"More of everything - faster" is the most terrifying consultation headline ever.!!

Not only is what is happening now a major threat to what we have left of nature, the environment and local communities, but the government's proposal will also weaken democracy's right to object to developments we neither want nor need.

Shall “More of everything – faster” be the total resignation for our country as an independent state, and the perfect kneeling for cynical energy companies and the powerful actors within the EU state? This report which is now out for consultation is RePowerEU on steroids..!!

Here, people really need to wake up and follow along.!!!

>> See the Ministry of Oil and Energy's hearing NOU 2023:3 "More of everything - faster" here <<

The Energy Commission's report is a purely commissioned work.

The conclusion was clear long before the commission was appointed. Europe needs more energy and it is Norway that will supply Europe, whether it is via natural gas, electric power or hydrogen produced on Norwegian energy, and exported out of the country without any form of restrictions or limitations. Only to unilaterally support Europe's competitiveness. Here, through pure blackmail, we will be forced to sacrifice the rest of our last natural areas and the sea in order to satisfy an insatiable Europe that never gets enough energy. And all this without it being of any benefit to our own citizens or businesses. On the contrary. As obedient slaves, and without light and warmth for ourselves, we sail into the future as householders without a say in our own country. Here, plans are being made for a hard drive on the development of wind power and offshore wind under the threat of power shortages and the end of the world if we do not give up more nature. The threats of power shortages are designed to put democracy in check. It is all the result of a deliberate policy designed with this goal in mind.

The most terrifying thing is not only that they present erroneous data to "greenwash" wind power and offshore wind in the report, but that it completely overlooks solutions and comments that have been submitted by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and other organisations, for example solutions in geothermal and geothermal energy production. The conclusions set in the report seem rigged and decided in advance. The commission's task seems to consist solely of gathering arguments and adapting data to legitimize the government's failed policy. A policy that is so completely off course and reality orientation that we have never seen its like.

To really emphasize the government's arrogance towards its citizens, also all minutes of meetings in the Energy Commission are kept secret, and the commission has not kept a legally required public record either.

RePower EU on Steroids..

“More of everything – faster” is RePowerEU on steroids and in a brand new guise, and they don't hide it either. Here from the consultation document, quoted;

RePowerEU is the biggest attempt to introduce new administrative practices through the back road in recent times. Here the government asked the population to provide lobbying arguments to the EU so that the EU could more easily introduce the directive changes into Norway. The Norwegian Environmental Protection Association summarized the response to the consultation on RePowerEU as follows:

Here, the Norwegian Environmental Protection Agency would like to clarify that RePowerEU (which involves significant changes proposed in the Renewable Energy Directive, the Energy Efficiency Directive and the Building Energy Directive) NOT part of Norwegian legislation, nevertheless, the Energy Commission, commissioned by the government, measures many of its conclusions and bases against RePowerEU. Why should a consultation on Norwegian policy be measured against EU legislation that is not included in Norwegian law? Shouldn't we relate to current Norwegian legislation and Norwegian conditions instead of adapting everything to the EU's, at any given time, wishes and needs? Why should we always think and act like a third-rate commodity colony? We are much better than this.!!
It is Norway that has the resources the EU wants, whether it is energy, mineral resources or fish and seafood, etc. It is high time to value the cards we have in hand and start making demands. But first we have to cover our own needs and our own competitiveness. We certainly cannot just hand it over to the same EU that our companies and workplaces themselves face and have to compete against. But at the same time, all consumption must also be in relation to the reasonable carrying capacity of nature, the environment and marine areas.

See the OED's consultation page on RePowerEU here (deadline 02.05.2023):

https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/horing-vedrorende-forslag-til-endringer-i-fornybardirektivet-energieffektiviseringsdirektivet-og-bygningsenergidirektivet/id2917944/?expand=horingssvar

Read the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency's response to RePowerEU here (PDF):

https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/45c768b6920f491f91827caeecb819bb/norges-miljovernforbund.pdf?uid=Norges_Milj%C3%B8vernforbund

Other important hearings:

Proposal for changes to the Energy Act and the Planning and Building Act relating to onshore wind power (deadline 27/02/2023):

https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/horing-vindkraft-land/id2958919/

Basic interest tax on onshore wind power (deadline 15.03.2023):

https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/horing/id2951726/

Here it is important to note that it is planned that the municipalities should be able to be "bribed" with tax income from wind power, while at the same time central authorities can withhold or reduce transfers to the municipalities. A municipality can thus end up in a situation where they have to say yes to something they don't really want, just to be able to maintain their basic services to the citizens. At the same time, a municipality that has said yes will never later be able to change this for the sake of the developer's financial investments, regardless of what changes or consequences are later discovered.

A manufactured crisis..

The game around the Energy Commission is quite special to say the least. This hearing "More of everything - faster" is also quite predictable when you see how the government has already maneuvered the big decisions without waiting for the commission. Here, permits and subsidies have been given to large energy consumers such as electrification offshore and Milk Island, data centres, battery factories, hydrogen and ammonia factories. Much of the hydrogen and ammonia to be produced from Norwegian electricity (green hydrogen) and from natural gas (blue hydrogen) is intended to be exported out of the country. The government recently signed an agreement with Germany on a collaboration where Norway would produce and deliver, while Germany would be the recipient market. At the same time, Equinor signed an agreement with German RWE for a direct delivery of hydrogen from Norway through a pipeline to Germany with significant amounts of energy exported from 2030.

Hydrogen is the least efficient energy carrier, where as much as 70-75% of the energy it cost to produce it disappears straight into thin air measured against the effect you get at the other end. In addition, the hydrogen molecules are so small that all systems and storage containers leak large quantities. Ammonia is another form of hydrogen that is much easier to transport, but which also depends on effective exhaust gas cleaning because it forms NOx gases when burned, and NOx gases are very potent greenhouse gases compared to CO2. Ammonia is also one of the basic elements for the production of artificial fertiliser, so when ammonia is now tied up in a new relationship of dependence with engines (ships, machines, etc.), then this is likely to be prioritized over the world's food production. Just wait and see. Hydrogen is also a problem in itself in that it also penetrates metals and materials and changes them chemically.

Even CICERO is concerned about the climate effects of hydrogen emissions to the atmosphere. So concerned that on 12/08/2022 they announced that they were going to research this and published the following article under the title "CICERO will research the climate effects of hydrogen emissions". This article is quite timely now that it has suddenly become unavailable on their website:

https://cicero.oslo.no/no/posts/prosjekter/cicero-skal-forske-paa-klimaeffektene-av-hydrogenutslipp

But the internet hasn't completely forgotten it, because it's archived here..

https://web.archive.org/web/20220812231008/https://www.cicero.oslo.no/no/posts/prosjekter/cicero-skal-forske-paa-klimaeffektene-av-hydrogenutslipp

The game is rigged: "Tacit consent" - should we avoid checkmate...?

The problem with all agreements made under permission from the authorities (tacit consent) also makes the Norwegian state liable for damages if the state later changes the framework conditions. We will therefore have to experience that i.a. hydrogen production for export will take precedence over heat and light for residents in the years ahead. We have absolutely no restrictions on the new establishment or expansion of unnecessary power consumption, or on the export of energy or hydrogen/ammonia. No overall overview or prioritization of consumption has been created either, but the uncontrolled consumption is also used as a means of pressure to build down more nature in an eternal circular argument that only grows bigger and bigger. That's how wrong Norwegian politics is already. A deliberate and planned disaster, designed down to every last detail. Checkmate in two moves. And with "More of everything - faster" it gets much worse than this too. Namely, with such uncontrolled power-hungry useless consumption, we will be forced to accept the reduction of the remaining natural areas and the sea in order to satisfy a (false) promise of light and heat for the households, only we build out more and more and more and more...

The problem is that it will never help any of us no matter how much more we build out in this country. All energy available in the electricity grid must be shared freely with foreign electricity customers without obstacles or reservations, and with today's transmission capacity we have no mechanisms to hold anything back, either physically, legally or contractually. If we have a kilowatt available in our electricity grid, foreign electricity customers in England or in Europe have the right to buy it on the same terms as Norwegian businesses or households, and without any form of discrimination or differential treatment.

With this starting point, it would not help us if we had built a million wind turbines on land and ten million at sea. Europe never gets enough energy. If they get access to more, they consume more. While Norway mainly only has electricity from hydropower, both Europe and England have a number of different energy sources that ensure them both light and heat, and energy for their own industry. Over the past few months, we have experienced time and time again that the southern energy regions, which have the greatest price contagion from Europe due to the large transmission capacity, have also had significantly higher electricity prices than Europe. How can the energy nation Norway compete against European industry when we have given up our most important competitive advantage? Should we just be a poor commodity colony of NAVers..?

Norway as Europe's battery – according to Norwegian design?

And at the same time that the southernmost power regions have had the highest electricity prices, so work is being done to expand the transmission capacity from northern and central Norway to southern Norway, which has an open export connection with Europe and England. All of this is part of an EU plan called eHighway2050, which we also mentioned in Miljømagasinet 1/2019 – Wind power. Here is the detailed plan for an integrated line network in Europe where Norway will be Europe's battery. And to understand how thoroughly the nation of Norway has been duped, it is actually the Norwegian SINTEF that has held the chairmanship in the initial phases of the eHighway2050 project, where it is SINTEF that has drawn up the framework that all the other project participants have worked on. The line network (+hydrogen economy) has one function, and that is to bring as much energy as possible out of Norway to strengthen infrastructure and industry in Europe.

https://docs.entsoe.eu/baltic-conf/bites/www.e-highway2050.eu/e-highway2050/

Also read the SINTEF report; "Norway as a Battery for the Future European Power System—Impacts on the Hydropower System":

https://www.sintef.no/en/publications/publication/1528667/

Upgrading the line network between north and south does not make it better for those who live in the north..

With full transmission capacity between northern and central Norway and southern Norway/Europe, electricity customers in the north do not get any lower electricity prices or more light and heat throughout the winter. It's all designed so that no one is going to be better off in any way, just that everyone is going to be equally worse off. Europe is insatiable.

"More of everything - faster" is the recipe for disaster.

We recently had a consultation on RePowerEU which aims to accelerate the development of "renewable" power. It is exactly the same as the aim of this hearing, "More of everything - faster". This consultation is RePowerEU in disguise. The RePowerEU hearing was both a test run, but at the same time also an attempt to introduce a new practice where the Norwegian people are asked for lobbying arguments that the EU will use to sneak new EU directives into Norway through the back door and without involving public opinion. Recycling of previous consultation responses during the argument – "the people have already been heard".

Many consultation responses have been received then it doesn't matter if all are negative. The people have been heard, so we do what we want anyway. And if there have been only a few or no responses to the consultation, then this is used as a sign that this was not that important to the population, so we do what we want anyway. Is this democracy..?

The experiences from the scrapping of the National Framework becomes central here because the later treatment of the new licensing rules for wind power was legitimized by the fact that the people were heard, because they had now recycled the consultation responses that came to the National Framework as legitimation for the new licensing rules not to be put out for a new public consultation. The NMF demanded this both in digital submissions and in written letters to both the government and the Storting's energy committee. In both places we were only met by a "the people were heard in the National Framework". But this is an absolute lie, because the National Framework was never about new licensing rules, but about 13 selected areas that should provide prioritized and simplified treatment for wind power. Nothing else. In my opinion, the new licensing system and regulations have no popular mandate or acceptance and are directly undemocratic. Simplified processing and faster development are the whole essence of the government's new plan, "More of everything - faster".

The National Framework for Wind Power, which was launched on 1 April 2019, and then scrapped after more than 5,300 mostly negative consultation responses, roused the Norwegian people to resistance, and not least a large part of the population understood the importance of following along and acquiring knowledge. When the government is now proceeding at a scale and pace that has no parallel in Norwegian history, it will no longer face an ignorant population.

While the authorities have previously carried out smaller isolated robberies, the latest development is a massive shock wave across the country at the same time. What we face now is 100 times worse than the National Framework, ACER, RePowerEU, etc. combined. If we are to have any chance of taking care of nature and the environment, then this battle is the most important in the near future, precisely because it will have a major impact (and priority) on all future issues we will ever face.

Roll up your sleeves, here it will be a fight for every millimeter..

The government counters the mayor's rebellion with coercion and bribery..

All the underlying mechanisms for this process is directly undemocratic. Not only in proposed solutions, but everything preceding and underlying the report. The mayor's rebellion, where 111 of the country's mayors signed a petition against wind power, was countered by new licensing rules and that the municipalities must be able to be "bought" with income to say yes to a wind power they do not want, only to be able to maintain the basic functions of their residents. At the same time, the state can put the municipalities under further pressure by reducing the transfers. The whole game is rigged to checkmate everything and everyone in two moves.

Do we really need to build more..?

It doesn't help anything for us here in Norway regardless of whether we built a million wind turbines on land and a hundred million at sea. We get just as little electricity for ourselves when we simultaneously have full capacity for export in the foreign cables and have to equate foreign electricity customers with our own. In practice, we export all our jobs, energy benefits and raw materials directly out of the country to an insatiable Europe that can never get enough. Why should we destroy our nature and our sea areas just to please Europe? And why with such undemocratic methods and instruments?

We already have more power than we use ourselves. The future power demand seems to be based solely on the free release of power exports via foreign cables and hydrogen/ammonia, a completely unnecessary electrification of the North Sea and of Milk Island in Finnmark, and free release and state support for a number of energy-intensive projects that we do not need.

And good and environmentally friendly solutions such as geothermal energy and geothermal energy is not mentioned at all, despite the fact that the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has recorded this for the Energy Commission. The fact that they have not mentioned this is further proof that the commission has only had the task of supporting the government's agenda. The government clearly has only one goal; to develop as much wind power and offshore wind as possible on behalf of the EU. And offshore wind is expensive, very expensive. In fact, so expensive that the government in its latest hearings on Utsira Nord and Sørlige North Sea II would actually have a point of view on which subsidy model they should choose; investment support or price guarantee where the government will take money from the joint fund and give it to the developer if the market price is lower than the guaranteed price. The paradox is that at the same time as the government wants to guarantee a high electricity price to the offshore wind companies, the same government goes out in the media and says that they are working to lower electricity prices. How does this go together?

“More of everything – faster” is the recipe for total disaster, and the government sits behind and pushes on.

Read the Environmental Protection Agency's consultation response on Sørlige Nordsjø II and on Utsira Nord here:

http://984072-www.web.tornado-node.net/2023/01/07/miljovernforbundets-horingssvar-sorlige-nordsjo-ii-og-utsira-nord/

Time to speed up geothermal - The energy supply of the future:

http://984072-www.web.tornado-node.net/2022/08/09/pa-hoy-tid-a-fa-fart-pa-geotermisk-fremtidens-energiforsyning/

Here, each and every one of you must read and familiarize yourself with what the government is now planning. When the National Framework for wind power, which was launched in April 2019, managed to wake up and mobilize the people, this consultation is at least 100 times more important.

Here, all the absolute worst from the "scrapped" National Framework, ACER, RePowerEU, and the entire bucket list are brought together in a solid package that has now been put out for consultation.

Here, unrestrained electricity consumption that we do not need will be given first priority to be supplied by the Norwegian power supply, while Norwegian households will be left without both light and heat. There is no cap or priority on such energy consumption. If we are to solve problems, we must start at the right end.

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Here there will be resistance. We need your help. Support the Norwegian Environmental Protection Association's work for nature, the environment and a sensible energy policy. Become a member! Send (text) 'ENVIRONMENT' until 2030.

Read up on the hearing "More of everything - faster" here (deadline 02.05.2023):

https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/offentlig-horing-av-nou-2023-3-mer-av-alt-raskere/id2961483/?expand=horingsnotater

Other important hearings:

Proposal for changes to the Energy Act and the Planning and Building Act relating to onshore wind power (deadline 27/02/2023):

https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/horing-vindkraft-land/id2958919/

Basic interest tax on onshore wind power (deadline 15.03.2023):

https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/horing/id2951726/

Here it is important to note that it is planned that the municipalities should be able to be "bribed" with tax income from wind power, while at the same time central authorities can withhold or reduce transfers to the municipalities. A municipality can thus end up in a situation where they have to say yes to something they don't really want, just to be able to maintain their basic services to the citizens. At the same time, a municipality that has said yes will never later be able to change this for the sake of the developer's financial investments, regardless of what changes or consequences are later discovered.