Guest “Irony can be so ironic” by David Middleton
Norway Announces Record Oil & Gas Revenues in 2021
January 14, 2022 by David NikelHome » News from Norway » Norway Announces Record Oil & Gas Revenues in 2021
In spite of the climate crisis, Norway’s love affair with petroleum seems to be continuing. Never before has the country enjoyed such high revenue from its oil and gas industry.
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said 2021 had been a “great year” for oil and gas in Norway. Oil and gas production has remained high as both demand and prices have increased.
The news was announced by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate’s Ingrid Sølvberg at the presentation of their annual resorts. As pointed out by our friends at the Barents Observer, “she did not mention the word ‘climate’ even once.”
It’s the latest chapter in Norway’s very visible conflict between its desire to be a leader in the green shift while remaining one of the world’s biggest producers of oil and gas.
Norway’s oil and gas industry in numbers
In the final quarter of 2021, Norway’s oil and gas exports reached more than NOK 100 billion (USD $11.5 billion) per month. That’s almost three times more than in the same period the previous year.
Production of oil in 2021 increased to 102 million standard cubic meters and natural gas to 113 billion cubic meters. Norway has now extracted approximately half of all oil and gas resources available on the Norwegian continental shelf.
[…]
Life in Norway
Irony #1
Despite racking up $11.5 billion/month in oil & gas export revenue, Norwegians pay more for gasoline than almost every other nation on Earth.
Irony #2
In part, due to exorbitant gasoline prices, EV sales are booming in Norway, particularly Tesla vehicles manufactured in Red China.
January 03, 2022 09:53 AM
EV sales rose 48% in Norway last year, led by Tesla
Electric cars made up nearly two thirds of overall registrations
Reuters
OSLO — Sales of electric cars in Norway rose by 48 percent last year, ensuring that almost two out of every three new vehicles were battery powered and making Tesla the top selling brand.
Seeking to become the first nation to end the sale of gasoline and diesel cars by 2025, oil-producing Norway exempts full-electric vehicles from taxes imposed on models using internal combustion engines.
Tesla took an 11.5 percent share of the overall car market, making it the number one brand for the first time on a full-year basis ahead of Volkswagen with 9.4 percent.
The U.S. automaker on Sunday reported record quarterly deliveries that far exceeded Wall Street estimates, riding out global chip shortages as it ramped up China production.
[…]
Automotive News Europe
Norway compensates for the exorbitant gasoline prices by massively subsidizing EV purchases.
The Norwegian EV incentives:
* No purchase/import taxes (1990-)
* Exemption from 25% VAT on purchase (2001-)
* No annual road tax (1996-2021). Reduced tax from 2021. Full tax from 2022..
* No charges on toll roads or ferries (1997- 2017).
* Maximum 50% of the total amount on ferry fares for electric vehicles (2018-)
* Maximum 50% of the total amount on toll roads (2019)
* Free municipal parking (1999- 2017)
* Parking fee for EVs was introduced locally with an upper limit of a maximum 50% of the full price (2018-)
* Access to bus lanes (2005-).
* New rules allow local authorities to limit the access to only include EVs that carry one or more passengers (2016)
* 50 % reduced company car tax (2000-2018). Company car tax reduction reduced to 40% (2018-) and 20 percent from 2022.
* Exemption from 25% VAT on leasing (2015)
* Fiscal compensation for the scrapping of fossil vans when converting to a zero-emission van (2018)
[…]
The progressive tax system makes most EV models cheaper to buy compared to a similar petrol model, even if the import price for EVs are much higher. This is the main reason why the Norwegian EV market is so successful compared to any other country.
Norwegian EV policy
Irony #3
Norway’s EV subsidies are funded by oil & gas export revenue and are not even close to “carbon neutral.”
Norway an EV role model? Their pathway is expensive and paid for with oil & gas exports
June 4, 2021 by Schalk Cloete
Norway is an EV leader thanks to a generous pot of tax incentives. Today, battery-electric cars make up more than half of all new car sales in Norway. Schalk Cloete takes a detailed look at what those incentives cost, and how many tonnes of CO2 they avoid. In short, Norway – a major oil and gas exporter – needs to sell over 100 barrels of oil (which emits 40 tonnes of CO2) to pay for the tax breaks it gives EVs to avoid one tonne of CO2. And Norway’s electricity is almost completely clean thanks to hydro power, so the CO2 avoidance costs will be higher in other countries. In other words, most countries cannot take this pathway to achieve EV dominance. It’s very expensive, and paying for it – certainly in Norway’s case – emits large amounts of carbon. Cloete is therefore very critical of some of the hype around EV targets. He wants to see the emphasis shift to behaviour change that reduces car use. And instead of being an EV leader, Norway should consider being a leader in turning oil and gas into low-carbon fuels.
I love living in Norway. It’s a beautiful country with nothing other than the weather to complain about. But this Nordic dream comes with a sizable oil stain; a foundation built on 50 years of lucrative hydrocarbon exports.
From official data, I estimate that Norway has sold fossil fuels amounting to roughly 44 billion barrels of oil equivalent – a CO2 legacy in the vicinity of 15 gigatons. Norwegian production costs are attractively low, so we can reasonably assume a profit of $23/barrel to reach a cool $1 trillion in historical cumulative hydrocarbon profit (resource rent, to be more precise).
[…]
CO2 avoidance costs
The best thing about BEVs in Norway is that electricity comes almost completely from clean hydropower. This means that BEV emissions relative to conventional cars come only from battery manufacturing.
…paid for by selling barrels of oil
[See graph below]
From the above graph, a BEV like the ID4 with an 80 kWh battery will avoid about 15 tons of CO2 relative to an HEV when electricity emits no CO2 (zero well-to-tank fuel cycle emissions for the BEV). Relative to a PHEV, the saving is about 6 tons of CO2.
Hence, in total, the CO2 avoidance cost of incentivising people to buy the ID4 in Norway is $36,500/15 = $2,400/ton relative to the RAV4 and $23,300/6 = $3,900/ton relative to the RAV4 Prime.
For perspective, each barrel of oil that Norway sells to help finance these large tax breaks emits about 0.43 tons of CO2 upon use. Making the $2,400 required to avoid one ton of CO2 with the ID4 at the previously assumed resource rent of $23/barrel requires the sale of 104 barrels (45 tons of CO2). Relative to the RAV4 Prime, it comes to 73 tons of oil CO2 per ton of CO2 avoided. These numbers reveal the Norwegian BEV revolution to be little more than a band-aid on a 50-year oil legacy.
[…]
EnergyPostEU
Schalk Cloete is a fan of EV’s, he’s a “research scientist dedicated to sustainable development” and he supports decarbonizing Norway’s oil & gas exports. I haven’t checked his numbers (nor do I have time to do so); but they don’t seem unreasonable. If he is correct, Norway’s EV subsidies result in the export of 45 to 73 tons of CO2 emissions for every 1 ton of avoided domestic emissions.
This works for Norway. They have abundant cheap ($0.14/kWh) electricity due to their world class hydroelectric resources and infrastructure. They have world class oil oil & gas resources; which they efficiently exploit. They have a relatively small population. They can probably afford to do this for many more years to come.
Is natural gas petroleum? Generally no, although it is usually associated with petroleum.
Petroleum is defined as:
A broadly defined class of liquid hydrocarbon mixtures. Included are crude oil, lease condensate, unfinished oils, refined products obtained from the processing of crude oil, and natural gas plant liquids. Note: Volumes of finished petroleum products include non hydrocarbon compounds, such as additives and detergents, after they have been blended into the products.
EIA
I would have captioned the graph as “Actual and projected sale of oil & gas 1971‐2022.”
Is it hypocritical for Norway to export 45 to 73 tons of CO2 emissions for every 1 ton of avoided domestic emissions? No. It’s just good business – for Norway. This model won’t work very well for the rest of the European EV bandwagon.
Is it ironic? Fracking A it is!
Irony can be so ironic!
Is it hilarious that climate alarmists and social justice warriors are stupid enough to think that Norway is saving the planet? Frack yeah!
Addendum: Norway 2019 Export Revenue
| Billions | % | ||
| Crude Oil | $ 29.6 | 43% | |
| Natural Gas | $ 23.0 | 34% | |
| Refined Petroleum Products | $ 6.1 | 9% | 86% |
| Fresh Fish | $ 6.8 | 10% | |
| Raw Aluminum | $ 2.9 | 4% | |
| Total | $ 68.5 | 100% |
EXACTLY my point! All of this renewable stuff, from wind and solar to hybrid vehicles, it all is done on the shoulders of fossil fuels. None of it can be done without fossil fuels. Only fossil fuels can make it happen. In fact, it takes more fossil fuels than would be used than without renewables.
so, are the natives complaining about EVs in a cold climate?
Not when they’re locked in their houses…
No problem
That they can still work when it was cold was never the point.
The fact remains that the amount of energy you can get out of a battery drops rapidly as it gets cold, which results in an equivalent drop in range.
In addition, batteries can’t be charged when they get below freezing.
I drive a Ford PHEV and it’s true that the range drops as much as 50% when it gets cold. But that’s due mainly to the heater drawing huge amounts of electricity from the battery. The new Nissan Leaf will be equipped with a heat pump and one European manufacturer is working on accessing the battery heat to warm the car’s interior. We’re making progress.
Virtue signaling on steroids
Petrodollar sugar high….with a plug
Sep 2021 : Norwegian Yara International, the world’s largest fertilizer company which with Cargill, controls the world fertilizer made from natural gas, announced cuts in production of ammonia by 40%.
Something does not add up…
Everything adds up…
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/norway-s-yara-reduces-ammonia-production-due-to-rising-natural-gas-prices-271631868965#:~:text=Yara%20International%20ASA%20on%20Friday,high%20prices%20are%20hurting%20margins.
Yara can’t control natural gas prices.
Yara needs Norwegian gas, right? Why the crazy exposure to EU or international prices? They are not EU, just like Switzerland EEA. Is this the reason for the disaster?
Where are Yara’s plants located? The vast majority aren’t in Norway.
https://www.yara.com/where-we-operate/
Natural gas isn’t fungible. The price is tied to delivery systems. The Yara fertilizer plants are stuck with whatever the local natural gas price is.
Got it!. Seems the ‘local’ gas prices are indeed global…
I wonder where Yara and Cargill pay tax, if at all…
It depends where “local” is. And how dependent “local” is on imported LNG.
One here in Western Australia in the Pilbara, close to the natural gas supply.
For fertilizer production as for e.g. AddBlue, rocketing gas prices in the EU have caused production cuts, as it seems higher costs can’t be transferred to the customers; guess this is the same for a Norwegian producer
Quote:”controls the world fertilizer made from natural gas, announced cuts in production of ammonia by 40%.
That’s absolutely No Problem.
Hopefully you can see the rather low quality image I’ve put up showing UK farm prices for Ammonium Nitrate (AN) have gone up 182% since this time last year
So will it still be no problemo when farmers reduce their usage of AN by over 50% and thus grow 50% less food, sugar basically.
Will things still be “Better Than Ever” and ‘on the up‘ “?
They might actually be because peeps will then be forced to eat something other than, and healthier than, sugar – such as cardboard, paper, sand & rocks – there nothing more unhealthy than sugar
And the reduced AN usage will cause a decrease in the rise of atmospheric CO2 – a *real* decrease that might (if the whole world followed suit) actually register on the Keeling Curve
funny ol’ world innit
edit to “Oh God, the picture’s crap”
Go here instead:
https://ahdb.org.uk/GB-fertiliser-prices
…then be forced to eat something…
Who does anyone think they are to force-feed voters?
Instead feed these Afghan’s now on the verge of starvation, 10 million youth.
Facing Economic Collapse, Afghanistan Is Gripped by Starvation
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/04/world/asia/afghanistan-starvation-crisis.html
Nobody is force feeding anyone. They are “forced” to eat or die of starvation.
Afghanistan is completely irrelevant. Ask Brandon, he caused the problem.
Eh, I thought Bush invaded Afghanistan, and it festered for 20 years, and the US lost the war?
Biden opposed the ‘surge’. Trump ended the debacle.
Now genocide by starvation is the game in town, for the entire world to see! The US better save itself, fast!
Ask Trump, he caused the withdrawal to happen starting 12 months before Brandon came into WH and agreed non belligerent status with the Taleban in his Doha peace treaty. Supposed to be a reconciliation with Kabul puppet government but Trump never made that happen as Kabul wouldnt play along.
Trump even publicly said for Biden to hurry up his delayed withdrawal
This lie certainly is persistent.
Trump did sign a document that specified that the US was going to pull out.
However that document was full of timetable and goals that the both the US and the Afghan government had to meet before each step of the pullout.
It was Biden, and Biden alone who decided to dump all of that in the rubbish and just pull everyone out as fast as he could. It was Biden that decided we had to abandon the air base and all of the equipment.
“It was Biden, and Biden alone who decided to dump all of that in the rubbish and just pull everyone out as fast as he could. It was Biden that decided we had to abandon the air base and all of the equipment.”
Yes, it’s all on Biden. Trump’s plan would not have turned Afghanistan over to the Taliban. Biden didn’t have a plan, all he did was order the military to withdraw as soon as possible and damn the consequences. This is what appeasers do.
And now we have new reporting saying the Inspector General of the military warned Biden of the collapse of the Afghan military if the U.S. withdrew abruptly.
So Biden knew the consequences of his order, and he didn’t give a damn. He had no problem sentencing 25 million Afghans to starvation and slavery and death.
Biden, over the years of his being in political office, has literally ruined the lives of tens of millions of people with his stupid, delusional decisions, from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan. Biden is getting right up there with Stalin, and Mao, and Pol Pot, on the scale of human misery caused.
Let the Taliban feed the people of Afghanistan. If they can’t, the natives will wipe them out.
Hmmm, I doubt it. More like another Cambodia.
I thought the saying was that nobody could conquer Afghanistan? That should include a fanatic group of their own people. The Cambodian peasants were not so well armed.
“I thought the saying was that nobody could conquer Afghanistan?”
That’s the usual lie put out by those who don’t want to fight in Afghanistan in an effort to discourage such things.
Afghanistan can be conquered if the right approach is taken. Start off by not allowing the Taliban to have a safe haven in Pakistan to turn to when things get too hot for them in Afganistan.
You won’t win the battle if you allow your enemies to run away to fight another day. Because ruthless leaders, sitting in their safe haven, just recruit more cannon fodder from the ranks and sends them back into the battle. This kind of activity can go on for years and years depending on how many military-age recruits you have. It was claimed that the North Vietnamese military had been so depleted by the war that they were putting 15-year-old boys into the fighting line at the end of the war.
And that’s what American military policy has been for many decades (Vietnam and Afghanistan). The U.S. military didn’t choose to do it this way, they were forced to allow safe havens by ignorant politicians. If left up to the U.S. miliary, the battle would be over very much sooner than when the politicians are running things because the military would attack and eliminate the safe havens and the leaders residing there.
Politicians don’t think about how best to carry out a military operation. Their focus in on the next election. So we get idiots like Joe Biden calling the military shots. A recipe for disaster.
70% of all the calories consumed on Earth are sugars. They are cheap and filling. Protein is expensive and relies on sugars to grow (cows, pigs, pork). Want to see mass revolution? Let people start getting hungry on a large scale.
protein for most of the world comes from potatoes,cereals and grains. meat eating on a large scale is a western thing, indeed feeding animals grains is a very american thing
Meat eating on a large scale is a wealth thing. Everywhere.
Protein deficiency AND/OR morbid obesity is what comes from using potatoes and grains for the source of all or nearly all one’s protein.*
So, yeah, being healthy is, indeed, a very American (and all other free market/wealthy countries) thing.
And everywhere you find wealth, you will find that the fossil fuel industry is directly traceable as the controlling, ultimate, cause.
God, bless the fossil fuel industry!💖
****************************************************
*POTATOES
2/3 cup = ~2g protein (20.1 g carbs) (Source: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/potatoes )
RDA for 180 lb. adult = ~ 2.3 ounces (Source: https://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-2018/protein-needs-fd.html )
= ~ 65 g per day/~2g = ~ 33 (servings @2/3 cup)
33 x 2/3 = 22 cups (@16 cups/gallon) = ~ 1.4 gallons (5.3 L) of potatoes PER DAY.
33 x 20.1 carbs = 660 g CARBS
RICE
1 cup 1(28.7 g carbs) = 2.4 g protein = ~5% RDA (Source: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318699#nutrition )
~20 cups = RDA (about 1.25 (4.7 L) gallons of rice PER DAY)
57 g CARBS
(and no fruits, vegetables, or other carbs, else even MORE carbs with very little protein added)
WHEAT
~4.7 oz. of wheat/cup – 3.5 oz./~3/4 cup (72 g carbs) wheat flour = ~13 g protein (Source: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/wheat#nutrition )
13 g x 5 = RDA, 5 servings @ ¾ c.
About 1 c. per loaf of bread, so, about ¾ of a loaf of bread per ¾ c. x 5 = 3.75 loaves of bread EVERY DAY
72 x 5 servings = 360 g CARBS
********************************************
1 can of Coke Classic ~ 40 g carbs
Atkins diet recommended carbs per day = 15-20 g
*********************************************
EGG
1 egg = 6 g protein
~11 eggs for RDA
BEEF, CHICKEN, TURKEY, LAMB
7g/oz. (Source: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/bariatrics/_documents/nutrition_protein_content_common_foods.pdf ) x 3 = 2.1 oz. , so, about 3.5 oz (~100g) of meat = 2.3oz/65g
Looks like Norway has decided to lead the way into the future: I’m a radical environmentalist from Norway and I will save the planet from Capitalists. PS, my position is for sale, you know, like to Capitalists who make and distribute EV’s.
Norway has cheap electricity. Norway’s oil & gas revenue will eventually dry up. Spend the oil & gas money to electrify ground transportation. It only sounds stupid when “climate change/crisis/emergency” is inserted into the logical equation.
Could be the real reason Tesla’s Gigafactory, next to VW , Germany, got the market cross-hair.
See also: Saudi Arabia.
See Lt. Commander Data…
See him laughing at you…
Once they get enough people into EV, so that it is too late anyone to change his mind, new taxes on those EV vehicles will more than make up for the revenue lost to low gasoline sales.
Someone has to pay the road taxes to pay for all that petroleum-based pavement. Add time lags to the other thing forgotten in the modern era together with (climate) cycles.
If my memory serves Norway has a slowly declining native population, like the rest of the Western Europe, due to below replacement reproduction birth rates, and low economic growth, so no need to build new hydroelectric facilities in the future to supply new power for consumer or commercial sectors.
North Sea Oil and Gas Is by far Norway’s biggest industry. The money from oil and gas exports goes into a sovereign wealth fund.
Note the $6.8 Billion per annum in Aquaculture off shore salmon culture and harvesting exports to supply protein to the world. Norway is one of the world leaders in this business. SALMAR ASA is a private corporation in salmon aquaculture.
https://710keel.com/exxon-announces-net-zero-carbon-climate-plan/
They’re just referring to Scope 1 & 2 emissions… A relatively easy accomplishment, even for ExxonMobil.
Makes sense, thanks, but they still knew, have another example of a poorly researched media piece. https://getpocket.com/explore/item/a-century-of-tragedy-how-the-car-and-gas-industry-knew-about-the-health-risks-of-leaded-fuel-but?utm_source=pocket-newtab
The fact that the inventor of leaded fuel, died of lead poisoning, should have been a clue… 😉
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/leaded-gas-poison-invented-180961368/
Who is mad enough to buy an EV in a country as cod as Norway? You would need a proper car as well for in the winter.
‘Electric vehicles accounted for nearly two-thirds of all new car sales in Norway this past year, according to newly published data from the country’s Road Federation. In 2021, Norwegian dealerships sold 176,276 cars, 65 percent of which were EVs. That’s an 11 percentage point increase from the year prior when they accounted for 54 percent of all new car sales.’
Just goes to show that if you subsidize something enough, people will buy it.
How many other countries can afford the huge subsidies that Norway is using?
Griff the entire point of the article above is not denying Norway is buying a lot of EVs, its pointing out they are doing so because its massively subsidized and that the money for the subsidies comes from oil and gas revenues.
Otherwise they absolutely could not afford this.
Oil and gas can do everything.
Reading comprehension not your strong point hey Griff … EV sales on the back of Fossil Fuel money 🙂
You need fossil fuels to make the iron in irony. How great is that?
+42×1042
Apologize for an off topic remark, but this is the response I received from a NASA Facebook page Administrator regarding the ability for the average of a series of measurements to have more precision than the individual measurement instruments. Apparently, you can use a meter stick to measure the width of a human hair.
“…repeating measurements adds accuracy. The more observations that are used, the greater the accuracy as the larger number of observations reduces the error due to the averaging process.
For example, suppose you have a single thermometer or temperature-reading device with an accuracy of 0.1°C. Then for that measurement the best accuracy we can have is 0.1°C. However, if we want to determine the average measurement of 10 different measurements, each using the same device, the error becomes the error of the average, i.e., the square root of the additive sums of each error measurement, divided by the number of measurements. For 10 observations, that turns out to be again 0.1°C. If we increase the number of measurements to 100, the error margin drops to 0.0316 ( = ((0.1*100)^0.5)/100). With a thousand measurements, it drops to 0.01. With 10 thousand measurements it drops to 0.00316, and so on.
The Global Historical Climatology Network integrates daily climate measurements from over 100,000 locations around the world. Ocean surface floats like the Global Drifter Program employ over 1,400 devices across the world’s oceans to take similar climate measurements. Additionally, the 3,800 ARGO free-drifting floats profile climate measurements of the world’s oceans from the surface down to 2,000+ meters depths. Lastly, an array of satellites measure sea surface temperatures and other climate measurements from orbit, providing global swath coverage around the clock. Ships are still used to obtain temperature measurements throughout their voyages, augmenting the data provided from the other sources.
For the purposes of comparing annual anomalies from specific years, NASA’s GISS ranks those comparisons based on the 2nd decimal place (hence 2018 being tied with 2021 for the 6th-warmest year since 1880).”
So if I average millions of measurements with an Optical microscope, I will eventually reach the accuracy or precision of an Electron microscope?
Considering the sheer precision of the NASA JWST telescope mirror actuators (7 per segment), it sure looks like something just does not add up!
I’ve been thinking about buying a micrometer, I don’t need to now because my vernier will do the same.
Except the “Error of the Average” only works when you repeat the measurement of some quantity X #times. In words, the error in the estimated mean is equal to the error in each individual measurement X divided by the square root of the number of times the measurement was repeated.
Doesn’t work when measuring different somethings.
or using different instruments or measuring something that keeps changing
Only if you are measuring the same thing multiple times with the same device and only if the measurements form a Gaussian distribution. Temperature measurements are never the same thing. Measurements from different ships are never the same device.
Again, only if you are measuring the same thing. It depends “random errors” forming a a Gaussian distribution around the “true value” of the “same thing”. 10 measurements scattered at different times can’s possibly be construed as the same things.
“Math is hard”
Barbie
“this is the response I received from a NASA Facebook page Administrator regarding the ability for the average of a series of measurements to have more precision than the individual measurement instruments”
That looks a lot like arguments I’ve seen being made around here.
Zeke Hausfather is (in)famous for promoting this particular stupidity. He is the very definition of invincible ignorance on this topic.
Please note that any improvement in accuracy is derived by using only one device at only one location for all measurements used in the averaging. This is just NASA smoke and mirrors.
Norway has stashed it’s North Sea gains in a sovereign wealth fund.
The UK didn’t…
“Nicola Sturgeon has ended months of speculation by announcing that the Cambo oilfield should not go ahead. “
Norway 2 : 0 UK
I wonder if that is an anti-London thing? Apparently England reaps the North Sea benefit, not Scotland. Something reeks of crude here….
The dash for gas etc got rid of the coal mines.
All those benefits etc cost a lot of money. The T shirts worn by policemen declared Arthur Scargill is paying my mortgage.
Looks like Thatcher’s work…
ASPOM
Arthur Scargill Pays Our Mortgages
also –
Avon & Somerset Police Operation Miners.
The latter might have been for the Press, then only considerably anti-Law and Order,
Auto
The only number that matters to AGW lunatics is the national CO2 emissions number. All other numbers don’t have to add up.
Same here in canada. We could dramatically accelerate LNG production and ramp down world CO2 numbers (the only thing that supposedly matters) and yet they fight LNG tooth and nail as it will increase our minuscule emissions here in canada.
All wrong
All stupid
all the time.
And yet, when it suits them, they don’t. In Oz we get slammed because we export coal to places like India and China. They get a completely free pass when they burn that coal. Go figure.
Hello from Norway! I can assure you, our AGW lunatics are just as bad as everywhere else. But the hypocrisy takes a different shape here because of the special situation we are in (plenty of hydropower, oil and gas, etc.) It is still important to save the world.
Norway’s hypocrisy has reached new heights!
If their govt was calling for shutting down the oil and gas industry then they are hypocrites
But they are not, they are drilling and pumping and using some of the proceeds to buy EVs as they have lots of cheap electricity to charge them.
I agree with Dave it’s smart policy
It’s not replicable in most of the world but that’s not their problem
Well, two obvious wrongs.. They ARE calling for shutting down the oil and gas industry
And cheap electricity prices are a thing of the past. We now export and are stuck with German prices.
Norway is the Saudi Arabia of Europe . Every Norwegian is a millionaire effectively due to the trillions of dollars in their sovereign wealth fund . Norway is a shining example of what a good socialist government looks like . Not only do they have no reservations about being one of the worlds top oil producers , drilling higher into the arctic than anyone , but they even have a government subsidized whaling industry . They could care less what anyone else thinks . He who makes the gold rules . Its good to be Norwegian
Sounds like Norway adopts a “Trumpian” approach to managing their country for the benefit of their citizens rather than a socialist model.
“Make Norway Great Still”?
Like trump , Norway goes its own way . No regard for the EU . Doesn’t accept poor immigrants , but makes big contributions to refugee camps . Protective of its culture . With a population less than NYC they can afford to share theIr wealth among all Norwegians . It’s good to be Norwegian
Bollocks – No regards for the EU??? We (Norway) are the most EU compliant country in the world. (Yes, that seems like utter madness as we are not a member, but here we are)
Goverment subsidized whaling industy? BS
super easy to fact check with google . not hard to find info about norwegian whaling industry .
Norwegians pay more for gasoline than almost every other nation on Earth.
Yes, but as so many of them drive EVs…
Like most socialists, griff is willing to do anything to force people to behave as he wants.
Griff, that ‘whooshing’ is the sound of this entire article going over your head. Given the usual relevance of your links to your arguments, I’m not surprised at your reading comprehension levels, though.
They can afford to with all the money selling gas to the world has put in their pockets
They are actually driving petrodollars with a plug on the side of it.
Hypocrisy
I will not defens our national policies on EVs. But this piece, and most of the comments, show you don’t know Norway.
Yes, our oil and gas revenues cover a lot of costs in our society. We actually take care of everyone. Yes, we could do netter but we don’t take criticism from the US on this.
The reason for EV subsidier is that they would be way too expensive without. The price of a new car in Norway is 50% taxes. By removing taxes on EVs they become relatively cheap.
The cost of fuel is 70-80% taxes. Right now, part of Norway has electricity cost of around 15-25 cents per kWh, as opposed to the more normal 2-3 cents. Our society is electrified like very few other on this planet, ameaning most can charge cars at Home. That gives very low cost of operation.
Our total energy consumption is 70% renewable, since we have abundant hydropower. But in the eyes of the greens, the politicians and capitalists of the EU we should not have the benefit of our own resources. And our politicians tjink it is very clever to fins the most expensive solutions without asking the benefit.
Typical socialist, has absolutely no knowledge of economics, and approves of what ever the government decides to do.
Taxes make up 50% of the price of a new car. Therefore removing that tax from EV’s to make them cheap is a good thing.
Cost of fuel is 70 to 80% taxes, therefore using electricity that isn’t taxed as much is a good thing.
Whatever kind of society Norway happens to be:
https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/norway/
suggests that they as Norwegians are pretty happy with it.
As a result, it’s not for you to comment on it, until such a time as they either come begging to the IMF for money.
If the USA could focus far more on its own crass domestic problems, the world would be a much better, much safer and much happier place.
Save all that money on the military bases the world doesn’t want but the USA demands to have for a start.
Remove the right of politicians to receive campaign contributions from US arms manufacturers second-off.
And explain how hyper-wealth of billionaires ‘trickles down’ to all the homeless, how human dignity comes from being banned from taking comfort breaks at work due to edicts of US billionaires etc etc.
Economics is theoretical alchemy.
Real world evidence is real world evidence.
You saying that low taxes brings ‘prosperity’ needs to be tested in the crucible of the 40% least well off…..it certainly creates obscene wealth for the fortunate…..
I more or less included all of this in the post. The post wasn’t intended as a criticism of Norway. It highlighted the irony in funding EV subsidies with oil & gas export revenue, while literally exporting their CO2 emissions as well.
As I noted in a previous comment: If you take “climate change/crisis/emergency” out of the equation, it actually makes sense.
Your post is mostly BS. Only 14 % of Norways GDP is from oil and gas (2019), so, 86% of the EV funding is non-oil&gas.
The gas exports is >1100 TWh/yr. Each KWh cuts around 0.5 kg CO2 emissions in EU and elsewhere because it replaces coal. That’s 0.55 Gt/yr CO2 reduction. In addition, this makes the EU not totally dependant on mr. Putin.
Firstly, your comment is a Red Herring Fallacy. Even if correct, it doesn’t refute anything I posted.
Secondly, the post was not intended as criticism of Norway. Norway’s oil and gas exports are good business. Taking advantage of abundant, inexpensive hydroelectric power and oil & gas export revenue to electrify Norway’s ground transportation makes a lot of sense. It’s simply ironic that the oil exports yield 45 to 73 tons of ultimate CO2 emissions for every 1 ton of emissions averted via adoption of EV’s.
However, take away 14% of any nation’s GDP and they aren’t likely to be able to cover mandatory obligations, much less discretionary spending.
No, your and Cloetes 45 to 73 tons is a red Herring. There is no link to the 1 ton. You are trying to make the impression there are tens of tons emitted to avert one ton of emissions. How many tons of fish or aluminium do we have to export? Those productions also have CO2 emissions.
The original argument can’t be a Red Herring. It’s in the definition of Red Herring Fallacy.
The link is that Norway couldn’t afford to subsidize EV’s, or do much of anything else, without its oil & gas export revenue.
https://oec.world/en/profile/country/nor#:~:text=Exports%20The%20top%20exports%20of,and%20France%20(%246.58B).
The relationship between exported CO2 emissions from oil & gas and averted CO2 emissions from EV’s is simply ironic. Irony is nether good or bad… It’s just ironic.
86% of Norway’s export revenue comes from oil & gas.
86% of the top 5 exports. Read what you link.
It’s 54% of total exports, but that too is a red herring.
In 2019 total revenue to the state of Norway was 1430 bill NOK, 313 of that from oil and gas, that’s 22%.
And again, the gas exports reduces the global emissions.
Even a television detective can’t solve every mystery.
Having abundant hydropower is all about luck of the draw with geology and geography, and good for you.
Here in Canada Quebec has the same geographic advantage but they endlessly preen about virtue instead of making money while the sun shines, like in 2021 they unilaterally cancelled the idea of LNG, because there will be no market for natural gas in Europe (a Griff-like level understanding of economics and energy supply).
Canada = Stupid.
I wish we had politicians with even 1/10th the brain power of Norway. Instead we have mr Socks for Prime minister.
With trillions in profit and huge gov surpluses why does Norway need to tax its citizens so heavily ? Doesn’t make sense ? Norway is one of The most expensive countries in the world to live in so maybe everybody is so highly paid they are alright with high taxes . But again I dont understand why the gov needs it ?
So that the gov can take care of the basics like school, health, communications, and the people can focus on more interesting things. Much like the US army, just less socialist 🙂
The rest of the world is able to provide those same things without taxing the people to death.
But ‘those same things’ are still being paid for by the people, and they are often not provided to the poor.
still don’t understand why , with trillions of dollars in fossil fuel profits in a country with very small population they can’t use that money for gov projects instead of using very high taxes .
If it’s spent on gov projects the inflation rises and the value of the money evaporates, and most norwegians agree the 100 mill yr old resources do not belong only to the present population, rather several future generations too.
Ah yes, the old everything belongs to government school of communism.
Your knowledge of reality is severely lacking. No wonder you think government actually does a better job of providing things.
If you think schooling is not provided by government, you have never studied anything deeper than your navel.
I don’t know of any 1st or 2nd world country that doesn’t provide health care to the poor.
If you think there is no difference between buying something for yourself and having government buy it for you, then there is no hope left for you.
Norway’s relatively cheap electric power is indeed the key to successful EV rollout. It’s rather a clever strategy. First, because greens/lefties don’t do the kind of analysis re CO2 done in this article. They are moved by ‘feelings’ and spinnable optics.
The China example shows us this – despite being the worlds largest emitter of fossil fuel CO2, they enjoy the admiration of the rest of the world greenies, who even extol their totalitarian model as the way to go politically. China has already achieved the political nirvana sought by EU, UK/Commonwealth, and US ‘Democrats’.
Norway, like China, can even chide the European climate laggards with impunity with their EV plan. There is no question that UK and other European countries have, somewhere on their minds, the Norwegian/China model, and ultimately they will produce frack gas and oil and increasingly coal. How can we be confident of this? Because it’s there!
Remind me, what are they paying for their Teslas?
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003397325417.html
For city centres and urban areas clean vehicles are a blessing. Both EV and clean diesel qualify. And as for the remaining oil and gas reserves,once advanced fracking is put to the test they may prove substantially higher.
Does anyone know the total registered vehicle count in Norway over time? Adding EVs as opposed to replacing other types of vehicles only increases the vehicle count and demand for more garage space. This amounts to channeling the oil wealth in a particular direction alongside other uses of that wealth.
Annual passenger vehicle sales (1990-2020)…
https://carsalesbase.com/norway-car-sales-data/
Passenger vehicle stock (2009-2020)…
https://www.statista.com/statistics/452433/norway-number-of-registered-passenger-cars/#:~:text=The%20stock%20of%20passenger%20cars,were%20registered%20in%20the%20country.
Still 85% of vehicles on the road in Norway are ICE so EVs have not reached critical mass yet when the whole strategy implodes
It might actually work in Norway… Cheap electricity.
In the debate over national climate policy desires versus hard cash income from sales of petroleum and natural gas, the old adage is as true as it ever was: Follow the money!
Norwegian state oil and gas profits are invested abroad and are not used to cover the state budget. This to avoid economic distortion. So Norwegians pay substantial taxes despite the oil profits. For Oslo and surroundings clean air is a blessing for more remote areas EV is not a logical choice.
I’m concerned about the thought processes of those who continue to cling to their climate change rhetoric in the face of evidentiary proof against them. Obviously, their mission is not about the climate, but about the money.
Money, power and control.
All three are interrelated: Got one, you’ve got the other two. Fungible is the word.
Fungible means mutually interchangeable with money. Gold is fungible. Crude oil is fungible. Pipeline gas and LNG are not fungible.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fungibility.asp
LNG can’t be “mutually substituted” for pipeline natural gas.
Actually, the concept of fungibility is not restricted to money or commodities; most dictionaries provide for many variations. It can be pretty much anything that can be swapped around in relation to other things. In my example, if you have any one of the three (money, power or control) you can leverage that one thing into possession of the other two.
Leverage and fungibility are effectively antonyms.
Natural gas can be leveraged as LNG. It can’t be “mutually substituted” for LNG.
David, I’m sorry I started this thing with a flippant comment. Anyway, I’m pretty sure Russian natural gas can be substituted for U.S. LNG in the EU natural gas market.
If Russian pipeline gas could be substituted for US LNG, Europe wouldn’t have to import US LNG. That said, the prices of imported Russian pipeline line gas and imported US LNG track each other. In that sense, they are fungible. Both are around $30/mmBTU. Pipeline natural gas in the US is around $4/mmBTU. Even though both pipeline delivered gasses are essentially the same product, they aren’t fungible.
While crude oil prices vary by region and benchmark, WTI and Brent are effectively fungible. Brent trades at a small premium to WTI. Before the shale boom WTI traded at a slight premium.
What happened to free enterprise and free markets, the left call capitalism?
Even Russia and China have adopted “capitalism” after realising that the USA became a wealthy nation based on free enterprise, of course controlled and managed, notably for comrades in China and other citizens need not apply to participate.
Without the government subsidies of taxpayer’s monies and other incentives how many EV would have been sold there? Given the number sold and government interference the golden rule of free enterprise, let the markets decide and choose winners and losers, has been abandoned, a recipe for economic instability in the longer term.
I own a Diesel engine SUV 4WD 2017 model purchased new, serviced in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions on time every 10,000 Km, it complies to Euro 5 emissions standard and I use two additives to reduce particulate building up in the exhaust system and another to clean injectors and fuel lines, I have a secondary diesel fuel filter installed to protect against poor quality fuel in remote areas.
The vehicle does not exhaust dark emissions and the exhaust pipe has no significant coating of carbon deposits or oil.
My point is that correctly maintained modern technology engines produce acceptably low emissions.
Now due for 110,000 Km service.
Australia sells coal to other countries and gets a caning, Norway sells gas and oil across the world and what do we hear?, Crickets.
Socialist CO2 is different, causes no problem.
It’s why Venezuela’s heavy oil is blessed but the alberta stuff is pure evil
USAF not about to stop using jet fuel, new storage facility under construction near Darwin NT Australia;
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-19/work-begins-on-us-jet-fuel-facility-outside-darwin/100764194
Norway is playing us for fools, talking up decarbonisation while profiteering off the global shortages. We should tackle them head on, with massive investments in developing new energy fields.
That “Addendum: Norway 2019 Export Revenue” is a lie.
Fossil fuels expands EV take up . Why ?
Because they can afford it and other countries need what they can sell .
Hypocrisy runs riot .
Basically, all but the empty EVs…
Maybe they know CO2 is an irrelevant GHG contrary to the constant media propaganda bombarding us on a daily basis.