Oil-rich Norway may divest from fossil fuels

Google – AFP, 28 February 2014

A Greenpeace activist in a polar bear costume protests outside Norwegian

 company Statoil's office in Moscow on April 25, 2013 against its plans to drill 

in the Arctic (AFP, Yuri Kadobnov)

Oslo — Oil-rich Norway said Friday in an ironic twist that it would consider pulling its enormous state oil fund out of overseas investments in fossil fuels.

Norway, where oil revenue accounts for nearly a quarter of the economy, has the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, which has invested the nation's oil wealth in a range of stocks, bonds and other vehicles -- including major oil and gas companies.

An independent panel of experts will report back to parliament in 2015 on the likely consequences of the fund -- which is worth almost $840 billion (610 billion euros) -- divesting from coal, oil and gas businesses, the rightwing ruling coalition said Friday.

It was not clear whether any pull-out would affect all fossil fuel extraction companies, or whether it would also include power companies.

"It is important to look at this issue from every angle before going ahead with changes," said Svein Flaatten, finance spokesman for the conservative party.

Norway's Government Pension Fund, as it is officially known, owns about 1.3 percent of global market capitalisation.

The world's largest natural gas platform Aasgard-B being towed on April 17, 2000

 from Kvaerner Rosenberg Shipyard near Stavanger on the first stage of its journey

to its North Sea destination (Scanpix/AFP, Alf Ove Hansen)

Its top 10 stock holdings include almost 29 billion kroner ($4.8 billion, 3.5 billion euros) in Anglo-Dutch multinational Shell, 22.1 billion kroner in BG and 20.2 billion kroner in BP.

Despite its misleading name, the fund is in fact intended to shore up the Scandinavian nation's welfare state into the future.

In December the opposition Labour Party first sparked a debate on the fund going greener when it proposed selling off its investments in "dirty" coal-based energy.

Several financial experts have claimed that the "oil fund", as it is commonly called, is doubly exposed to investment risks.

A price drop in the fossil fuel sector would mean less state money poured into the fund and also lower returns on the stock market, as oil and gas account for 8.4 percent of the fund's stock holdings.

A large proportion of state revenue in Norway is derived from oil and gas production, and the state also owns a coal mining operation on the Arctic Svalbard archipelago.

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“…  4 - Energy (again)

The natural resources of the planet are finite and will not support the continuation of what you've been doing. We've been saying this for a decade. Watch for increased science and increased funding for alternate ways of creating electricity (finally). Watch for the very companies who have the most to lose being the ones who fund it. It is the beginning of a full realization that a change of thinking is at hand. You can take things from Gaia that are energy, instead of physical resources. We speak yet again about geothermal, about tidal, about wind. Again, we plead with you not to over-engineer this. For one of the things that Human Beings do in a technological age is to over-engineer simple things. Look at nuclear - the most over-engineered and expensive steam engine in existence!

Your current ideas of capturing energy from tidal and wave motion don't have to be technical marvels. Think paddle wheel on a pier with waves, which will create energy in both directions [waves coming and going] tied to a generator that can power dozens of neighborhoods, not full cities. Think simple and decentralize the idea of utilities. The same goes for wind and geothermal. Think of utilities for groups of homes in a cluster. You won't have a grid failure if there is no grid. This is the way of the future, and you'll be more inclined to have it sooner than later if you do this, and it won't cost as much….”

"2013 - What Now ?" – Jan 6, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Text version)

“… New ideas are things you never thought of. These ideas will be given to you so you will have answers to the most profound questions that your societies have had since you were born. Inventions will bring clean water to every Human on the planet, cheaply and everywhere. Inventions will give you power, cheaply and everywhere. These ideas will wipe out all of the reasons you now have for pollution, and when you look back on it, you'll go, "This solution was always there. Why didn't we think of that? Why didn't we do this sooner?" Because it wasn't time and you were not ready. You hadn't planted the seeds and you were still battling the old energy, deciding whether you were going to terminate yourselves before 2012. Now you didn't…. and now you didn't.

It's funny, what you ponder about, and what your sociologists consider the "great current problems of mankind", for your new ideas will simply eliminate the very concepts of the questions just as they did in the past. Do you remember? Two hundred years ago, the predictions of sociologists said that you would run out of food, since there wasn't enough land to sustain a greater population. Then you discovered crop rotation and fertilizer. Suddenly, each plot of land could produce many times what it could before. Do you remember the predictions that you would run out of wood to heat your homes? Probably not. That was before electricity. It goes on and on.

So today's puzzles are just as quaint, as you will see. (1)How do you strengthen the power grids of your great nations so that they are not vulnerable to failure or don't require massive infrastructure improvement expenditures? Because cold is coming, and you are going to need more power. (2) What can you do about pollution? (3) What about world overpopulation? Some experts will tell you that a pandemic will be the answer; nature [Gaia] will kill off about one-third of the earth's population. The best minds of the century ponder these puzzles and tell you that you are headed for real problems. You have heard these things all your life.

Let me ask you this. (1) What if you could eliminate the power grid altogether? You can and will. (2) What if pollution-creating sources simply go away, due to new ideas and invention, and the environment starts to self-correct? (3) Overpopulation? You assume that humanity will continue to have children at an exponential rate since they are stupid and can't help themselves. This, dear ones, is a consciousness and education issue, and that is going to change. Imagine a zero growth attribute of many countries - something that will be common. Did you notice that some of your children today are actually starting to ponder if they should have any children at all? What a concept! ….”