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Comment by mark_element | Hacker News Reader

It is important to note that Statoil is majority owned by the Norwegian government so it's priorities are maybe a bit more complicated than more independent multinational oil and gas companies. Although all the big energy companies have major alternatives portfolios and innovations strategies too.

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It is also important to mention that this project happened because of the falling oil price, and Statoil needing to find alternative stuff to do. Not diversify their sources of income, but literally give their enployees something to do. A lot of highly educated people lost their jobs in Norway during the last few years, and a windpower project would be one way to get public funding and avoid firing too many employees (this is of political interest, Statoil don't need half of their eployees). I am not saying the project would never have happened, but it probably happened now and not in ten years because of this. Bottom line: this is busywork imposed on a huge, slow, old fashioned oil company which will never be able to compete comercially.

I'm not sure I would be that cynic:

- Statoil took over Hywind in 2008 when they acquired the O&G division of Hydro, and set up the first test turbine in 2009

- Shell is also active in offshore wind, so this is not limited to majority state owned companies

Offshore wind could be competitive in the early 2020's without subsidies, depending on your assumption of fossil fuel and CO2 prices

Bottom line: Floating offshore wind could be very promising in areas with deep water, such as Japan, so I would not call this busy work

I agree with your bottom line. I was going to say they have talked about wind farms at sea since 2008, but that fits well with what you say. I see I seem too cynical, but i still think they are very late to the game. Especially considering how far denmark have come, given this project probably is inspired by the danish focus on wind power, and the competency of Statoil on offshore constructions.

Have the danish deployed floating off-shore wind farms?

They have not.

http://offshorewind2017.com/files/media-and-press/Offshore-W...

Offshore wind can be competitive now, without subsidies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/business/energy-environme...

Those are the projects I'm referring to, they will come online in early 2020's and use turbines that are not currently available

They are subject to final investment decision in 2020/21, so could be scrapped if commodity and CO2 prices don't move favorably

Could you please cite some evidence for your claim about competing commercially? Also, do you mean the technology in general or this particular effort? Here is a year-old write-up of a survey of experts published in a peer-reviewed journal which asserts that floating wind will be cost-competitive:

https://cleantechnica.com/2016/09/15/wind-energy-costs-set-c...

I meant compared to other similar efforts. Since Statoil is a publicly owned company with its main goals being political, not economic.

Thanks for the clarification. Next: are you asserting Statoil's public ownership by itself is evidence that costs will be higher, or do you have other evidence to support the claim?

First: I would not use my claim to evaluate weather or not i will buy into their solution.

I work in IT, not offshore. My claims are based on living in Norway and reading about Statoil almost daily, and talking to people I know working in offshore, and on IT projects at Statoil. It is hard to find hard evidence for claims about Statoil. The closest thing i can find to evidence is to tell you to just check the headlines on some random Norwegian newspaper. This one is on the front page today: http://e24.no/energi/oljeinvesteringer/frykter-slutten-paa-s... one of the things stated there which could be relevant is that one project scheduled for completion in 2022 has had its construction costs cut in half from 100 billion NOK to 50 billion. Some would say this is evidence of Statoil being able to rationalize well. I would say this is evidence of Statoil having a history of over-spending. It all depends on your point of view, it is next to impossible to get the full picture.

Every oil company (and those serving them) has been overspending in the years of insanely high oil prices. It is not so much about Statoil. Of course people hold somewhat higher hopes for a state-owned company than independently funded private companies.

I have no idea whether they'd be able to compete commercially, but they manage to put a lot of money in a pension fund for all Norwegians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor... I wish BP and Shell did the same instead of being "commercially competitive".

If no one buys into their wind farm, there won't be much money to put into the pension fund (I mean it will, they earn money form oil, but no "wind money").

Norways sovereign wealth fund is the worlds biggest. They can probably afford a few risks

> so it's priorities

"its priorities"

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