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Norway is an interesting case because their own energy grid is mostly powered by renewables. However, they export huge amounts of fossil fuels to other countrie
by PragmaticPulp 5y ago
Norway 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...
- tallanvor 5y agoGOs are marketing gimmicks, nothing more. Norway only exports the energy that it doesn't use domestically. Germany is still the one producing the dirty energy, and that's what really counts at the end of the day. --The absurdity of GOs are only highlighted by Iceland selling GOs even though Iceland is obviously not actually exporting the energy.
- whazor 5y agoIt would make more sense to use the fossil fuels in ways that are more sustainable.
- no_butterscotch 5y agoOthers have commented that Norwegians aren't "getting high on their own supply", but it isn't admirable that they're exporting it to countries that use and abuse it while lecturing others on fossil fuels. Not that Norway is alone in this hypocrisy. Other countries nearby such as Sweden for instance with its arms manufacturing industry (instead of oil) while being seen and promoting themselves as super liberal peace-mongers.