Norway to completely ban petroleum cars by 2025

[Angst]

Title. Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...-replace-with-electric-vehicles-a7065616.html

Basically Norway will make fossil fuel cars illegal to buy by 2025. The intention is to replace the industry with electric cars for example.

Norway's oil industry is a substantial part of its economy, so this may prove problematic for the economy, but it's not like Norway can't survive without it.

What do you think?

EDIT: Oh and it's a proposition, it hasn't passed yet; but there is a definite majority supporting the policy.

EDIT2: Well am I dumb for not reading further. Apparently they're not talking about a ban at all, it's a misquote. They're simply talking about changing the tax laws so it makes it even more profitable to use electric cars (currently 24% of Nroways cars are electric)

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't know if our future is EV. With robotic cars, distributed by the sharing economy, I suspect hybrid will be the choice

 

[Nexlev]

I'm skeptical that electric vehicles are the silver bullet that proponents make them out to be. I do think they are an incremental improvement however, and I'm pretty happy that we are trying different things the world over.

 

[Zelig]

I don't know if our future is EV. With robotic cars, distributed by the sharing economy, I suspect hybrid will be the choice

The only real efficiency gain of non plug-in hybrids is regenerative braking though, which becomes much less relevant with automated vehicles and traffic flow.

And I haven't been really convinced that total per-km costs per car really come down with automation/sharing, unless it's as a result of piling in more people per car. For X drivers per car with a vehicle lifespan of Y km, you're looking at basically the same costs for a human or robot driver.

 

[FriendlyFire]

I think Norway had too much Lutefisk.
Of all the thing which can be done environmentally to reduce Greenhouse gases and pollution banning petrol cars is not a good solution. Norway would be better off funding green energy projects / research and science.

 

[Leifmk]

Well we're a bit of a special case, already pretty much 100% renewable as far as electricity production is concerned and always have been -- mountains + rain = hydro power since the dawn of the industrial age.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Gas fumes are to me personally a way more immediate concern than the climate. Inner cities (in Europe way more crowded by way more parts of the population than in America) are constantly gased, non-stop during day-time. I'd very much like that to change.
However - cars are expensive, as it is. And pretty neat. So... I don't know.

 

[trader/warrior]

If, say, we had one of those global climate conferences, and instead of the usual adjusting emission goals and implementing the newest standards fur such and such, most of the world agreed to a legally binding agreement to phase out selling of standar petrol cars by say 2030 to 2035 or by 2040 say, leaving openings for non EV super-efficient tecnologies and such. Might increase innovation hugely, wonder how much impact it would have on the climate. I firmly believe good alternatives shouldn't be too hard to come up with by then, at least for most consumer vehicles, though there is a lot of interesting things going on in heavier transport as well.

Norway's oil industry is a substantial part of its economy, so this may prove problematic for the economy, but it's not like Norway can't survive without it.

Don't get high on your own supply is the famous saying (especially when there are cheaper green alternatives available), we just sell the oil to the thirsty countries. And take none of the blame of course

 

[warpus]

I doubt this will affect Norway's oil industry any. I think they export most of that oil.

Norway has some pretty restrictive laws in place regarding cars, from what I vaguely remember hearing. Crazy taxes, too. So this might seem really restrictive but it also seems like a very Norwegian thing to try to do. They will probably revisit this in 5 years and see where they're at, and maybe readjust their goals. 2025 doesn't seem realistic, but then again there aren't that many cars in Norway to begin with.

 

[luiz]

Are they gonna ban their oil exports to other countries as well? Or is oil cool as long as its not burned in Norway?

Sounds like massive hypocrisy to me. "Look how cool and green we are, we banned petroleum cars! Oh btw we export huge quantities of oil so we get rich from other people driving their petroleum-based cars".

I mean, global warming is... global. The CO2 that results from Norway's oil being burned is as bad if it's a Norwegian car using it or a Chinese one.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Yeah, it won't impact their oil industry since they can still export it.
If they really go through with this ban, I hope they'll heavily subsidize electric cars to a degree that even poor or lower middle class people can afford them, or this is another one of those laws that protect the environment on the backs of the lower classes.

 

[warpus]

Sounds like massive hypocrisy to me.

A move forward is a move forward.

Instead of mocking them for not doing everything all at once, perhaps we should sit back and see if this current plan will work out for them. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

It's not hypocrisy anyway, that's not what the word means. Hypocrisy would be if they started officially saying that oil is bad and that people who use oil products should feel bad, while at the same time they continued to export oil at the same rate as they did before.

 

[Lexicus]

Electric cars may help to solve the problem, but not if the electricity is generated by...burning fossil fuels.

 

[El_Machinae]

Are they gonna ban their oil exports to other countries as well? Or is oil cool as long as its not burned in Norway?

Sounds like massive hypocrisy to me. "Look how cool and green we are, we banned petroleum cars! Oh btw we export huge quantities of oil so we get rich from other people driving their petroleum-based cars".

I mean, global warming is... global. The CO2 that results from Norway's oil being burned is as bad if it's a Norwegian car using it or a Chinese one.

It's not really hypocrisy.

Nearly everyone acknowledges that there are regions of the world that will be burning fossil carbon for some time. It's a great and necessary tool for economic convergence. Now, in some ways, we could say it would be 'better' if the developed nations provided their own fuel. But it's also true that Norway exporting their fuels means that there's more competition in the energy market, and lower prices benefit those who use energy to make money (um, everyone?).

The hypocrisy is the wealthy nations getting angry about the burning done by the poorer nations during convergence. The EU has been floating around 8 tonnes per capita per year since 1992. They claim they needed to seize that much of the planet's buffer. But then the Right get mad when a person in Africa looks at that long chain of emissions and thinks "hey, I should be allowed to do the same".

And they're right. Norway is providing demand-side solutions. We need those innovations and breakthroughs. We should be paying for our own weaning.

 

[Angst]

Electric cars may help to solve the problem, but not if the electricity is generated by...burning fossil fuels.

Luckily Norway's particular electric supply is almost totally green due to water power being so easily available there. But you are still right. I know that the majority of Danish power is produced by burning trash which produces toxic waste and isn't particularly clean. I don't know the makeup in other places.

 

[Zelig]

It's not really hypocrisy.

Nearly everyone acknowledges that there are regions of the world that will be burning fossil carbon for some time.

And even absent oil as source or store of energy, there are still plenty of other uses for it. If we keep using for plastics, it doesn't follow that we shouldn't try to stop using it to power personal automobiles.

 

[Takhisis]

Burnign trash? Directly, or biogas?

 

[Lexicus]

And even absent oil as source or store of energy, there are still plenty of other uses for it. If we keep using for plastics, it doesn't follow that we shouldn't try to stop using it to power personal automobiles.

Yes, it seems almost criminal to waste petroleum by just burning it.

 

[El_Machinae]

To be clear, burning it needn't be a waste. It really depends upon why you're burning, and what is being made. There are enormous economic benefits from burning fossil carbon, and a portion of those benefits have been harnessed to create true growth. A lot not. But a reasonable portion.

Fossil carbon needs to be viewed as a source of capital. You can invest it. You can consume it. If you consume it in ways that are not sustainable (net), you'll be poorer in the long run.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Speaking of electric cars, Tesla has just announced that they are reducing the starting price for the Model S to $66K.