courtesy NPD

Norway’s offshore sector will never allow the Nordic country an overall lowering of carbon-dioxide emissions, unless electricity supplied from land is zero-emissions, according to the head of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.

Writing in newspaper Dagsavisen, NPD director Gunnar Berge repsonded to budding political forces calling for the replacement of offshore power plants with long-distance cables to shore.

Power supplied by generators offshore accounts for a quarter of total Norwegian emissions, and the country is nowhere near meeting its Kyoto goals without using its vast carbon storage. Further, a tax on nitrogen-oxide went into force in 2007 which aims to cut offshore emissions of the acid-rain inducing contaminant.

Berge warned that the cost of replacing offshore turbines and generators could eclipse the winfall brought by a tax on carbon, nitrogen-oxide and the coming price of a tonne of carbon.

He pointed to the calculations of the NPD and the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate on the cost of replacing the 4250 Megawatts of offshore power with power from land. The Kaarstoe power plant in sourthern Norway produces some 500 MW of power.

Of the 52 producing fields offshore Norway, 30 require their own artificial power.

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