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Comment by dx034 | Hacker News Reader

Norway is already ~100% renewable and can produce much more via wind farms. It's likely that soil-less greenhouses in containers could work to provide cheap food for small villages. The systems already exist in Alaska, but Norway should be able to generate even cheaper energy. [1]

[1] http://www.ecowatch.com/two-indoor-farm-startups-stand-up-to...

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~100% renewable is a dangerous half-truth, just 9% of the energy Norwegian consumers use is in reality renewable.

It's true that Norway produces more renewable energy than it uses energy, but since it sells its green power to other countries who pays more for "green power", Norwegian customers actually buy most of the power they consume from non-renewable sources elsewhere.

However, since Norwegian consumers "know" how green Norwegian power production is they don't care/know about paying extra for the EU goo (Guarantee of origin).

It's a dumb situation where two groups of customers (the ones who pay extra for green Norwegian GoOs and the Norwegians who rationally presume that the power they buy is "local" Norwegian green power) both believe they're buying the same green energy.

This is a political thing. Norway produces and consumes near 100% renewable energies. They only sell other people certificates so that they can feel better. Many trains in Germany run on "renewable" energy, and nearly every utility company offers cheap renewable tariffs. In reality it's just certificates they bought from Norway.

That doesn't change anything for Norway though, it only shows that the current European energy policy can easily be abused. The case remains that Norway can easily add more renewable production and use that to grow vegetables in containers (ideally adapted so that they can cope with fluctuating supply). Norway has so much potential that they can still export more energy towards Europe, but as Denmark has the same plans, running significantly more wires towards southern Germany is the main problem here, not some certificates.

Isn't this a virtual thing? I don't know anything about this but I'd say most energy in Norway's houses is indeed produced via renewables (I mean the actual energy, say, the electrons being transported) and then a virtual transaction is handled by interested parties (say other countries' governments). For example, Germany could pay Norway x for an exchange of a percentage of renewables and nuclear, for stats and regulatory purposes, but the actual energy being consumed by Germans would still be produced by nuclear. Is this correct in any way?

Knowing which specific plant powers your home has little meaning in a comoditized business.

The important notion here is that a subset of consumers support the economic cost of running renewable energy plants, while the other subset of consumers are led to believe they do because of geographic proximity, when in fact they don't.

soil-less hydroponics produce awfully tasting crap that does slightly resemble original fruit/vegetable only in appearance, only being paler. better than nothing, but far from added value and quality of original

In remote regions, fresh vegetables are either very expensive or have been on the road for a long time. Even though you don't get the best taste, it will likely not be worse that the alternatives for people in small remote villages.

That isn't quite true.

One of the things that surprises immigrants, including myself, is the produce. A lot of it is shipped in. Bell, broccoli, and many other fresh goods are sold wrapped in plastic because of imports. Some say the vegetables look fake. Things like bell peppers aren't nearly as tasty as the ones I would buy back in the states. Not only that, but the food tends to spoil more quickly, and I'm guessing this is in part to the shipping.

The most notable exception is goods that can be grown in Norway. They are more likely to be loosely packed and actually look better. Granted, not a lot can be grown here as less than 5% of the land is arable.

With soil-less growing, you get over some of these issues, hopefully with the addition of produce (and other goods) being cheaper.

Is this true? Could you provide citations? In all the time i've looked into hydro- and aero- ponics system, i've never heard this claim. would be interesting to learn about it.

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