Sweden has for the last 70 years almost allways been governd by the social democrates and the opposition has probably due to our consensus culture been only slightly less socialistic. This worked out well since we were covardly and lucky enough to not fight in the second world war, instead we sold enourmous ammounts of critical supplies to both sides of the war. Then we enjoyed immense hydro and oil powered growth while our socialists where more practical technocrates then ideological socialists. Unfortunately they got more ideological right before the oil crisis in the 70:s and we have since then been a lot poorer then we could have been. Our socialists are extremely good at giving people what they want and winning elections and some people still belive that Sweden is the richest country in the world, we might in some ways be one of the nicest but we are definately not the richest. They got a lot less ideological in the 80:s and now they are corrupt after inheriting power from their grandfathers. Now they have the support of the greens and our former communist party. I am part of the opposition and I guess it shows... ;-)

When car use boomed in the 50:e and 60:s it was recogniced as a threath to the towns and it was decided by our socialists that it should be solved by tearing down nearly all old city centers and replace them with rational concrete boxes for parking, shops and business. Some vistors think a lot of our towns were bombed out during the second world war and we could not afford to recreate them but it is entierly self inflicted. They could have built at the edges of the towns instad where the small malls etc were built in the 90:s and are being built right now. During the same era we got large scale district heating where lots of worn down coal and oil boilers were replaced with rational oil fired boilers sice it was overall cheaper to run and increased the air quality.

Everybody wanted a strong military during and after the second world war so we had a nuclear weapons program in the 50:s and 60:s. We could not realy afford it so it was combined with a failed nuclear power program in hope of paying for uranium mining and reactors by selling electricity. It was a technicla failure, economical failure and the opinion changed about nuclear wepons and it was abandoned. We then did get a surprisingly market driven nuclear power program to continue the increase of the electricity production when we had run out of easy rivers to dam and early enviromantalists wanted to save the last 4.  The proof of this is that our own industry built 9 reactors but three was imported from USA since the bid was lower.  This is not so strange since large business and corporations have allways been liked by our socialists, business withouth (small) businessmen is the goal.

The nuclear program was overbuilt. Probably due to the energy scare from the 70:s oil crisis and it was decided to start phasing out oil and instead use resistive electrical heating and large scale heat pumps. During this build up TMI happened and we held a referendum with three choises. 1. Abandon nuclear power slowly after building a lot more. 2 Abandon nuclear power slowly after building a lot more and try harder to build replacements. 3. Abandon nuclear power fairly fast after building a little more. Abandon nuclear power after building a lot more won. Some think that our industry then could not refrain from building the last reactors that probably lacked customers.

Several billions were used to research for and try to build replacements for nuclear power and save power while we had a boom for resistive electrical heating and a more then ten year long fire sale of electricity. Some of this research helped establish the Danish wind power industry. It did give a lot more biomass and garbage heating of mostly district heating systems that then often ran on electricity during the summers.  Oil use for heating shrank enourmously.

The nuclear power debate and its aftermath gave a lot more energy savings and insulation work then we had economical incentives to build. The 70:s crisis response of hermetically sealed 3-pane windows turned into argon filled IR-reflective surface treated hearmetically sealed 2- and 3-pane windows. The research into extreme 4-pane windows gave windows with frost on the outside and remained a curisoity. ;-)

During the late 80:s and onward a lot of money started to be invested in our railways. I do not realy know why, it might have been for enviromental reasons, it might have be a scare of oil crisis or it might have been the idea of long range and fast rail commuting, probably it was a combination. This slow boom for the rail network that was electrified during the second world war continues and we will have fairly high speed connections between all cities and a robust freigh network around 2030. Long range commuting between towns is growing steadily and is often combined with bicycling and short and medium range car and bus commuting to the nearest railway station.

People are moving in two directions. Into towns and cities and out to countryside near towns getting larger. The fuel use for car travel has almost stayed flat for some 20 years of this. The fuel use for trucks increases steadily. Towns and villages withouth fairly short range car commuting or long range rail commuting to cities are more or less dying out. They leave a sparce settlement of farmers and part time forest-farmers traveling out to their cottages and grand parents old houses during weekends.

The last of the oil heating will be gone within a few years taxed and world market priced to death. It is being replaced with heat pumps and wood pellet burning. The very large ammount of resistive heated houses are quickly being complemented with heat pumps. The private electricity consumption anyway stay nearly flat due to the numerous chargers for small electrical appliances, computers and heat pumps replacing oil heating.

There are already successfull projects for running buses and cars on methane from biomass and E85 is established as a fuel and growing fast. This has been accomplished by pilot projects, often with local tax money and heavy taxation on fossil fuel.

We have had an odd combination of good decision, bad decicions, dumb luck and missed chances. What happens now depends on how we use this legacy of infrastructure and capbilities and get our now not very efficient government to do the right things. We have problems with inefficiencies in our schools, hospitlas and a lot of the euthorities. Our socialists are not realy socialists any more, they are optimising for power withouth using much ideology at all. More true to their nature "nordic" socialists can be found in our neighbour Norway who with oil money have not had to change a lot of the old ways. An overall better run nordic country is Finland, they have not done as manny dumb experiments as our rulers have done.

That propsed tax for men since they are pigs was a suggestion from the former leader of our former communist party who is a PR genius. Thank god she has become more nutty then before and started a truly crazy feministic party.

Rambling on, I should have split this into multiple replies, sorry. :-(