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There's a little more than cuteness here. If a country has a large economic interest in producing fossil fuels, there are often political forces driving consump

There's a little more than cuteness here. If a country has a large economic interest in producing fossil fuels, there are often political forces driving consumption of fossil fuels, and undermining any and all attempt to even discuss the consequences of fossil fuels. Looking at the US, the oil industry has long used its muscle to drive (heh) the use of automobiles and internal combustion engines, and to suppress initiatives to slow, halt, or reverse climate change. And that's the interesting thing here: How is it that Norway's economy is so dependent upon its fossil fuels, but this doesn't appear to blind it to the consequences of fossil fuel use?

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Norway has a lot of hydro, so they are also heavily dependent on renewable energy, and one is much easier to export than the other.
WhompingWindows 7y ago
One factor may be government, vs private parties, control of the companies. For the largest company Equinor, read this quote: The current company was formed by the 2007 merger of Statoil with the oil and gas division of Norsk Hydro. As of 2017, the Government of Norway is the largest shareholder with 67% of the shares, while the rest is public stock. The ownership interest is managed by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy.
lb1lf 7y ago
> There's a little more than cuteness here. If a country has a large economic interest in producing fossil fuels, there are often political forces driving consumption of fossil fuels, and undermining any and all attempt to even discuss the consequences of fossil fuels. -Do keep in mind the Norwegian domestic market for fossil fuels is tiny compared to what we extract; the obvious hypocritical overtones aside, there's no reason we couldn't sell lots of hydrocarbons abroad while still promoting cleaner stuff in our domestic market.
tda 7y ago
It seems that is because an Iraqi oil engineer with the right foresight was at the right place at the right time. Fascinating story! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19594153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19594153
rwallace 7y ago
Apparently when Norway found oil, they were blessed with a government that was both honest and farsighted, noted the effect of the resource curse in other countries, called in a consultant from the Middle East who had seen it firsthand, and set up a system that carefully firewalled the oil money to mitigate its corrupting influence. I'm not clear on exactly how the firewall works, but people who understand it better than I do, have credited it with Norway still being a great place to live today.
- ars 7y ago
  You can't tell if it worked until the resource runs out. It's always a great place to live while the resources are being extracted. Tell me, how large is the oil industry relative to other industries? Or to put it in other words, if all oil extraction stops tomorrow what would happen to the economy?
  - rwallace 7y ago
    > It's always a great place to live while the resources are being extracted. Intuitively you would expect that. The thing that's so difficult for us to wrap our heads around about the resource curse is that intuition is completely wrong here; a sufficiently valuable natural resource can ruin a country even while it is being extracted. The short version of the reason why is that it breaks the alignment of interest between the rulers and the people. Manufacturing industry needs a healthy and capable workforce, but as this excellent video puts it, a gold mine can run with dying slaves and still produce great treasure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
- magicalhippo 7y ago
  > I'm not clear on exactly how the firewall works The government has agreed with itself that all the oil money goes into a big fund, and that they only use a small percentage of the expected return of the fund per year. They've also renamed it the pension fund to make it less attractive for the current ruling politician to use more for their pet issues. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.regjeringen.no%2Fno%2Ftema%2Fokonomi-og-budsjett%2Fnorsk_okonomi%2Fbruk-av-oljepenger-%2Fretningslinjer-for-bruk-av-oljepenger-ha%2Fid450468%2F https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3...
ars 7y ago
Easy. They just export the bad thing, and keep the good thing for themselves. It's even easiest when you realize domestic consumption is tiny relative to exports, so the local industry doesn't care. In the US for years it was illegal to export oil. So industry had good motivation to encourage local use.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago

Norway has a lot of hydro, so they are also heavily dependent on renewable energy, and one is much easier to export than the other.

WhompingWindows 7y ago

One factor may be government, vs private parties, control of the companies. For the largest company Equinor, read this quote: The current company was formed by the 2007 merger of Statoil with the oil and gas division of Norsk Hydro. As of 2017, the Government of Norway is the largest shareholder with 67% of the shares, while the rest is public stock. The ownership interest is managed by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy.

lb1lf 7y ago

> There's a little more than cuteness here. If a country has a large economic interest in producing fossil fuels, there are often political forces driving consumption of fossil fuels, and undermining any and all attempt to even discuss the consequences of fossil fuels. -Do keep in mind the Norwegian domestic market for fossil fuels is tiny compared to what we extract; the obvious hypocritical overtones aside, there's no reason we couldn't sell lots of hydrocarbons abroad while still promoting cleaner stuff in our domestic market.

tda 7y ago

It seems that is because an Iraqi oil engineer with the right foresight was at the right place at the right time. Fascinating story! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19594153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19594153

rwallace 7y ago

Apparently when Norway found oil, they were blessed with a government that was both honest and farsighted, noted the effect of the resource curse in other countries, called in a consultant from the Middle East who had seen it firsthand, and set up a system that carefully firewalled the oil money to mitigate its corrupting influence. I'm not clear on exactly how the firewall works, but people who understand it better than I do, have credited it with Norway still being a great place to live today.

ars 7y ago
You can't tell if it worked until the resource runs out. It's always a great place to live while the resources are being extracted. Tell me, how large is the oil industry relative to other industries? Or to put it in other words, if all oil extraction stops tomorrow what would happen to the economy?
- rwallace 7y ago
  > It's always a great place to live while the resources are being extracted. Intuitively you would expect that. The thing that's so difficult for us to wrap our heads around about the resource curse is that intuition is completely wrong here; a sufficiently valuable natural resource can ruin a country even while it is being extracted. The short version of the reason why is that it breaks the alignment of interest between the rulers and the people. Manufacturing industry needs a healthy and capable workforce, but as this excellent video puts it, a gold mine can run with dying slaves and still produce great treasure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
magicalhippo 7y ago
> I'm not clear on exactly how the firewall works The government has agreed with itself that all the oil money goes into a big fund, and that they only use a small percentage of the expected return of the fund per year. They've also renamed it the pension fund to make it less attractive for the current ruling politician to use more for their pet issues. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.regjeringen.no%2Fno%2Ftema%2Fokonomi-og-budsjett%2Fnorsk_okonomi%2Fbruk-av-oljepenger-%2Fretningslinjer-for-bruk-av-oljepenger-ha%2Fid450468%2F https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3...

ars 7y ago

Easy. They just export the bad thing, and keep the good thing for themselves. It's even easiest when you realize domestic consumption is tiny relative to exports, so the local industry doesn't care. In the US for years it was illegal to export oil. So industry had good motivation to encourage local use.