VIA

Windpower is North Sweden’s new primary industry

Karolina — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:24:29 +0000

North Sweden is Sweden’s center for wind power. There are plans for 6000 new plants over the next 15-20 years. If all these plants become reality, it would mean that the North holds three times as many wind turbines as the number of turbines in all of Sweden today.

- It’s a new primary industry that is emerging, says Jens Sperens, project manager for ”Vindfyr”, that collects and presents experiences from the expansions of wind power in the North of Sweden.

Hundreds of wind farms are to be built in forests and mountains in Gävleborg, Västernorrland, Västerbotten, Norrbotten and Jämtland. Only in Jämtland 1700 turbines are planned. Gävleborg and Norrbotten has 1400 works each placed on the map.

The number of realized turbines depends on the availability of electricity, if the projects are authorized and political decisions. But even the availability of new technologies to protect the turbines from the cold and ice plays an important role in the development.

A platform for information exchange to solve the challenges of cold and ice is the conference- Winter Wind in Skellefteå. The first conference was held in 2008 with 160 participants. This year gathers 376 experts in wind energy in cold climates in 7 to 8 February. The recent progress in measuring the formation of ice and ice and chunks of ice from the turbine and rotor blades will be the main topics for discussion.

The conference will among other things include six manufacturers presenting their system for deicing. Five of the systems are brand new, a couple has not yet reached the market. A new report on the development of systems to detect and remove ice from wind turbines will also be presented, by René Cattin from the Swiss company Meteotest.

Further, Matthias Rapp , President of the Swedish Wind Power Technology Centre, will talk about the plans to create a test center for wind energy in cold climate in the North of Sweden.

Dutch owners taking over Åsele camp ground

Karolina — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:08:24 +0000

Willy van den Brink visited the camp ground in Åsele November last year. In December the contract was signed and in January 2012, Willy and her family moved from Holland to Åsele in North Sweden.

-My intention is to make the camping what it should be, we are here to stay, says Willy van den Brink. I am confident that we will have a wonderful camping in two years time. We have started the work, there is a lot to do but hard work does not scare me. I moved here for the silence and the nice people who live here, she says.

Willy ran a business with 20 employees in Holland, and had been doing that for 25 years. But she does not regret her decision: – This is my dream and I’m so happy to be here, she says.

Delete Group expands to Sweden and joins Umeå- based Sanvac

Karolina — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:23:42 +0000

Delete Group, a leading Finnish environmental services company, will expand to Sweden through a merger with Sanvac Miljö Ab, an Umeå-based industrial cleaning company. Over the past years, Sanvac’s owner Leif Danielsson has made Sanvac a well-known, trusted operator in Northern Sweden. Following the merger with Delete Group, Mr. Danielsson will become a head of Delete Group’s Swedish operations. He will also continue in his current
management role with Sanvac Miljö. – Delete Group has grown impressively in Finland. I believe that joining Sanvac opens up an opportunity to grow in Sweden, says Mr. Danielsson.
– The merger with Sanvac Miljö supports the growth strategy of Delete and complements our service
offering, comments Jussi Niemelä, CEO of Delete Group.

– Sanvac Miljö is a professionally-run company that serves its customers with modern equipment and excellent know-how. The merger opens up opportunities for cross-border co-operation in industrial cleaning and other environmental services. This co-operation will help us to respond to growing needs of our clients, Niemelä says.
Following the merger, Delete Group’s turnover will approach 80 million euros. The combined entity employs close to 650 environmental services professionals.

For more information, please contact:
Jussi Niemelä, CEO, Delete Group

tel: +358 400 462 696

jussi.niemela@delete.fi

Delete Group
Delete Group Oy (http://www.delete.fi) provides environmental services for industrial and
construction sector clients in Finland, Sweden and the Baltics. Following merger with Sanvac, the
pro forma turnover for the Group’s companies is close to EUR 80 million in 2011. The combined
entity employs nearly 650 environmental service professionals.
Delete Group provides industrial cleaning services, demolition services, waste management and
recycling services and special demolition services. Delete Group is owned by Finnish private equity
investor, Intera Partners (http://www.interapartners.fi), together with the key personnel.

Sanvac Miljö
Sanvac Miljö Ab (http://www.sanvac.se) provides industrial cleaning services for industrial and
construction sector clients. The company operates in northern Sweden, with headquarters near
Umeå. Sanvac Miljö employs approximately 35 industrial cleaning professionals and its turnover
was EUR 6 million in 2011.

Design student awarded for visions of future boating

Karolina — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 07:58:34 +0000

Kosin Voravattayagon, studying the master programme in transportation design at Umeå Institute of Design, has received first prize in the Finnish marine design competition Visions of Future Boating.

With his concept of a future sailing yacht, Kosin Voravattayagon won the prestigious award and the prize of 3000 €.

His project has been motivated by the idea of bringing more natural light into the living areas of the vehicle and to achieve that Kosin Voravattayagon was inspired by asymmetric architecture and Asian culture.

About Visions of Future Boating:

https://blogs.aalto.fi/visionfutureboating/

Have a look at the winning concept:

https://blogs.aalto.fi/visionfutureboating/1st-prize/

For more information, please contact:

Kosin Voravattayagon
Telephone: 070 – 668 43 20

Swedish export threatened by safe-haven status

inger — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:24:39 +0000

Dow Jones said that Scandinavian bond yields have tumbled in recent months and look set to stay depressed as the euro-zone’s crisis rumbles on and investors seek out safer alternatives to euro-zone debt. But the safe-haven status could also hit the export dependent economies.

Last year Scandinavian sovereign bonds were among the strongest performers.

”This is a euro-land crisis, so foreign investors are saying ‘let’s get something other than euro land,” said Jens Peter Sørensen, chief analyst at Danske Bank in Copenhagen, told Dow Jones.

However, the Nordic countries are heavily dependent on exports to continental Europe, and these could suffer if the crisis there continues.

”Fundamentals are very strong in the Nordics [Scandinavia plus Finland], but when your neighbors are in difficulty it may spill over”, Fitch Ratings’ Managing Director Edward Parker told the newswire.

Edward Parker concluded that if the Nordic economies get too much of a safe-haven status, their exports could also take a hit as investors start buying heavily into their currencies, pushing up the exchange rate.

Source: Swedish Wire

Production from LTU students part of ”The Girl with the Dragon tatoo”-film

inger — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:05:18 +0000

The first American film based upon author Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy has just had its Swedish premiere. To the famous director David Finchers first film in the trilogy,”The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, has students from Luleå University of Technology’s television training in Piteå been supplying materials.

- It’s really cool that we have been supplying material to a big movie like this, which of course is a feather in the cap of LTU’s media training, says lecturer Daniel Rosdahl, program director for the television production of new media at LTU.

It all started when Daniel Rosdahl got an e-mail in English, which he initially thought was a spam. But it was addressed to him personally and there was also information in the email that attracted his attention. Within LTU’s media training a website called Pite play was created, where the students presented their productions. In the email, which came from the company Nickerson Research, was a request if they could buy the rights to the material found on the side and that it would be used in a Hollywood production, no more details than that.

- It was exciting enough for us to begin to check up the company, that had three employees and worked with productions such as ”The Game”, ”Social Network” and ”Fight Club” says Daniel Rosdahl.

Quickly it was obvious that all this was the famous director David Fincher’s movies and thus put it together ”one plus two” what is going on right now.

- Shit, it’s the Millennium films we realized and knew immediately that this was the movie ”The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”. The students were of course excited, says Daniel Rosdahl

Shortly thereafter Susan Nickerson from the U.S. production company called and wanted to negotiate the use of some of the students’ production. She was pleasantly surprised that they knew about her company and that they have already figured out that it was ”The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. ”I think you should give your students a + to their research” she said during the telephone conversation, which continued with the negotiation of the material. It is a scene where one of the main actors in the film is in a room and from another neighbour room sounds of someone watching TV is heard. That effect the company wanted to buy for a few thousand swedish crowns, which students and teacher thought was OK.

- Yes, it’s not money that matters most in this case but to have such a qualification in once curriculum vitae, said Daniel Rosdahl.

Created by: Leif Nyberg, LTU

Biotech Umeå: The quest for a better spruce

inger — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:57:38 +0000

The Norway spruce tree has seven times more genetic material than humans. A huge project at Umeå Plant Science Centre (UPSC) at Umeå University is currently underway in an attempt to decipher every base in the spruce tree’s DNA sequence.

A large and impressive Norway spruce tree from the village Köttsjön in the district of Ragunda in eastern Jämtland is currently the subject of considerable interest for plant researchers at UPSC. Branches taken from the spruce tree 50 years ago were grafted and have produced abundantly and yielded exceptional progeny in the Swedish spruce breeding program. The spruce tree is the first to have its entire genome mapped by the new Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab) in Stockholm. “The spruce tree is Sweden’s most important plant, both from an ecological and an economical standpoint, says Ove Nilsson, professor at UPSC.”

The goal of the project is to do a complete annotation of the entire spruce tree genome, with the first step being to identify all the genes and see where they are located with respect to each other, quite simply to describe the spruce tree’s genetic map. In the next step, the researchers want to see what these genes do as well as how they are regulated. Understanding which genes are coupled to special traits, such as flowering or wood formation, is meaningful. “The spruce tree is a model and one can apply the new information to other trees. That gives us a niche in Umeå so we can maintain our lead in plant research.”

Source: Biotech Umeå, Text: Ester Roos-Engstrand, Translation: Betty Guo

Read the full article here…

Umeå Airport broke all records in 2011

inger — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:29:02 +0000

The total number of passengers from Umeå Airport during 2011 was 955 132 persons. That is an increase with over 110 000 passengers, which is an average of 300 passengers per day. The total increase is +13% compared to 2010.

- It has been an amazing year for Umeå Airport, says mr. B-O Lindgren, Operations Manager at the airport, he also believes in the growth of the region and that in 2012 they will reach over 1 million passengers.

http://www.swedavia.se/en/Umea/

Sweden tops global ICT ranking

Karolina — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:32:32 +0000

For the second time in a row Sweden was placed as number 1 in a global networked readiness index, published by World Economic Forum and Insead.

The report highlights the role of information and communications technology power in economic and social growth and competitiveness.

”Sweden offers one of the best climates for technological adoption and innovation”, the Global Information Technology Report.

Sweden’s penetration of new technologies is among the densest in the world, with over 90 percent of the population using the Internet on a regular basis.

”In Sweden more than anywhere else, ICT improves access to basic services and gives rise to new organizational models as well as new business models, products, and services”, it said.

Singapore came in at number two, followed by Finland and Switzerland.

Martinsons builds soccer stand in wood

Karolina — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:19:38 +0000

Martinsons has been contracted to build a new terrace in wood on ”Kopparvallens” arena. Martinson will deliver and also assemble the roof of the grandstand. Åtvidaberg FF’s home stadium ”Kopparvallen” will be refurbished before the team’s return to the high series.

The new bleachers have a capacity of 6000 spectators, with 4200 under roof, also supplied by Martinson. ”Kopparvallens” grandstand is also Sweden’s first grandstand, that is fully certified under the environmental labeling FSC.

- We looked at many different options, but when we saw the terrace that Martinson’s built on Gammlia in Umeå, we felt that we found the right construction. The experience on the site is very important. The stands of timber will make an acoustic enclosure that will allow a smaller audience to sound large, says Bob Smith, Chairman of Kopparvallen AB, Åtvidabergs stadium company.

Daniel Wiklund, sales engineer at Martinsons, sees opportunities to offer more soccer clubs wood stadiums. – We believe that the solution Åtvidabergs FF found may be of interest to many, not least since arena investments often are undertaken in collaboration with companies and municipalities, he says.