Norway building its first large fossil fueled power plant.

[NNadir]

Norway really is a renewable paradise in one sense, and has been so for decades. About 99% of the electricity in Norway has been produced by hydroelectricity, going back to the early part of the twentieth century.

http://www.cslforum.org/norway.htm

Renewable energy other than hydroelectric has doubled in the last decade, and now represents 0.37% of Norway's electrical generation.

However, it happens that when river flows are down, Norway has been required to import electricity from Germany and Denmark, two countries with much dirtier fuel bases, as both countries rely on coal, Germany increasingly so.

The debate over the issue of using fossil fuel to generate electricity in Norway was important enough in Norway to bring down the government of Prime Minister Bondevik, who opposed new gas plants on environmental grounds.

Norway has abundant gas resources in the North Sea. The Norwegian gas production accounts for 2 percent of the world production and 17 percent of the European gas production. Despite huge gas production and resources, gas is not used for electricity generation in Norway. Excess capacity, cheap hydropower, low electricity prices and political restrictions have prevented gas based power generation in Norway. Lately, import of electric power from neighboring countries with fossil fuel based power systems has led industry spokesmen and various politicians to propose building of several gas power plants in Norway. Electric self-sufficiency, domestic natural gas utilization and environmental benefits through reduced coal power generation abroad are used as arguments to support construction of gas power plants in Norway. Several industrial groups have applied for concession to build natural gas fired power stations. Initially, the Norwegian Pollution Control Authority (SFT) denied emissions concession referring to Norwegian obligations under the Kyoto protocol. In March 2000, however, a majority in parliament voted against the SFT-decision and advised the Government to issue concession. The core argument from both sides was the environmental impacts from gas power generation in Norway. SFT argued that increased power generation would lead to lower energy prices and thereby higher energy consumption and more pollution. The view of the majority of Parliament was that Norwegian gas power will replace coal power generation in Denmark and Germany and thus give lower total climate gas emissions since coal based power results in much higher emissions per unit of energy than gas power does...

http://ideas.repec.org/p/ssb/dispap/286.html

(See the full paper, linked therein, to see about the political fallout of the decision to go with gas.)

This reference refers to the debate that took place 5 years ago. The construction of the first gas plant represented an investment of close to 1 billion dollars by the Norwegians:

Natural gas for the petrochemical industry in Grenland has long been a political issue, and estimated costs for a new pipeline range in at $455 to $605 million. Gassco will submit its report to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy by New Year’s Day, 2006. New gas-fired power plant The board of Naturkraft, owned 50/50 by Hydro and Statkraft, decided in late June to build Norway’s first commercial onshore gas-fired power plant at Kårstø in Rogaland, western Norway. Total investments for the project are estimated at some $305 million. The plant will deliver up to 3.5 terawatt hours a year to the Norwegian power grid, corresponding to three percent of Norway’s total electricity production or consumption by roughly 175,000 households. At maximum production, it will use about 600 million cubic metres of natural gas, or half a percent of Norway’s annual gas export. It will also emit 1.2 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide.

http://www.oilport.net/information/issues/oe-3-05-3.pdf

While the gas plant will fuel 175,000 homes, it is important to note that Norway has invested almost 0.5% as much in fueling 10 homes on the island of Utsira with wind based hydrogen.

We have been discussing, with great enthusiasm, that remarkable success story elsewhere:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x64113

As far as I know, there are no plans to expand that wind based hydrogen capacity to anything like the scale of Kårstø billion dollar investment. I could be wrong though.

[NNadir]

1. Addendum: Here are Norway's figures for its renewable production.

Norway has a reporting function rather like our EIA:

http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/10/08/10/elektrisitet_en/tab-2006-08-15-01-en.html

It would seem that by deciding to produce 3% of its electricity by fossil fuels, Norway has easily outstripped its wind production, which in June of 2006 was 0.5% of its electricity.

Norwegian electricity production and export is down this year:

http://www.ssb.no/vis/english/subjects/10/08/10/elektrisitet_en/art-2006-08-15-01-en.html

Maybe they're having difficulty with their glaciers.