Sometimes, when a country attempts to do the right thing, Murphy (ie, “Murphy’s law” Murphy) decides to present them with a hundred and one challenges to overcome. Murphy has recently set his sights on Norway, and is giving them a good tug.

Bordered by Sweden, Finland and Russia, the Kingdom of Norway is apparently one of the most peaceful countries in the world (though, by which measuring scale that was taken I’m not sure). Amongst the wealthiest countries of the world, Norway can thank the natural reserves of oil and gas reserves off their coast for their economic boom.

And though Norway apparently holds some of the strictest emission rules in the world, they want to do more.

Naturally there are critics that look at the bottom line, and see this “doing more” thing as meaning “costing more.” And it even seems a little hypocritical, once you realize what it is that Norway is trying to do.

See, Norway has several off-shore oil and gas platforms. These platforms use a certain amount of what they produce, to fuel themselves. Subsequently, in providing emission-producing fuels, they emit emissions in producing the … you get the picture.

Reported last Friday (the 9^th of November) was the news that Norway is pushing through with plans to power these off-shore stations, from the shore.

The theory goes that, if you can provide clean power to the platforms, then a modicum of emissions will be reduced.

BP is part of this initiative, and hopes to develop technology that will bring electrical power to the platforms. BP’s Skarv field development is one target for such a plan, as it attempts to reach the 16.4 million cubic meters of oil and 34.5 billion cubic meters of gas beneath the field.

However there is a flaw in their planning that seems just a tad too big to have been overlooked. It’s the critics that have brought this up, and not surprisingly, as they’ll latch on to anything to save themselves a few bucks. But apparently, Norway simply doesn’t have the energy production available to provide power to these stations.

As such – and having exploited their natural bounty of hydro-electrical surroundings – they would have to build a gas-fired plant. In my eyes, and the critics’, this would negate any good done by providing energy to the stations.

There is one last option that may provide the benefit, but once again, it seems to be at cross purposes. StatoilHydro, the biggest operator on the Norwegian shelf, is already developing floating windmill farms that will provide off-shore power to shore. So the logical step is to link these floating farms to provide energy to the platforms.

Granted, Norway need to keep their revenue up: one can simply not ignore an entire profit-maker simply because of the environment. As much as we would like them too, their people come first. But it seems to me that, all the money going towards producing elaborate shore to off-shore electric conduits should just be redirected towards floating windmill farms.

I look forward to the day where we no longer rape our planet of its natural gasses and fuels, subsequently bringing the doom of our planet closer through their emissions. But until that day, can we just allow a small amount of logic to rule? Please?

Reuters via ENN - Norway seeks land power for offshore fields