08 May 2010

Norway hasn't had problems with its ocean drilling

After all, there is one country that has established an unrivaled record for environmental safety while exploiting its offshore petroleum reserves. That would be Norway, which created the company now known as Statoil Hydro as a fully state-owned entity and still controls nearly two-thirds of the company's "privatized" shares...

Statoil rigs in the North Sea are required by law to maintain special "acoustic switches" that shut down operations completely (and remotely) in case of a blowout or explosion...

What makes Norway so different from the United States -- and much more likely to install the most protective energy technology -- is that the Norwegian state can impose public values on oil producers without fighting off lobbyists and crooked politicians, because it owns and controls the resources...

Rather than debate the need for stronger environmental regulation with powerful private interests for the past quarter-century, the Norwegians were able to harness the profits of their oil resources to improve the environment (and provide a generous social security and universal healthcare system for their people).

3 comments:

  1. Just what we need. Federal control of every aspect of our lives, and, all of our corporations. After all, the feds do have an excellent track record of properly controlling everything they have tried so far.

    If you think for one microsecond that the US government can control anything as well as the tiny country of Norway can then you need to think again.

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  2. Corporations will not employ any safety measures not regulated. Zero. Apparently the tiny country of Norway does a damn fine job!

    There obviously needs to be more oversight for money-before-safety corporations. I'm not sure how you tie in "every aspect of our lives," but the socialist aspects of our society (libraries, police, FD, stoplights) are more effective than they would be if privatized.

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