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Norway is wealthy because of oil. Can it give up fossil fuels?
- dijit 5y agoLiterally all they’ve been doing with that money is investing in sustainable power. I’m sure they’re fine.
- Scoundreller 5y agoWhich just lets them export more of the dino stuff they extract. Good move if you can do it. Can they give up exporting it too though? I doubt that will happen.
- Norwegianguy 5y agoIf we don't export petroleum products, someone else will. Much of the money we earn from petroleum is spent on making "the green shift" happen. Can other exporters say the same?
- 6510 5y agoWe use oil for so many things and wont be able to terminate its use any time soon. One could even argue it is to valuable to just burn it.
- Norwegianguy 5y agoThat's why we need to put money into finding alternatives.
- dotancohen 5y agoAlternative energy sources, sure. But alternative stock for plastics? That is going to be difficult.
- maybelsyrup 5y ago"Much of the money I earn selling fentanyl-laced cocaine is spent on building new rehabs. Can other drug dealers say the same?"
- Norwegianguy 5y agoBy all means make snarky remarks instead of actual arguments. I hope you're not from the US, or the hypocrisy would be tangible. In any case, if we stopped exporting oil products now, the only real effect would be that supply goes down, driving prices up for Qatar, the US, Russia and other major exporters -- who each have significantly higher emissions (per capita) than Norway. Instead we are spending money on finding ways to decrease demand, to make the step away from petroleum globally. If you ask me, that's a far better, and more realistic, solution.
- refurb 5y agoIf I don’t sell this addict heroin, someone else will. So why not me!
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> Can they give up exporting it too though? How much would Norway lose if they pivoted to exporting plastics instead of crude oil for burning?
- Scoundreller 5y agoWouldn’t make a difference. More non-Norwegian oil and gas would get shifted toward combustion from plastics. I don’t think Europe is too big on plastics (or ammonia fertilizer) production because they really need the gas for local use and wouldn’t want to depend on Russian gas any more than they do.
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoThe article is about fossil fuel exports (source of the wealth). Not their own grid.
- bobthechef 5y agoExternalizing is not problem solving.
- Norwegianguy 5y agoThe election was on Monday, the left side with Labor and the Center Party were the major winners. Which parties will form government remains to be seen. Not sure where they got that climate/environment was a big issue for this campaign, because it hasn't really been. The most outspoken "green" party even got a fairly mediocre result and fell below the very important 4 % limit. This will probably be seen as a sign that the Norwegian people is in no hurry to completely stop our petroleum industry right away. In any case, what we do here won't have any significant impact on global environment. However, if we lead the way then perhaps others will follow; the big question is what the most effective course of action to achieve that will be.
- londons_explore 5y agoThe most effective course of action would be to implement a law that for every kilogram of carbon imported or extracted from Norwegian ocean, one kg of carbon must be sequestered somewhere in Norway. Soon there will be nowhere to sequester carbon, no new space to plant trees, and oil and gas extraction will cease. Along the way, tremendous funds will be poured into carbon collection and sequesteration technology, and energy prices will rise, forcing investment into alternatives.
- dotancohen 5y agoWhy stop at the Norwegian ocean? I would support such a law in any first-world nation, even if it tripled my cost of living.
- dotancohen 5y ago> In any case, what we do here won't have any significant impact on global environment. This is wrong. I agree with and appreciate the rest of your perspective, but this statement is wrong.
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoNorway is an interesting case because their own energy grid is mostly powered by renewables. However, they export huge amounts of fossil fuels to other countries: > With their hydro-powered energy grid and electric cars, they are among the world’s most enthusiastic consumers of green power, but decades of exporting oil and gas means this nation of 5.3 million enjoys a generous welfare buffer, and sits on the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. It was easy for them to give up fossil fuels, but then they simply export those fossil fuels to other countries who will burn them anyway.
- bobthechef 5y agoIt's the drug dealer model: NEVER eat your own dog food.
- outside1234 5y agoIts worse than that. It is pretending to be against drugs while simultaneously being the biggest per capita seller of drugs. Its “just say no” with cartel scale sales operations.
- _jal 5y agoSo, Sacklerish. (Sacklarian? Desackler-capitalism?)
- vmception 5y agoDon’t get high on your own supply!
- thendrill 5y agoAlso weapons... Don't forget all the weapons...
- _delirium 5y agoWhile local production is mostly renewable, Norway also, at least on paper, sells much of it. Some European countries (like Germany) have imposed renewable mandates higher than local supply can support, so renewable energy has become worth more than "dirty" energy. You can arbitrage this difference by selling your clean energy through the European Energy Certificate System, and Norway is a prolific seller on that market. Whether this matters depends on what you're counting. The main problem is that if you count this Norwegian electricity that Germany buys towards Germany's renewable energy percentage, you shouldn't also count it towards Norway's or it gets double-counted. One approach is to just ignore the EECS as fiction and only count local generation, in which case Norway does look fairly clean (and Germany less clean than some numbers would suggest). A different approach is to consider stuff sold on the EECS as actually swapped for other energy (at least on paper) and compute a "residual mix" after the sales. In that way of accounting, Norway doesn't have a very green residual mix: https://medium.com/@skloesch/why-norwegian-and-icelandic-and-some-other-electricity-should-not-be-considered-green-94c9a917efd7 https://medium.com/@skloesch/why-norwegian-and-icelandic-and...
- bobthechef 5y ago'"It is such a more nuanced issue involving other things like agriculture and transport.”' Hah, that's good. It IS nuanced, or rather, not a simple matter, but it seems that unless you personally feel the threat of getting cut off from the gravy train, you are likely to toss around simplistic slogans which environmentalists and "green politicians" are notorious for. But it's likely that in the latter case, this is just pandering, like the whole "tax the rich" theater. It will be very interesting to watch what Norway does, and telling. The proof will be in the pudding.
- nikkinana 5y agoWho writes this shit?
- jacknews 5y ago"It might affect our own climate budget, but it’s not going to make a difference globally," "an end to Norwegian production would have a net negative effect on global emissions. Demand would stay the same, and cleaner Norwegian production would be replaced by other countries with higher emissions" While these things might well be true, there is a distinct and corrosive 'hypocrisy factor' in Norway shifting it's society to sustainable energy, all paid for by continuing fossil fuel exports to the rest of the world. Norway could prove it's green leadership credentials, and send a very clear rallying message to the rest of the world, by starting to shut down this industry, perhaps redirecting it to deep geothermal, etc.
- im_down_w_otp 5y agoWhich, if they did that starting today, would just mean that it'd be shifting its society to sustainable energy, all paid for by previously exporting fossil fuel to the rest of the world. Given that, and that Norway also has no other ready obvious alternative economic model to leverage to support its energy transition, this seems like an odd nit to pick and to further call "corrosive". On the contrary, this seems like exactly the sort of thing we should be wanting nation-states to fastidiously project and plan for and execute on.
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoThis is way down the list of problems with oil exporting nations. I just wish Australia would take the same approach as Norway.
- dotancohen 5y agoThere is another reason for Norway to dig up the fossil fuels that gets little discussion: Russia. The Norwegian army's most pertinent threat is Russian invasion for the fossil-fuel reserves. It is interesting that some precious resources, such as fossil fuels, are also a great liability. In retrospect, I can think of quite a few nations that would have seen far less foreign interference and invasion had they had less fossil fuel reserves. A Canadian tribe also once famously tried to hide their precious metals from Europeans for fear of invasion.
- no_butterscotch 5y agoThere a Netflix show a while back about Russia invading Norway to control the oil reserves after Norway decided to go completely green, and stop exporting oil to EU partners.
- Norwegianguy 5y agoThe Norwegian armed forces' most pertinent threat is being invaded by Russia as part of a bigger east/west struggle. Russia invading for oil is unthinkable. If anything it would be a conflict over arctic drilling. Source: Am Norwegian officer. However, it makes more sense for us to export our petroleum than to let supply decrease, driving up prices for the Russian exports.
- dotancohen 5y agoThank you very much for your input. I had a very interesting conversation a few years ago with a Norwegian conscript in Tromso who brought the Russian threat to my attention.
- credit_guy 5y agoNorway is wealthy because of its strong institutions. Nigeria and Venezuela have more oil, Azerbaijan and Libya too, but for them it's a curse not a blessing. Norway has the rule of law, low corruption, people have confidence in their government, and the government looks out for the people. With or without oil, these things are tremendous assets. If oil were to become worthless tomorrow, Norway would continue to do quite well. After all, Denmark has only a tenth of Norway's oil reserves, and about the same population. That doesn't make them ten times poorer, in fact their GDP per capita is only 20% lower.
- rootsudo 5y agoThis, but it's also agency too. People in those "other" countries never grew up in a safe, stable and reliable society. What they see is the old system of explore and exploit.
- anovikov 5y agoThat's right, but here goes the question: colonialism provided a way to "export" safe, stable and reliable societies. And people rejected it. Was it a mistake?
- space_fountain 5y agoI think most people would say colonialism did a poor job of explaining safety at least. Instead it was often powered by racism and subjugation. We do desperately need to find a way to help countries develop, but on the balance colonialism doesn’t seem to be it
- throwaway210222 5y ago> We do desperately need to find a way to help countries develop. Hold our currencies.
- space_fountain 5y ago
- metadata 5y agoHere is a backstory of how Norway avoided the oil industry descent into corruption. They were lucky to hire an Iraqi with experience who built the healthy foundations. https://www.ft.com/content/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0 https://www.ft.com/content/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feab...
- hanche 5y agoBehind the paywall for me, but if it is about who I think it is, he was washing dishes at a restaurant until his real expertise was suddenly in demand.
- IceCoffe 5y agoI'm curious about this person now, say more!
- hanche 5y agoI'm sorry, but I learned about this person in 1985 or thereabout, but in 1986 I changed to a university job that involved little contact with the oil industry. So many details are lost in time. But as I recall the story, he was a refugee, and his engineering credentials weren't really recognised at the time. Hence the dishwashing job. (Norway used to be much too skeptical about any education from other countries. That might still be the case.) If I remember correctly, he quickly rose to the top of the government agency overseeing oil exploration and production, once he got a foot in the door. It was a story to remember, even if all the details are gone thirty-five years later. And it makes you wonder, how much wasted talent is out there?
- Rzor 5y agohttp://web.archive.org/web/20100123225932/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html http://web.archive.org/web/20100123225932/http://www.ft.com/...
- Scoundreller 5y agoCan anyone explain Norway’s electricity usage? Per capita, it’s about double Sweden or USA, but electricity for consumers isn’t cheap. Is a lot being sold at a steep discount to particular industries? Or is there a huge dependence on resistive heating or? https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC
- progre 5y agoI think being #7 on this list has something to do with it https://www.nationmaster.com/nmx/ranking/aluminum-production https://www.nationmaster.com/nmx/ranking/aluminum-production