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Comment by tpmx | Hacker News Reader

Disclosure: I'm a Swede who previously worked in various primarily Norwegian-owned software companies for two decades. I'm mostly happy about how it went. I also got some insights about Norway along the way via the 100+ trips to Oslo during that last decade when I had an engineering management role. That travel schedule was exhausting.

My pet peeve about Norway and oil: How very few people ever call them out on being the Saudi Arabia of the north (well, minus the murders/various other kinds of oppressions).

They do so much (excellent!) PR that shows them being the ethical/environmental leaders.. that totally ignores the fact that they are the people making money on pumping old fossil remains out from their seabeds. If they really meant it, they could, like.. stop doing that? I mean, pick a lane.

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I'm Norwegian, and I agree. We have deluded ourselves to believe our oil is "clean" and "green".

And while stopping the pumps would probably wreak havoc on our economy, we could at least stop looking for new fields while emptying the ones we have for some more years. So slowly wean off the oil tit. But every time that's suggested, the government says "develop, not stop". And use straw men like "we can't stop abruptly!!", even though that's not the suggestion on the table. And they've used the same excuse for a decade to not do anything. If we actually started transitioning away from oil a decade ago, we would be better off. And if we at least started now we would be better off. But that can just gets kicked down the road.

You mean to say Norwegians in general actually think the Norwegian oil is "clean" and "green" just because the operations to pump it up are? I mean, brain-washing can be effective, especially when there's a financial motive to believe it.

Norway's gas exports saved the EU from kneeling to Russia during 2021 and 2022. Our exports prevented Russia's invasion of Ukraine from becoming an unmitigated disaster to European autonomy. Now sitting at approximately 30% of total EU natural gas consumption.

Criticizing us for climate profiteering, or even war profiteering, as some European voices have done, is extremely intellectually dishonest coming from Sweden, which followed suit to Germany and shut down more than 1 GWh of nuclear energy generation capacity during an ongoing climate gas emission crisis.

I'm primarily criticizing Norway for hypocrisy. I don't think you missed that.

You probably missed my implication: It's a misplaced accusation of hypocrisy.

They should continue to produce it and explore for it until we (the world) don't need it.

The "starve the beast" strategy did not work for the Reagan tax cuts and it will not work for energy.

I agree, and have noticed that discrepancy, but I guess it is better than double dipping - profiting from environment-destroying products, and then investing those profits into environment-destroying products.

I can't really blame the Norwegians though - even if they care about the environment greatly, it would be hard for anyone to have a lifestyle based around their $250k income and to go back to a lifestyle based around having more normal $50k income.

Well, I blame them because they are very, very strongly (and competently) pushing the PR message that they are clean.

It's quite simple - they should pick one: stop pumping up old fossil remains to sell to keep up their luxurious lifestyle or stop bragging about how clean they are.

Disclosure, I'm a Norwegian. Saudi Arabia of the north. Well. Actually I think Sweden might be a top contender for that name.

Please do elaborate your thoughts on immigration. We're listening.

Nah, as an outsider visitor to both countries, Norway is definitely Saudi Arabia. I would have called Sweden the Pakistan or Syria of the North, except there's no comparison to the situation currently there among its peers. Sweden is in the same spot as the native Americans of the Thirteen Colonies.

In my opinion, a lot of people in the comment section don't get that there is a somewhat real concern that the abundance of oil revenue has made Norwegians less ambitious and innovative in comparison to what they could have been with that kind of a world-class education system, in comparison to its neighbours. And the greenwashing of the Norwegian oil industry is actually a real thing too.

What do you plan to use instead of fossil fuels today?

In Norway and Sweden (shared grid): Primarily electric hydro + nuclear power. Wind power adds to the mix when it's windy - and it often is.

(Here's the complete picture regarding the grid:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta...)

There are power cables between RG Nordic and RG Continental Europe/RG Baltic/RG GB but to my knowledge they are all via high voltage DC - so not AC phase synced.

Is that deployed infrastructure today to handle needs and scaling for the future? I know Germany was cutting back on nuclear.

I think we're getting a bit off-topic here, but in a nutshell: The current government of Sweden wants to build new nuclear power plants to scale up the power supply for the future.

That’s good to know. Thanks!!!

well today I learned something interesting: Norway and Sweden aren't on the big grid that covers most of Europe.

We (Norway) do have cables connecting us to UK and Europe. They've been a hot topic the last year with the high energy prices. We're making bank on selling our hydro power when gas got scarce. But that skyrocketed our own prices.

It's a difficult topic. It's probably a net win for Norway, as we can produce when price is high, and stop our hydro and import when prices are low. The problem is just that the benefit ends up making the government and the electric producers (again owned by government orgs mostly) rich, but us people have to pay more for our own energy use. So using that extra money earned to help the people is needed.

I would assume those cables aren't frequency synchronized however, they are either a HVDC cable or have DC interconnect somewhere so that the grids aren't frequency synced.

Here's a bonus: western half of Denmark is on the continental europe synchronous grid and the eastern half is on the Nordic grid.

at least the whole country is nominally ~220 VAC 50 Hz though right? Not like Japan with different frequency standards.

Right,the difference is basically invisible.

I wonder why RG Nordic is not linked up with continental Europe.

IMO Sweden and Norway need to separate domestic and export electricity prices so that they can come back to having cheap energy as a genuine advantage for its industry.

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