Life Imitating Art With Norway's 2025 Fossil-Fuel Vehicle Ban?

Mark Stevenson
by Mark Stevenson

Elon Musk tweeted his joy when a Norwegian paper announced a proposed ban of fossil-fuel-powered vehicles in the nordic country by 2025.

The proposal itself is built upon good intentions. By eliminating sales of fossil-fuel-powered vehicles, tailpipe emissions will slowly reduce. The country is famously energy independent, thanks to massive offshore oil reserves, which can be converted into hydrogen or used to generate electricity. And electric vehicles are increasingly popular in the country thanks to massive incentives funded by oil exports.

The proposal has me wondering about something else entirely: could the fossil-fuel-vehicle ban have serious political ramifications in Europe? Norwegian serial drama Okkupert — Occupied in English — might have some answers.

The premise of the series: Norway decides to turn off the oil tap to the rest of Europe. The European Union says, “Nah, we still want that,” and Russia installs itself as Norway’s overseer via a velvet glove occupation.

Now, I’m not saying that Russia is going to takeover Norway because a few political parties in the nordic nation want to ban the sale fossil-fuel vehicles. However, this may be the tip of a very interesting iceberg.

Norway’s economy dependent on oil and gas revenues. Unlike other nations, Norway has been incredibly smart and conservative with its resources, and national oil company Statoil directly employs some 27,000 employees. While it reaps the benefits of those reserves, Norway has heavily invested in the private ownership of electric vehicles through massive incentives, far more so than any state or federal government in the United States.

So, in the future, should the rest of Europe decide similar measures be part of its collective future, how will Norway — one of the largest exporters of energy to the rest of Europe — sustain itself? Are the four political parties as part of this agreement pushing a snowball from the top of a mountain? Will it get bigger and bigger in size to the point where Norway’s economic crutch, the export of oil, is no longer be profitable if the rest of Europe follows Norway down this political path?

This will be an interesting story to watch — especially from afar.

[Image: Yellow Bird]

Mark Stevenson
Mark Stevenson

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  • Jimbob457 Jimbob457 on Jun 05, 2016

    Ehhhh..... I can see where Norway can envision a future where they export more oil someday because they concentrate on EV's fueled by hydro power and natural gas fired combined cycle power plants. Maybe yes, maybe no. Lots of things can change in eight or ten years.

  • Crosley Crosley on Jun 05, 2016

    If Norway were truly committed to a world without fossil fuels, they would stop pumping the evil oil, but that's the only thing keeping the place afloat. Can you imagine what that would do to Norway's economy? It's basically a Nordic Saudi Arabia that has developed zero industry outside of oil and fishing. They would rather just virtue signal with laws like this than actually make real sacrifices. The moral superiority is what drives them. I'll believe they are committed when they stop pumping oil from the North Sea. I wonder how much the Earth will cool when this law takes effect?

    • See 5 previous
    • Stuki Stuki on Jun 07, 2016

      @Waaghals If you take away the oil, the competitive position of all the rest get substantially worsened, as so much of "background" costs (infrastructure, social costs etc) are likely currently being carried by the oil industry. not just directly, but also as a result of high taxes on earnings derived from high paying offshore work and ancillary services. That turned to to be a bigger problem in the Netherlands than direct loss of revenue. Cradle to grave all kinds of things, "suddenly" had to be funded the way others have to, by taxation of competitively exposed industry. Significantly reducing non-oil areas in which the country's industry remained internationally competitive. Take shipbuilding, a fairly labor, and pollution, intensive industry. The offshore sector most likely heavily subsidizes basic engineering and development, as offshore vessels tend to be highly specialized and cutting edge compared to more mundane craft. Absent this subsidy, high wage, high regulation Norway would be a tough place in which to build ships. It's a bit like how the US civilian aerospace industry would face a very different competitive picture, if it wasn't for all the knowhow gleaned from work on military craft. But of course, unless the frackers manage to bring costs down an order of magnitude and expand internationally, there won't be much of a threat to big, established offshore oil and gas producers for quite some time. And even if they do, Western Europe will have serious incentives to retain production capacity in a place not beholden to Russia and pipelines though Turkey and or/the Middle East.

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