the ESS will be built, have yearly tree planting programmes for people who want to become tree donors to help climate compensation.

ESS in Lund have already managed to make a first contribution in this by planting a tree on the ESS site:

ESS Scandinavia plants a tree as part of European Green Week - manifesting the first climate neutral research center

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ESS have been a sponsor and participant at the three day Climate Gathering, Klimatting ETT, in Lund, Sweden. This is our way to contribute to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009, COP15, by supporting what we consider being the most important resource for solving the problems of the future - our young people!

On the friday I gave a presentation about the ESS for about 250 Swedish and international youths, ranging between the age of 12 - 25. I showed to them a little experiment on superconductivity, the ESS film, and informed them generally about materials science and how research at ESS will benefit us with improvments and constructions of new, more "sustainable", materials for a sustainable society.  I also described our strategy to make the facility itself, ESS, become the first carbon dioxide neutral research facility in the world and presented various objectives we have for creating the most environmentally smart grand scale work place in Lund.

I ended my presentation by asking for ideas on how we could use the excess heat which will be produced by the ESS facility during summertime. Lots of young people turned up at the ESS mobile exhibition booth to contribute with ideas, pick our brochures and ask questions about ESS.

A really smart idea came from a young entrepreneur, Simon Svendler, who suggested that ESS should use the excess heat to produce energy for a couple of "quick charging stations" for electric cars that will pass by on the E22 highway next to the ESS site in the future.

Governments representing the whole world will meet in Copenhagen in December 2009 for the fifteenth – and probably the largest of its kind – conference on climate change: COP 15. The aim is for all countries to unite in their efforts in reducing global warming and to produce a successor of the Kyoto Protocol as it expires in 2012.

This is why the youth council of Lund and UFO (Youth Forum for Agenda 21), and the municipality of Lund arranges a three day long climate gathering the 13-15 November, 2009, with the aim to amplify the voice of the young, to work out a joint message to the COP 15 meeting and provide new knowledge and possibilities to act together. Some of the participants will be even be given the chance to go as delegates to COP 15.

The three days consisted of inspiring discussions, workshops, lectures, brainstorming, presentations, meetings, own creations, study visits and evenings filled with social and cultural activities. Key persons in climate politics, as well as participants in the upcoming COP 15 meeting, were also present.

The Climate Gathering aimed to – as far as possible – keep the climate gathering carbon neutral and to provide ecological and environmentally friendly solutions and products throughout the conference. One of the coolest features was this bicycle driven blender, the"smoothie bicycle" manufactured by Mossagården, with which we could make delicious smoothies on ecologically produced fruit!

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