Another lockdown… another commute

[Mendip]

As you'll know, the mountain monkeys just voted, and the opposition won..big !

They say that they'll take Norway in a greener direction and have "plans" to scale down development of new oilfields.

(can't see that happen in the near future and know all arguments for letting it continue as usual)
So..no more

Good question Helge!

As you know, oil and gas has transformed Norway from one of the poorest countries in Europe in the 60s to probably the wealthiest country on the planet (per capita) today through extremely good management of huge reserves.

Norway's wealth mainly comes fro gas (not oil) which they transport via long, large diameter subsea pipelines to France, Belgium, Germany and the UK. The Langeled pipeline to Easington alone supplies 20% of the UK's gas requirements.

Norway are very keen to boast about their green credentials and have the highest per capita ownership of electric cars in Europe and the majority of their electricity is produced by hydroelectric... not only do they have huge hydrocarbon reserves but they also have mountainous coastal topography that is perfect for hydro electricity production.

But... there is a lot of hypocrisy involved. A few years ago Statoil ('State Oil') changed their name to the greener sounding 'Equinor', while at the same time developing the Johan Sverdrup oil and gas field, west of Stavanger. This is the third largest oil field on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, currently producing around 535,000 barrels of oil a day and with a design life of 50 years.

Yeah, so maybe Norway itself is 'green' but every time someone in western Europe cooks their tea it's very likely that they'll be burning Norwegian gas. Next time Joe 90 ruins another meal, there's a one in five chance he's ruining it using Norwegian gas. Norway is just exporting it's carbon emissions around Europe and doing very nicely out of it.

Norway has run out of locations for hydro-electric dams and their demand for electricity is great... so now they're looking at the possibility of importing electricity from Germany. Guess what, 24% of Germany's electricity is produced by burning coal! That doesn't bother your 'mountain monkeys' Helge, because they can still pretend to be a 'green' country.

I can't see the Norwegians turning away from fossil fuel production any time soon... all of these seabed mapping projects we're currently undertaking are for future field developments and the gradual expansion of exploration northwards continues. On top of that, there's many thousands of kilometres of pipelines and cables that need inspecting on rolling four-year programmes so I should hopefully get the ten more years out of this industry I need.


But anyway, as Ootai noted I can have a tendency to moan, but I feel I only moan when justified. I get a lot of spare time to fill on this boat after shift and try to catch up on admin and stuff. I recently had an email from SAS saying that 15,000 points would expire at the end of the year, so as with previous years I looked on the SAS shop for a 'free' Christmas present for my mum.

Sorry Katie... but FFS, it never ends. On top of everything else, now my mum won't be getting a Christmas present.