oh yeah!

I wrote about some aspects of this for the Nordic Node (#1550901): Norway's moral economy of who gets to use which electricity for what purpose is wholly separate from the national oil fund profiting mightily from the AI compute wave in equity markets. Oops.

Milne outlines a similar phenomenon here: talk big game about the irrelevant fairytales formerly known as "climate change"; drill, baby, drill the North Sea — #1530957, #1515430

The extreme heat of Europe’s summer has pushed many to look at green energy alternatives to the fossil fuel hegemony. But in one of the cooler parts of the continent, the refrain this August is a contrarian “drill, baby, drill”.

Norway is western Europe’s largest petroleum producer, and in particular the EU’s biggest supplier of gas. Far from aiming to wean itself off its dependency, the rich Scandinavian country is looking to double down on oil and gas. The biennial ONS energy conference in Stavanger — Norway’s version of Houston — is always known for its industry boosterism. But this week’s edition has highlighted the urgency of an industry facing natural sharp declines in production and a planned shift away from its wares by its biggest customer.

Leeessgo, Norway.

"Norway became one of the world’s richest countries, complete with a $2.3tn sovereign wealth fund, because of oil and gas."

That's not quite right (#1530957) — plenty of places have lots of oil and gas; it either never makes them rich (Dutch disease, economically or politically), or just crowds out everything else turning them into, as the joke about Russia goes, into a gas station with nukes.

its attempts to prolong the life of its most important industry underscore not only the risks and rewards of depending so heavily on one sector, but also the ongoing struggle in Europe between promoting a green agenda for the long term and keeping factories running and the lights on in the short term. “I don’t think Norway should be ashamed of saying we made a lot of money from oil and gas, that we are good at making money from oil and gas, and that we should continue trying to make as much money from oil and gas as possible,” one former senior Norwegian policymaker told me recently.

Amazing. Too bad they didn't want to go on the record... pro petroleum is still "bad" in the moral landscape of 2026.

The three largest oil and gas companies on the Norwegian shelf — state-controlled Equinor, Aker BP and Eni-controlled Vår Energi — said on Monday that they would team up to explore “frontier areas”, potential oilfields that are more expensive to drill than mature regions but that could offer higher-impact finds.

The author discusses a report from the trade union + employer organizations, exploring more extreme ("controversial") drilling areas:

Their report said that without additional measures, Norway’s petroleum production would fall by almost two-thirds by 2050. That date is significant because for many European politicians and companies it is the deadline for their economies and businesses to become net zero. Listhaug and Norway’s energy companies want to extend the lifetime of the country’s oil and gas fields well beyond that, believing it should be one of the last countries to stop pumping petroleum assuming that demand persists.

So much in there.

1. Assuming demand persists: more likely, assuming policymakers really go through with/voters will allow them their wet Net Zero 2050 dreams.
2. Norway's oil is among the best, safest, cleanest, closest in terms of geographic proximity etc: even if you buy into the green dream, surely it's better than the good stewards and careful engineers of Norway drill oil than that the rapacious, poor, irresponsible Guyanese or Kuwaitis or Indonesians do?? Even if you care about geopolitics and logistics, then surely it'd be better with oil&gas from the North Sea than from Putin's gas station?

Yes, exactly. Also green energy is a common sneaky sleight of hand; what we can produce "green" is electricity, but the need for "energy" is way bigger and wider than that.

Yea, awkward development all around:

All this scotches any talk of Norway going green. It had positioned itself as a potential “green battery” for Europe, with its hydropower resources able to help the continent when electricity prices were high. But power prices are surging in Norway itself as data centres and other factories use up its electricity surplus, with little new generation coming online.

"Norway’s politicians and companies seem increasingly confident that the EU’s green rhetoric will be submerged by the commercial reality for decades to come"

archive: https://archive.md/oha59