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Is Norway the New East India Company?

branko2f7.substack.com

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Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#121

Post by dathinab »

paulddraper wrote: post #100
dathinab wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that we are speaking about a global scale event both "outside the Middle East" and especially "per capita" doesn't matter. Sure it's the 13th biggest oil producer, sure its wealth comes from Oil and Gas but it does try to reduce the impact by trying to reduce the long term global Oil consumption. Do they maybe sometimes also follow other interest, maybe? But does it nullify the point that it tries to long term…

I think you are ignoring some realities if you expect change from the Middle East. The same with expecting the low-per capita producers to change first.

> [..] if you expect change from the Middle East.

That the point, that's why Norway reducing Oil production will make no difference.

> The same with expecting the low-per capita producers to change first.

But what matters is not Oil production (as we can't expect major improvements here due to the point above) but consumption and Norway does invest a lot into improving this internally and externally. And while I don't have any stats I would not be surprised if the per-capita Oil consumption is pretty good on a global ranking.

I mean the fact that Norway not only internally but also externally tries to improve the situation around Oil consumption show that they are not Hypocritical but instead try to balance differently problems in a reasonable way. Sure maybe not perfect, but nothing is really perfect.

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#122

Post by jl2718 »

legutierr wrote: post #90
mikelward wrote: post #14

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'…

> And maybe higher prices would spur more exploration? Absent a global ban of hydrocarbon production and use, which would need to be implemented by every country through universal local enforcement, our only chance to reduce global carbon production is by making hydrocarbons uneconomical to produce and uneconomical to use. You are right, unilaterally cutting production in one region would only move production to anot…

All you have to do is make oil more valuable. There are many options for that. Gold is valuable because it’s a legal form of banking reserve collateral. If the World Bank did that for oil reserves, petro states would lend reserves to banks instead of pumping it out.

But of course this has been tried before, most recently in 2009-2011. I’ll leave the details as an exercise to the reader.

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#123

Post by klunger »

We got click-baited by an interesting headline, friends.

Instead of trying to tackle all the problems with this piece, I will just address the most glaring ones:

1) Norway is a nation, not a company. It does not have maximization of shareholder value as it's primary driving force. Yes, there is the sovereign wealth fund. But, that is about managing the assets that have been collected. It has nothing to say about where the assets come from.

The author conflates these things, when they are completely separate. In fact, the wealth fund is in the process of divesting itself from fossil-fuel related entities. [1]

2) Speaking of Norway being a country -- it has 5 million people and dozens of political parties. Most of those people and political parties do not actually support further north sea exploration [2]. Much like in the US and most other countries I suppose, the actions of the government do not represent the will of the majority of the people.

3) Given that Norway is well aware of the climate crisis, they have spent considerable effort trying to make their economy less dependent on oil. Since 2008 or so, the share of oil as a percentage of total exports has been on the decline [3]. This has been the result of a conscious effort and set of policies to diversify the economy. Norway wants to stop being dependent on oil because they know it is shitty for the climate and it is an economically precarious position to be in.

And yet, this piece suggests Norway should just drop oil all at once and further suggests that it has not made any effort at all to do so in the past. In fact, a lot of money and political will is being exerted into this very endeavor [4]

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-swf-oil-idUSKBN1WG...

[2] https://naturvernforbundet.no/lofoten-vesteralen-og-senja/hv...

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1025405/share-of-crude-o...

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-35318236

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#124

Post by byteman »

lenkite wrote: post #39
mikelward wrote: post #14

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'…

How would you cope with food prices rising 10x in cost ? And the famines ? And the breakdown of law and order accompanied with the failure of most industry and the military. ? Please propose a solution along with your oil-ban utopia.

I find such "pragmatic" viewpoints on climate action quite amusing as in defining what is or isn't feasible, they take social and political aspects as hard constraints but nature forces as negotiable.

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#125

Post by progre »

ptr wrote: post #74
progre wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway has very diffrent terrain from neighbouring Sweden, she is practically all coastline. Not much easily logged forrest, no big lowland plains for large scale farming

Norway has a lot of fishing going on, it was their main export before oil.

True but coastal fishing is all but gone. Now they are competing with Russia, China and Japan on international waters.

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#126

Post by Robotbeat »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #115
lenkite wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't understand how your interesting info about China making Hydrogen from gas (that it makes from coal) supports your point that you need oil to make hydrogen and so if you ban oil (which I don't particularly think we need to do) civilization and specifically farming would collapse? Isn't that a bit melodramatic as well as wrong? Green Hydrogen (made from water via electrolysis powered by renewable energy) is the…

It’s not that secret. fossil fuel companies are pushing “blue hydrogen” (ie regular fossil fuel produced hydrogen plus carbon capture) pretty aggressively. Of course, you can just not do the carbon capture step to save cost, and boom, you’re still using fossil fuels with climate impact just as bad as before.

Anyway, green hydrogen is good, and while it won’t ever be as cheap for vehicles as electrification (and the vehicle costs are higher for fuel cell vehicles, too), it is important for industrial uses of hydrogen, like iron ore reduction to metal and ammonia fertilizer.

There was a time in the 2000s when natural gas based hydrogen was about $2.50/kg. I think we can get green hydrogen down to that level at large scale. Biggest question is really the electrolyzer capital cost as renewable electricity is already cheap enough.

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#127

Post by coldtea »

paulddraper wrote: post #96
coldtea wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Norway is the 13th biggest oil producer in the world So, not in the top-10 even, exactly as the parent noted. And even if they were in, say, fifth place, such a ranking would tell us nothing about their impact, without knowing the distribution. In a top-heavy distribution, for example, if the top 1 makes 10,000 tons and top 5 makes 100 tons for example, it would still be as if the fifth largest produce doesn't matt…

> Why would "per capita" production have any relevance at all? It's incredibly relevant. First, without it you have no good measuring stick. It just all depends on the unit (state, member state, country, nation, union, OPEC) you choose for measurement. Second, and more significantly, changes are more feasible with smaller populations. It's easier for Dublin to make a change than Ireland, and easier for Ireland, than…

>First, without it you have no good measuring stick.

When it comes to climate change impact the measuring stick is "barrels of oil produced".

Per capita doesn't come into play at all.

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#128

Post by lenkite »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #112
lenkite wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...)

> How will cargo ships run without heavy fuel oil ? Sails? It might not be as profitable , but I see no reason it can't be done.

Huh. I thought this was a joke (moving a 100k tonne cargo ship via sail), but apparently there are actually some prototypes. Though its more like Sail assistance than pure sail.

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#129

Post by coldtea »

justinclift wrote: post #101
coldtea wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What major superpower does that remind me of...

All of them? ;)

Not many around. USSR is gone, and China doesn't do this "hollier than thou" facade, plus the prerequisite is that the superpower "now spend that money to try and stop other countries from exploiting their own"

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#130

Post by ridiculous_leke »

sydd wrote: post #104
ttul wrote: post #13

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.

> the western companies are taking away their oil from them with bribery, political and economic threats

Opium wars were a clear blackmail. In this case, corrupt Nigerians are in league with corrupt companies. Not sure if both situations are comparable.

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