It is clearly a goal for many to drive oil and gas extraction on the shelf with power from land. Since no one wants to risk the platforms having to close when the sun goes down or when the wind stops, it is of course only water power that can ensure the operation of the installations. If it is to go well, there must be enough hydropower on land to transmit through new cables. This will lead to the gas power plant on the platforms being able to shut down and the gas that comes up from the hole can go unabated for export and burning, for example in a gas power plant in another place. Norwegian hydropower will then in practice be exported as gas. Pressure on nature and Norwegian hydropower If Mainland Norway has so much adjustable hydropower to spare that we can send it out to oil and gas installations, shouldn’t we also export the power directly as electrical power? All infrastructure is already there, even ample capacity for international cables to many countries. Then Norway and the community can save large costs for new infrastructure, which nevertheless does not lead to reduced extraction and burning of oil and gas. Verda can save consumption of high-quality metal and other great materials that go into cables and other infrastructure. If oil and gas installations are to be electrified, there will be great pressure against new power development in untouched nature. For several decades we have developed and taught environmentally friendly hydropower at NTNU, and much can be done with environmental design to keep the environmental consequences at a low level. But they will never be zero. It will be quite demotivating and pointless to teach this so that the oil industry will get more from nature. Of course, it is possible to stall and give up on the decarbonisation of industry on land in order to free up power for oil and gas. Perhaps a social economist can tell about the benefits of that? Who fooled who? If the oil and gas industry is really as environmentally conscious as the communications people and their top managers are, they should therefore cut their own carbon emissions on the spot. There is no other industry in Norway that has better knowledge and ability to pay to do this, or that is closer to the area for offshore wind and CO2 storage. If the oil and gas industry organizes itself, it will ease the pressure on untouched nature and hydropower, which can instead be used for business and normal consumption on land. Norway will then export the same amount of gas as today and the CO2 emissions from the gas power plants on the platforms will be stored under the seabed. In other words, using Norwegian hydropower for oil and gas platforms is a waste of resources and results in a distribution of costs that is not feasible. Nature must bear the environmental cost, and business on land must bear the brunt financially.
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Norwegian hydropower can be exported as oil and gas – Statement
