Norway's rich hydropower source of trouble
© 2000 Reuters Limited
September 20, 2000
Story by Erik Brynhildsbakken
OSLO - A row over a tiny power plant has highlighted Norwegian's increasing opposition to new hydropower projects.
In most countries, environmentalists focus their objections on nuclear power schemes or pollution from plants run on fossil fuels. In Norway, they are worried about the ecological impact of damming new rivers to generate clean hydropower.
"It would be a paradox if we should come to a situation where we have to import power because we cannot come to a political agreement about how to utilise our resources," Bjoerg Sandal, Oil and Energy Ministry parliamentary secretary, told Reuters.
Oil and Energy Minister Olav Akselsen, whose minority Labour government took office in March when the former coalition quit after rejecting opposition demands to build natural gas power stations, has his own power-related trouble.
Akselsen ordered the state-owned developer Statkraft on September 8 to stop work on a tiny hydropower development in the Beiarn watershed in north Norway after protests by opposition parties, environmentalists and the indigenous Sami population.
Three weeks after telling the Norwegian media that it was "impossible" to withdraw Statkraft's licence, he told the firm to reassess the 66 megawatt project.
Overturning the licence would be an unprecedented move by the government.
GREENS SEEK ALTERNATIVES TO HYDROPOWER
Some environmentalists are strongly opposed to the Beiarn development, saying they want to protect wild salmon in the watercourse or the Samis' feeding grounds for their reindeer.
The Sami population is classified as an indigenous people, and the environmental organisation Bellona believes any threat to their reindeer herds might violate special U.N. regulations protecting such groups.
Bellona's leader, Frederic Hauge, said he would not oppose all hydropower development, but that he could not "sit and watch nature getting wrecked in order to cover the increasing need for power".
Instead he called for an improved efficiency of existing hydropower stations, investment in other renewables such as wind, solar and emission-free natural gas power stations.
Hauge said the Beiarn power station was unnecessary. 30 large windmills would produce just as much power.
ADAM SMITH MEETS POWER GENERATION
Hydropower is a renewable source of energy for virtually all of Norway's average 113 TWh per year electricity output. Norway's problem lies in how to cover rising demand for electric power in the future.
Yearly demand has already reached about 125 TWh, which means that energy-rich Norway has to import power in a "normal" year. Furthermore, the government projects a rise in demand at a rate of more than 1.0 Terawatt hour (TWh) per year.
The authorities are looking at increasing output from existing hydropower stations, wind power alternatives, and heath and natural gas power stations as ways to boost output.
But hydropower remains the supreme source of electric power, with an estimated 29 TWh left in river systems outside the various protection plans.
And as the current political climate seems unwilling to allow even the small Beiarn development, which will produce just 0.2 TWh per year, the gap between supply and demand might widen quickly.
So fast, in fact, that the Norwegian process industry interest organisation, PiL, estimates power prices will more than double by 2008 if the number of new developments in the Nordic region does not rise dramatically.
The Nordic power market is controlled by market forces through a regional electricity exchange, Nord Pool.
"The market functions in such a way that if there is a shortage in supply, then there is every possibility that prices will rise," Sandal said.
Statkraft information chief Geir Fuglseth agrees that the demand for power will rise and that the government's prediction of a one percent annual increase was "cautious".
Fuglseth said the Beiarn issue may result in a domino-effect threatening other projects where the developer had already secured development licenses.
"I am sure they will meet just as much opposition as that faced by the Beiarn development," he said.