111–120 of 172 posts
Norway is perhaps the best run petro state in the history of the world. To avoid Dutch Disease, whereby an economy becomes dependent on a particular commodity, Norway long ago decided to invest its considerable oil wealth in assets located outside of Norway, building a massive sovereign wealth fund that will provide income to Norwegians long after the oil is all gone. Compare this situation to Nigeria, whose similarl…
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Why do you think these things would happen? (Also, how is the military responsible for maintaining law and order?)
The US Navy runs on oil. Without the Navy, say welcome and kneel to large-scale high-seas Piracy, extraordinary human-trafficking, drugs, smuggling, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_usage_of_the_United_Sta... How will cargo ships run without heavy fuel oil ? They are responsible for global trade and keep world-economy and industry running. (Well one solution is nuclear...)
Sails? It might not be as profitable, but I see no reason it can't be done.
Is it just me or is whole "Is Norway the New East India Company?" a absurdly extrema leap of logic? I mean the East India Company caused (as far as I can tell) a extrema degree of damage of which the echos still noticeable affect all of us today and will so in the future, it might even have lead one of the foundation stones which might start WW3 (if a WW3 starts in the not to long future involving China as a major ag…
The analogy is not perfect: it doesn't look like Norway is going to start a war to push its product. But I get the comparison: Norway looks pretty hypocritical here to me.
Could you perhaps describe how rich democracy that both uses and produces oil should behave if it were to be ⓐ not at all hypotcritical ⓑ unremarkably average ⓒ very hypocritical?
You may assume that the there's a spectrum of opinions among the voters on the relevant issues, and ideally that the country has a tradition of choosing policies that suit most voters rather than 50.01%.
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From a game theoretic perspective - fossil fuels will be depleted. Even if the US reduced its consumption to zero, other countries, as independent players that want to maximize their benefit will be glad to take over and enjoy the effects of reduced demand and price. This means that there are two ways to deal with it: 1. Force all countries to reduce use. To make this really worldwide, this can only worked by force,…
I don't think even my great grandchildren would see the end of oil if we were to allow consumption to continue as it is today. There is an immense amount of reserves in the world. That being said, there is the option 4 which the EU and US are talking about right now: economic punishment. Adding a "you don't have a carbon tax" levy on imports is a good way to motivate other countries to adopt technologies and ways of…
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You absolutely don’t need oil to make that. In fact usually it’s made with natural gas. But it’s easy to make hydrogen using water and renewable electricity. That’s what fuels almost all hydrogen vehicles. The university of Minnesota has had a pilot plant for wind to ammonia for over a decade now.
AFAIK China is the world's largest producer of Ammonia (32%. on checking wikipedia). "Most of the ammonia is still coal-fed. China currently accounts for 95% of global ammonia capacity based on coal feedstock. In view of China’s ample coal reserves, coal gasification technologies have been further developed and are now used extensively. Coal-based ammonia capacity represents 86% of total Chinese ammonia capacity" htt…
Green Hydrogen (made from water via electrolysis powered by renewable energy) is the generally accepted solution. You can find EU plans, or various corporate plans to move entirely to that over the coming decades.
There's some discussion about whether the fossil fuel suppliers are funding propaganda to encourage this move and intend to secretly just use fossil sources and release the carbon anyway, but one limit on this dastardly scheme is that renewable created hydrogen will soon be cheaper anyway, and before that governments and corporations can insist on certificates that reflect the chain of custody of the products.
Norway is perhaps the best run petro state in the history of the world. To avoid Dutch Disease, whereby an economy becomes dependent on a particular commodity, Norway long ago decided to invest its considerable oil wealth in assets located outside of Norway, building a massive sovereign wealth fund that will provide income to Norwegians long after the oil is all gone. Compare this situation to Nigeria, whose similarl…
> Compare this situation to Nigeria Not really comparable. Nigeria is in this case more like China during the opium wars - the western companies are taking away their oil from them with bribery, political and economic threats. Just read a bit about how Shell operates there, they have more power than the government.
Shell is going to push its luck as far as it can with every country
The United States is the world's largest producer. Canada is about fourth. Norway is about 11th. The United Kingdom is about 17th. The "Western world" accounts for a bit over 25% of the world's total production. If they all banded together to stop domestic oil production, that could have a big impact. But maybe other countries would just increase production? And maybe higher prices would spur more exploration? I don'…
Norway is perhaps the best run petro state in the history of the world. To avoid Dutch Disease, whereby an economy becomes dependent on a particular commodity, Norway long ago decided to invest its considerable oil wealth in assets located outside of Norway, building a massive sovereign wealth fund that will provide income to Norwegians long after the oil is all gone. Compare this situation to Nigeria, whose similarl…
> Compare this situation to Nigeria Not really comparable. Nigeria is in this case more like China during the opium wars - the western companies are taking away their oil from them with bribery, political and economic threats. Just read a bit about how Shell operates there, they have more power than the government.
That said, it's not only the Westerners screwing over Nigeria. It's also their own rich people screwing them over to get more rich. Nigerian leaders are afraid to go the China route on stamping out corruption because, unlike in China, in Nigeria you can kill the leaders and get new ones.
It's a complex problem, and since Nigeria is the African superpower, there is little that anyone can do about it.
> Moreover, the government has recently decided to expand exploration and production of gas and oil in one of the areas that the very same government acknowledges are most sensitive to climate change — the Arctic Circle. I believe this is the most egregious charge in the article, which turns out to be true https://europeangreens.eu/news/norway-opens-arctic-more-dril...
This is what bothers me about Norway. They have become rich by harvesting abundant natural resources, and now spend that money to try and stop other countries from exploiting their own. It seems hypocritical to me, especially because they present it as being altruistic when they shame poor countries for trying to provide for their people.
Norway is perhaps the best run petro state in the history of the world. To avoid Dutch Disease, whereby an economy becomes dependent on a particular commodity, Norway long ago decided to invest its considerable oil wealth in assets located outside of Norway, building a massive sovereign wealth fund that will provide income to Norwegians long after the oil is all gone. Compare this situation to Nigeria, whose similarl…
> Compare this situation to Nigeria Not really comparable. Nigeria is in this case more like China during the opium wars - the western companies are taking away their oil from them with bribery, political and economic threats. Just read a bit about how Shell operates there, they have more power than the government.
There is so much reward for the winners in these exchanges, that yes they do try different commercial arrangements to make it stick; and that changes over time.
As an American schoolchild we studied Nigeria as a success story and a hopeful future for Americans who wanted a modern stable country in Africa. From what I can tell in passing, the reality is repeatedly short of the lofty goals set long ago. It might be said that there is some responsibility for the sad state of affairs there, with the people who are local and governing, not just the terrible hands of America or Dutch-Royal Shell, right?
-- from the wikipedia EN page on Nigeria:
Ethnocentrism, tribalism, religious persecution, and prebendalism have plagued Nigerian politics both prior and subsequent to independence in 1960. All major parties have practised vote-rigging and other means of coercion to remain competitive.