Norway Avoids ‘Green’ Energy Quicksand

Despite pressures to decarbonize, Norway has increased efforts to exploit oil and natural gas reserves. The crown jewel of this fossil fuel renaissance is the Johan Castberg field. Located in the Barents Sea, 100 kilometers north of the 20-year-old Snøhvit natural gas field, Johan Castberg is expected to be a beast of a producer – 450 million–650 million barrels over 30 years, with a peak daily capacity of 220,000 barrels.

And the investments don’t stop there. The Norwegian government – ignoring wailing of the United Nations – has initiated plans for its 26th round of oil and gas licensing. Targeted will be “frontier areas” – little-explored regions that can reward high risk with massive returns. While the U.K. suffocates its North Sea industry with windfall taxes and regulatory hostility, Norway is effectively saying, “If you won’t drill, we will.”

Companies operating on the Norwegian continental shelf plan to pour about $25 billion into oil and natural gas projects in 2026. Almost $2 billion higher than a previous estimate because of rising development costs, the commitment signals determination to keep production climbing.

Since autumn 2024, the price of ongoing development has swelled by 17%, which is consistent with a rising trajectory that had Norway overtake Russia in 2022 as Europe’s principal supplier of natural gas.

Despite the country’s embrace of fossil fuels, “greens” enthusiasts often point to Norwegians’ widespread adoption of electric vehicles as a model for other countries. However, as is often the case, the pretense of a “green” utopia is promoted through a deception.

The gleaming EVs filling the streets of Oslo are subsidized by the government’s oil revenue.

The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund – known as the Government Pension Fund Global – is the largest of its kind in the world. As of November, its assets were valued at over $2 trillion. On paper, that is $340,000 for every Norwegian.

It is a delicious irony that the climate activists’ favorite “model” nation is funded by the very substance they despise. Every time Norwegians plug in an EV, they are effectively accepting a handout from drillers at Johan Castberg. The “green” lifestyle is a luxury purchased with petrodollars.

Norway is not without its problems. The country’s substantial electricity exports to the EU become toxic, as the continent uses Norway as a crutch to compensate for the failure of its own wind and solar investments.

Norwegian households, accustomed to decades of low energy prices from abundant hydropower, have been adversely affected by flexible pricing contracts that link their electricity costs to the high prices of European markets. Oslo – along with Stockholm and Helsinki – is tiring of mainland Europe treating the Nordic grid as a dumping ground for the costs of EU’s star-crossed love affair with so-called renewable energy.

Nonetheless, Norway is better off than European Union countries. Not being a member of the EU, Norway has been able to maintain energy sovereignty and out of the net zero suicide pact gripping EU capitals.

Free of the European Union’s authoritarian energy directives has turned into the greatest blessing Norway never asked for. While the EU suffers through “managed decline” in the name of climate salvation, Norway stands apart – enjoying relative wealth and secure energy supplies while watching the spectacle of a continent that chose ideology over arithmetic.

Among the foreign countries in which Gregory Wrightstone’s “Inconvenient Facts: The science that Al Gore doesn’t want you to know” received wide distribution was Norway. (A Norwegian language version is available.)

Europe built its “green” cathedral on the shifting sands of a cult. Norway built its future on rocks that happen to float in black gold.