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Norway To Ban the Use of Oil For Heating Buildings By 2020 (independent.co.uk)
Norway, which is the largest producer of oil and natural gas outside of the Middle East, is set to become the first country in the world to ban the use of gas to heat buildings. The country plans to pass legislation that will stop the use of both oil and paraffin to warm buildings from 2020 onwards. The Independent reports: Vidar Helgesenlaid, the nation's Environment Minister, laid out the plans in a statement, saying: "Those using fossil oil for heating must find other options by 2020." The country advises its citizens to research alternatives to oil such as heat pumps, hydroelectricity, and even special stoves that burn wood chips. By some stage, the legislation could be widened to include restrictions on using natural gas to heat buildings. The Ministry of Climate and Environment said the ban would apply to both new and old buildings and cover both private homes and the public space of businesses and state-owned facilities. The ministry says the plans are expected to lessen Norway's emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by an estimated 340,000 tons per year, compared to overall national emissions of 53.9 million tons in 2015.
sell but don't use
Norway, which is the largest producer of oil and natural gas outside of the Middle East...
Not even close.
But nice try in order make their "sacrifice" seem bigger than it is.
If cutting their emissions by < 1% will somehow disproportionately lower global temperature by a noticeable amount, then hooray! Otherwise why take away efficient heating from people in a freezing-cold country? Won't this likely increase the mortality rate among the sick, elderly, etc. come winter?
Slashdot editors as of right now.
So the submitter already has no clue what he's talking about.
Add to that, the title mentions oil, the first paragraph mentions oil and natural gas as being banned. The quote just talks about Oil. So TFS seems to be written by a fool.
Norway has plenty of firewood. No need for all those forests, I'm sure they can spare a couple.
I wonder how many exceptions will be made for policymakers, while denying an effective heat source to regular people.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Vidar Helgesenlaid, the nation’s Environment Minister, laid out the plans in a statement, saying: “Those using fossil oil for heating must find other options by 2020.”
Then let's start by using the Environmental Minister, his staff, and supporters as fuel. As cold as Norway gets, it'd not be off the table.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
For those of us that live in USA, Americans call Parrafin Kerosene.
And is shocking to me that people in Norway heat their homes with camping equipment. At least get a wood stove.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Requiring better building insulation would be a much better solution.
Got my boiler serviced and ready for action. Every time I see an article about "global warming" I will shovel a little more coal on the fire. Toasty!
How can a building heated by "special stoves that burn wood chips" possibly have lower emissions than one using heating oil ?
I'm all for fighting global warming ... but surely there's no wave a wood burning stove is going to be as efficient and clean as using heating oil.
With reports of China banking and building Coal-electrical facilities 100 new this year, 700 new in 10-years and exporting 1600 to 62 countries tells the tale.
Bye Bye Paris Climate Accord!
I assume lots of people will switch to propane. No, they're not going to shiver.
I know a lot of people with heat pumps. When natural gas and propane prices spiked heat pumps got real popular here in the Midwest. As popular as they were everyone had a propane or natural gas "backup" furnace. What this meant is for about 2 months per year the heat pump would run, 6 months the furnace would run, and the rest was with air conditioning. It just gets too cold here for heat pumps to keep up. Last I checked Norway was closer to the poles than us.
Then they mention electric heat. I've seen that heat pumps are quite popular in the southern US too. Even then they have an electric resistance heat backup, though they use it much less. Temperatures in these areas rarely get low enough that a heat pump cannot keep up. This also has something to do with a lack of topsoil. It's easy to run natural gas pipes in the Midwest due to the deep layers of soil. When I lived in Texas it was almost unheard of to have this thing called a "basement". The bedrock was under only a couple inches of soil, so electric heat it is.
The only way I see Norway not using some petroleum product to heat their homes is if electricity was really really cheap compared to the USA. A couple quick Google searches tell me that they pay about the same we do, perhaps more after taxes. What's going to happen to those prices once they have a government mandated monopoly on heat in a nation that straddles the Arctic Circle?
So, not going to happen.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Norway has a long history of doing things better and smarter than the US. So yes, it's going to happen.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Norway is a speck. A more apt comparison would be to one of the better run American *states*.
They might be cosy and romantic, but they generate lots of pollution (smog & particulates).
https://www.lung.ca/news/advoc...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
Natural gas is far cleaner and a much better source of heating.
Stupid greens with their fake virtue signalling...
I did a bit more reading on this and discovered something interesting. Currently about 85% of Norwegians heat with electricity, the balance being oil, natural gas, and wood. I did not see a breakdown of how that 15% is distributed but it is quite clear that the plurality is from wood. So that leaves something like 10% of people heating with petroleum.
What I also saw was that oil and natural gas use is growing quickly. It seems that electricity prices spiked in 2003 and since then non-electric heating has found a new demand. This has lead to plans to install natural gas service to where it was not before. What happens when electric heating starts to see competition? They lobby the government to make the competition illegal of course.
The electric energy sector held a near monopoly on heating for a very long time. This no doubt made them a lot of money. This allowed them to raise prices in recent years. It got to a point that petroleum is now looking attractive for many more people than it did just a few years before. Rather than lowering prices to stay competitive the electric sector turns to the government to protect their monopoly.
The electric energy sector is only doing this now because petroleum is a threat to their profits. They can just veil this with protecting the environment because that is popular right now.
Assuming Norwegians still have the ability to vote they are going to vote to keep their heating costs low. That's what people always do, vote with their wallets. That is why I believe this effort to make petroleum heating illegal will fail.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Heat pump is a pretty broad term. All heatpumps work by moving the thermal energy up a gradient. The higher that gradient, the less efficient they are. Air to Air heat pumps do not work worth crap in low temperatures, such as what you have in the midwest. Ground source heat pumps, which I presume this article is talking about, are a very different beast. They offer about a 3:1 energy gain; 1 watt of electrical power in means 3 watts of heat out. Since their heat source coils are buried below the frost-line, there's little variation in performance between summer and winter.
While it doesn't get that cold here in Vancouver, BC, one of the new towers downtown did something pretty cool. When building the foundations for the tower, the bored hundreds of deep wells under the structure and filled them with heat exchanger pipes. During the summer, the building's air conditioning systems sink their waste heat into the block of earth under the tower. In the winter, they heat pump off of that. The AC effectively salts the heat pump source for the winter months.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
As one other commenter has stated: It has more or less happened already.
/. - it is old news), as nobody cares.
Petroleum for heating homes is rare in Norway. Pretty much all private homes are heated by electricity, with heat pumps being pretty popular.
The ban on heating homes with oil is barely showing up in the headlines (I had forgotten about it when it showed up on
Ground sourced heat pumps have their limits. One of my brothers lived in a house that had a ground source heat pump where he used to live, and the house had an electric resistor backup heat. When he moved in he defeated the resistance heat because he didn't want to "pay that bill". He paid for it another way in a few chilly days in his house. I have to wonder if he actually saved any money by disconnecting the resistance heat, at some point the only heat in that system is coming from the (admitted large) electric motors running the pumps.
I'm not mocking the use of heat pumps. I'm mocking the claim that they think heat pumps will replace petroleum use.
Here in the Midwest I've seen a mix of air and ground sourced heat pumps. Newer houses tend to have the ground sourced kind because installing them after the house is built is much more expensive. Air sourced heat pumps are the norm in the southern US, as far as I've seen. I assume this has much to do with the winters not being as cold as much as it does with having little topsoil in many areas. Even then you will almost always see electric resistance backup. It might be switched off like what my brother did but it's there. Wood, propane, natural gas, and so on also apply as backup based on local availability of fuel.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Norway to ban the use of oil for heating buildings by 2020
'Those using fossil oil for heating must find other options by 2020,' says country's Environment Minister
Norway is set to become the first country in the entire world to ban the use of gas to heat buildings.
The Scandinavian country, which is the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas outside the Middle East, will wholly stop the use of both oil and paraffin to warm buildings from 2020 onwards.
By some stage, the legislation could [as opposed to "is set to"] be widened to include restrictions [meaning not a total ban?] on using natural gas to heat buildings.
[]
Green organisations argue the fossil ban is something of a contradiction in terms
Maybe not the measure, but the article certainly is.
Thanks, but I think I'll keep the comparison at a nation to nation level, since the relevant decisions are being made at the national level. And Norway's situation presents many challenges the well-run states don't face, such as a miniscule population scattered over an area that would extend pretty much from Maine down to Florida. If Norway is "a speck", so is your eastern seaboard.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
What does the future of Norway electricity use look like? I assume that their demand for electricity is growing. I assume that after decades of using hydro power that they are running out of good places to put dams.
A quick Google search tells me that Noway is increasingly relying on natural gas and imports for electricity. Seems to me that they've pretty much maxed out their ability to grow hydro power. More efficient uses of their existing electricity supply can stretch that out some, which includes using heat pumps over resistance heating when practical.
If trends continue Norway is going to have to burn more natural gas (and natural gas derived electricity for heat is always going to be more expensive than burning it for heat directly), import more nuclear power from Sweden or...?
The electricity sector in Noway cannot simply ban competition from natural gas because people will vote with their wallets and overturn this ban. I don't see that happening with the possible exception of nuclear power providing an out. This could be Swedish nuclear power or Norwegian nuclear power, but it will be natural gas or nuclear power to fill that gap. Personally I'd like to see growth in nuclear power but I also have nothing against natural gas.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
A couple of points - natural gas has not been growing as a heat source, it has always been irrelevant. Norway does not have an infrastructure for it. Oil has been dropping steadily for a long time. Electricity (cost: about 10 cents/kWh) is the main energy source, used directly or through a heat pump. There is also a large use of district heating, and some use of firewood. Usually not alone, but as a cosy supplement to the primary heat source.
The electricity sector is not lobbying for this, this is caused by Norway looking for ways to lower emissions in order to meet certain goals and this is a low hanging fruit which doesn't hurt much and has been gradually introduced.
It's not going to fail either, as the parties not in government are not against this - if anything, most of them are attacking the government for not doing enough overall to reduce emissions.
It's not just the distance to the north pole.
The gulf-stream keep Scandinavia hotter than other places at the same latitude.
What does the future of Norway electricity use look like? I assume that their demand for electricity is growing. I assume that after decades of using hydro power that they are running out of good places to put dams.
A quick Google search tells me that Noway is increasingly relying on natural gas and imports for electricity. Seems to me that they've pretty much maxed out their ability to grow hydro power. More efficient uses of their existing electricity supply can stretch that out some, which includes using heat pumps over resistance heating when practical.
If trends continue Norway is going to have to burn more natural gas (and natural gas derived electricity for heat is always going to be more expensive than burning it for heat directly), import more nuclear power from Sweden or...?
The electricity sector in Noway cannot simply ban competition from natural gas because people will vote with their wallets and overturn this ban. I don't see that happening with the possible exception of nuclear power providing an out. This could be Swedish nuclear power or Norwegian nuclear power, but it will be natural gas or nuclear power to fill that gap. Personally I'd like to see growth in nuclear power but I also have nothing against natural gas.
Actually, the forecast is an increasing surplus in of electricity in Norway, even after electrification of the transportation sector (goal: all new small cars should be zero emission by 2025).
There is no use of natural gas in power production in Norway today, with the exception of off shore oil platforms. There was one plant, but it closed down.
Oil has been dropping steadily for a long time.
What has been replacing oil? The answer is natural gas. In 1980 natural gas made up only 3.5% of energy produced in Norway, in 2010 it was 20%. Hydro has remained steady at about 40% of energy produced. Those numbers are from International Energy Agency.
Oil is easy to export, natural gas is not. The infrastructure to distribute natural gas may not be all that large right now but it's been growing for 40 years now.
If the goal is to reduce CO2 production then continued growth in the use of natural gas is a good way to do that, since it's been displacing oil and coal. That's how the USA has been reducing it's CO2 production.
The electricity sector is not lobbying for this
I don't believe you. That's not saying you are lying or being misled. It's just difficult to imagine that the electric sector can remain silent on this and not advocate for government policies in it's favor.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I was talking in the context of energy consumption for heating buildings - the topic of the article - and here, oil usage has fallen.
Energy production in total is a completely different cup of tea - most of the energy produced is oil and gas, that is exported. This includes gas, as there are many large gas pipelines from Norway to UK and the continent.
Here in Ontario Canada, we also use electric resistance for back up with ground source heat pumps. Some times we get winters with -30C or even colder. In these few days of the year, the electric heat can come on. It's a very rare occurrence most of the time. Your brother's system might not have kept up without the electric resistance but if it was sized properly then it wouldn't have happened except on the very coldest of days in the winter. The ground is always around 50F/10C so even in the dead of winter you can still heat your house off of that. You can also put the ground heat exchanger in a pond if you have one. Ponder looking out to your frozen over pond and then imagine that you're heating your house from the water in that pond. That is a reality with ground source heat pumps. Air source heat pumps are a lot better than they used to be these days but they still struggle in the very cold winters.
Electricity isn't particular expensive in Norway: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/s...
They are transitioning towards electricity for everything, e.g. transport where they have a lot of electric cars and boats.
Heating in particular is subsidised. Some people get it for free as a byproduct of some other process. The government makes sure people are warm.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It's designed this way on purpose.
It would be too expensive to built a heat pump powerful enough for the few days it gets under say, -25 C.
So the resistive heater is not just a backup for cases when the heatpump fails. It's being used to supplement the heat pump when it's too cold. As energy prices continue to rise, people will built heat pump which are more powerful and won't require/use their resistive heater as much.
why would you import oil to heat buildings? This also applies to the USA. I am thinking about installing a few heat pump units powered by solar energy to supplement my gas boiler. My gas boiler would only operate on the coldest days.
Mornings can be cold, which is why we invented ugg-boots. They are really just over-sized slippers, and not to be worn outside the house.
I thought it was surfers that initially started wearing them outside.
I was talking in the context of energy consumption for heating buildings
So was I.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
>The electricity sector in Noway cannot simply ban competition from natural gas because people will vote with their wallets and overturn this ban
There is no ban on natural gas, but for home use, there is simply no infrastructure for it. Around where I live, it was offered as an option in some small areas being built (a few hundred houses), but the interest was very limited, and I have not seen any discussion around it since then.
The Norwegian Minister of Climate and the Environment's current minster isn't named Vidar Helgesenlaid.
But Vidar Helgesen.
And as that is said, something more interesting:
http://www.dinside.no/okonomi/...
http://www.ost-varme.no/starts...
http://www.husogheim.no/1/1_3....
Summarized: Assuming you already have a installation, and are a consumer, in Norway
-Heat pump is calculated to be at 0.3-0.4per khw, but its still limited by how far down the pump goes before it can't supply(somewhere after freezing, some can even go to -25C). Earth installation will offset that.
-Gass costs about 0.5kr per kWh
-Propane costs about 0.5 per kWh
-Pellets costs about 0.6kr per kWh
-Oil costs about 1kr per kWh
-Wood cost sabout 0.8kr per kWh
-Paraffin cost sabout 1.3kr per kWh
That said, for comforts sake, using those systems into water carried heat is the more stable and comfortable heating option. And another limit is how good the insulation of the house is: getting better windows(number of layers, insulation quality), as well as replacing to significantly higher quality glass wool.
Heating with oil is a poor use of resources. It is far better to design the buildings to work with the climate. This is how I designed and built both my home and my butcher shop. Neither one requires heating or cooling to stay comfortable. Neither one is actually earth bermed either which would boost performance even more - both are strong enough to be earth bermed though.
I live in a climate quite similar to Norway - I'm in the central mountains of northern Vermont. It regularly gets to -25ÂF in the winter and it has gotten as low as -45ÂF many years. We also have high winds. By proper siting and the use of insulated high mass masonry construction my buildings act as giant thermal flywheels storing summer's warmth to use during the winter and winter's coolth to use during the summer.
It works. It's not expensive to build and it uses no petroleum for eating. I do burn about 0.75 cord of wood (a very small amount) in the house for cooking and for my wife's pleasure but the house will stay at reasonable temperatures even without that wood burning - the wood is sustainable dead wood from our forest.
Electricity is not particularly expensive in the USA either.
https://www.eia.gov/electricit...
Google tells me that one euro equals about $1.13. If the average in the USA is $0.10. then that's about 0.09 euro per kWh. Norway pays what? The chart is hard to read but it looks like about 0.16 or 0.17, with the EU average above 0.20. The US government makes sure people are warm too, you think we don't subsidize energy here? I thought energy subsidies were a bad thing, judging by so many comments on here lately.
Tell me something, what do you think would happen to our electricity prices if the government said that Americans could no longer use cheap natural gas to heat their homes? Would not rates go up? How is this not different than anticipating the electric rates would go up if people were barred from using natural gas heat in Norway? While natural gas heating is rare now the elimination of the competition from natural gas heating by government fiat will mean that the electricity sector will lose a very important incentive to keep prices low.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The US allows far greater levels of pollution / health damage though, so of course it's cheaper. How much do you pay for health insurance to cover that? How much worse is your environment because of it?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You'd be surprised what you can do with a heat pump, these days.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31506073
You are correct that Norway is closer to the poles. I can say from personal experience that inland areas, such as Hamar and Lillehammer, get very cold during the winter. But the majority of the population lives closer to the coast where the Gulf Stream moderates the climate quite nicely. Ports in Stavanger and Bergen do NOT freeze during the winter. Bergen gets more rain, during the winter, than snow.
How much do you pay for health insurance to cover that? How much worse is your environment because of it?
Why didn't you look that up and tell me the answers? I can make big claims too without citations like that if we add up the savings on fuel costs that we can put that money saved towards better health care, and still come out ahead.
I'm not making big claims about environmental impacts and pollution, only that without the competition from natural gas electricity price will most likely rise. As people see their immediate costs of energy rise there will be push back on the self imposed ban on natural gas heating.
Tell me something, can you tell me what is a greater threat to the individual, pollution and global warming, or the inability to pay for heat?
Sure, you can subsidize heat for those unable to pay for it but socialism only works until you've spent everyone else's money.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Freeze them out!
Why didn't you look up the differences before you claimed that this was significant? You were the one looking into this. You do the work.
No, Norway will start as north as Richmond Virginia and stretch to Key west Florida.
But most of the country will be like half the width of Florida, and only the southern part will be fatter - From Jacksonville Florida to Panama City Beach Georgia.
Norway superimposed over US
Norway has a long history of doing things better and smarter than the US. So yes, it's going to happen.
Norway has a history of cheap electricity from hydro power. In the US hydro power is considered evil because it destroys the environment.
Based on my Illinois bill compared to your link, the listed USA average 10.41 cents per kWh (which you rounded down to 10) does not appear to cover some taxes, meter fees, and other costs, some of which are not charged based on kWh. looking at one of my bills, those costs averaged out to almost 4 cents / kWh in a typical, non-air conditioning month.
So last March I paid 9.57 cents/kWh for electricity supply and delivery combined (yes, they're separate charges ever since "deregulation") but 13.4 cents/kWh including all costs, while your chart says Illinois has an average cost of 9.4 cents / kWh.
Still looks a little cheaper than Norway, though.
Yeah, the fucking greenies and their hate on for hydroelectric power. "We love renewable energy, it's the future! But only the renewable energy that gets built in giant mass polluting Chinese factories and then shipped to the rest of the world in giant polluting massive cargo ships. We hate hydro because it flooded that field and now a tree is dead. We could just plant a new one, but we'd rather cry and while like the little bitches that we all are because that gets more attention and suits the agenda."
Hydro can produce almost literally limitless free energy on a scale that could supply everyone in the world, but I guess there's not enough money in that.
Heating with gas is ridiculously more efficient than heating with electricity. Everyone is so caught up in the bullshit carbon/emissions scam that they can't think logically anymore.
And I'm way South of Norway. Norway is cold.
It's a lot more complicated than that. Does hydro produce cheap, renewable power? Often times, yes. Does hydropower have significant environmental and social impacts? Sometimes, yes. Is hydropower susceptible to climatic changes? Often times, yes. Just ask Brazil, Venezuela, and southern Africa for recent examples about that.
One of these days, can we please stop talking in generalities and extremes and assuming they are valid for specific projects? It makes more sense to carefully study things on a case by case basis, including all possible options, and looking at all possible positive and negative impacts. Then people can make informed decisions and take responsibility for the inevitable trade-offs.
"Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." -Indiana Jones