
Trash piled 9 yards high is converted to heat and electricity at a waste-to-energy incinerator in Oslo.
Amanda Froelich posted in TrueActivist this September 27, 2013
What do you know of Norway? Ranked #1 on many indicators
Norway: a “Northern miracle” through the eyes of statistics
Note: Currently, Norway is #1 in collecting Olympic medals of all kinds in South Korea winter game
Is extracting crude oil and gas good or evil? Norway managed to avoid this “resource curse”
Note 1: Extracted from kazinkas, Forex Market reviews
Note 2: Recently, a deputy in the parliament applied for the Palestinian BDS movement against Israel for Nobel Peace Prize.
A trash incinerator. Roughly half of Oslo and most of its schools are heated by burning garbage.
“I’d like to take some from the United States,” said Pal Mikkelsen, in his office at a huge plant on the edge of town that turns garbage into heat and electricity. “Sea transport is cheap.”
Oslo, a recycling-friendly place where roughly half the city and most of its schools are heated by burning garbage — household trash, industrial waste, even toxic and dangerous waste from hospitals and drug arrests — has a problem: it has literally run out of garbage to burn.
The problem is not unique to Oslo, a city of 1.4 million people.
Across Northern Europe, where the practice of burning garbage to generate heat and electricity has exploded in recent decades, demand for trash far outstrips supply.
“Northern Europe has a huge generating capacity,” said Mr. Mikkelsen, 50, a mechanical engineer who for the last year has been the managing director of Oslo’s waste-to-energy agency.
Yet the fastidious population of Northern Europe produces only about 150 million tons of waste a year, he said, far too little to supply incinerating plants that can handle more than 700 million tons. “And the Swedes continue to build” more plants, he said, a look of exasperation on his face, “as do Austria and Germany.”
Stockholm, to the east, has become such a competitor that it has even managed to persuade some Norwegian municipalities to deliver their waste there.
By ship and by truck, countless tons of garbage make their way from regions that have an excess to others that have the capacity to burn it and produce energy.
“There’s a European waste market — it’s a commodity,” said Hege Rooth Olbergsveen, the senior adviser to Oslo’s waste recovery program. “It’s a growing market.”
Most people approve of the idea. “Yes, absolutely,” said Terje Worren, 36, a software consultant, who admitted to heating his house with oil and his water with electricity. “It utilizes waste in a good away.”
The English like it, too, though they are not big players in the garbage-for-energy industry. The Yorkshire-based company that handles garbage collection for cities like Leeds, in the north of England, now ships as much as 1,000 tons a month of garbage — or, since the bad stuff has been sorted out, “refuse-derived fuel” — to countries in Northern Europe, including Norway, according to Donna Cox, a Leeds city spokeswoman.
A British tax on landfill makes it cheaper to send it to places like Oslo. “It helps us in reducing the escalating costs of the landfill tax,” Ms. Cox wrote in an e-mail.
For some, it might seem bizarre that Oslo would resort to importing garbage to produce energy.
Norway ranks among the world’s 10 largest exporters of oil and gas, and has abundant coal reserves and a network of more than 1,100 hydroelectric plants in its water-rich mountains. Yet Mr. Mikkelsen said garbage burning was “a game of renewable energy, to reduce the use of fossil fuels.”
Of course, other areas of Europe are producing abundant amounts of garbage, including southern Italy, where cities like Naples paid towns in Germany and the Netherlands to accept garbage, helping to defuse a Neapolitan garbage crisis.
Yet though Oslo considered the Italian garbage, it preferred to stick with what it said was the cleaner and safer English waste. “It’s a sensitive question,” Mr. Mikkelsen said.
Garbage may be, well, garbage in some parts of the world, but in Oslo it is very high-tech.
Households separate their garbage, putting food waste in green plastic bags, plastics in blue bags and glass elsewhere. The bags are handed out free at groceries and other stores.
The larger of Mr. Mikkelsen’s two waste-to-energy plants uses computerized sensors to separate the color-coded garbage bags that race across conveyor belts and into incinerators.
The building’s curved exterior, with lighting that is visible from a long distance to motorists driving by, competes architecturally with Oslo’s striking new opera house.
Still, not everybody is comfortable with this garbage addiction. “From an environmental point of view, it’s a huge problem,” said Lars Haltbrekken, the chairman of Norway’s oldest environmental group, an affiliate of the Friends of the Earth. “There is pressure to produce more and more waste, as long as there is this overcapacity.”
In a hierarchy of environmental goals, Mr. Haltbrekken said, producing less garbage should take first place, while generating energy from garbage should be at the bottom. “The problem is that our lowest priority conflicts with our highest one,” he said.
“So now we import waste from Leeds and other places, and we also had discussions with Naples,” he added. “We said, ‘O.K., so we’re helping the Neapolitans,’ but that’s not a long-term strategy.”
Maybe not, city planners say, but for now it is a necessity. “Recycling and energy recovery have to go hand in hand,” said Ms. Rooth Olbergsveen, of the city’s waste recovery agency. Recycling has made strides, she said, and the separation of organic garbage, like food waste, has begun enabling Oslo to produce biogas, which is now powering some buses in downtown Oslo.
Mr. Haltbrekken acknowledged that he does not benefit from garbage-generated energy. His home near the center of town, built about 1890, is heated by burning wood pellets, and his water is heated electrically. In general, he said, Friends of the Earth supports the city’s environmental goals.
Yet he added, “In the short-term, it’s better to burn the garbage in Oslo than to leave it in Leeds or Bristol.”
But “in the long term,” he said, “no.”
Imagine a world where pollution is a non-issue, cities are pristine, healthy environments to live in, and little to no entanglements from discarded trash injures wildlife or clogs the oceans.
In Sweden, this is almost a reality, yet it’s causing a paradoxical predicament for the recycle-happy country that relies on waste to heat and provide electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes.
Amanda Froelich posted in TrueActivist this September 27, 2013
The Scandinavian nation of more than 9.5 million citizens has run out of garbage; while this is a positive – almost enviable – predicament for a country to be facing, Sweden now has to search for rubbish outside of its borders to generate its waste-to-energy incineration program.
It’s namely Norway officials who are now shipping in 80,000 tons of refuse annually to fuel the country with outside waste.
The population’s remarkable pertinacious recycling habits are inspiration for other garbage-bloated countries where the idea of empty landfills is scarce. In fact, only 4% of all waste in Sweden is land-filled, a big win for the future of sustainable living.
By using its 2 million tons of waste as energy and scrapping for more outside of its borders, this country is shown in international comparisons to be the global leader in recovering energy in waste. Go Sweden.
Public Radio International has the whole story.
This (albeit short-term) solution is even highly beneficial for the Scandinavian country; Norway pays Sweden to take its excess waste, Sweden burns it for heat and electricity, and the ashes remaining from the incineration process, filled with highly polluting dioxins, are returned back to Norway and land filled.
Catarina Ostland, senior advisor for the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, suggests that Norway may not be the perfect partner for the trash import-export scheme, however. “I hope that instead we will get the waste from Italy or from Romania or Bulgaria, or the Baltic countries because they landfill a lot in these countries” she tells PRI. “They don’t have any incineration plants or recycling plants, so they need to find a solution for their waste”.
There’s definitely something to be said about being ‘green’. Regardless of its sourcing, hopefully Sweden’s impeccable job of reducing its carbon footprint may serve as an example to other areas of the world that have more than enough trash to utilize and put to sustainable use.
Posted by: adonis49 on: November 8, 2013
Is the humongous human disastrous calamity in Syria behind the frenetic activities for a peaceful political transition…?
The Congo is a continent in size and has double the population of Syria.
The Congo has been plagued with 3 decades of genocide, civil wars, border militia infiltration from adjacent unstable 9 countries…
The Congo suffered famine, kid-soldiers, all kinds of atrocities and mass killing…
In these 3 decades, the Congo witnessed 5 million who took refuge in bordering countries and another 5 million transferred within the country, and the UN has 20,000 troops to keep the peace…
It took only 2 years for the Syrians to experience a higher magnitude of the Congo calamities, surpassing it, and the adjacent States are too small to accommodate these massive influx of refugees.
And yet, Syria is by far more modern than Congo:
1. The Syrians were enjoying free public education, free medical care…
2. The Syrians were self-sufficient in foodstuff and produced 80% of their basic medication…
3. The Syrians were lately self-sufficient in energy, clothing manufactured product…
4. The Syrians had the best highway network, linking all the main cities and villages…
5. The Syrians enjoyed 4 decades of dictatorship system that brought security, stability and relative peace within Syria…
Lebanon 13-year civil war didn’t affect the neighboring States that much. It took only 2 years for the Syrians to let its neighboring States feel the heat and ugliness of civil wars.
Lebanon with 4 million is crumbling under the influx of 2 million Syrian refugees:
1. The Syrian women are giving birth in Lebanon in number exceeding that of the Lebanese women
2. The school system in Lebanon can accommodate only 300,000 students, and there are 400,000 Syrian children in Lebanon requiring education…
3. And Lebanon has no government and the Parliament has extended its tenure for 2 more years on lame excuses, and the judicial system is not functioning properly…
Jordan is a poor country by any standard and is succumbing to the same influx of Syrian refugees, kind of a third of its total population…
And all these refugees are living in make-shift tents and relying on the UN to feed them on a daily basis…
And another winter is coming, and polio and other diseases are spreading like a wild fire and vaccination of kids are lacking…
Why the multinationals selected Syria to be the example for all small nations who decide to be self-sufficient in energy and foodstuff?
The first ready-made answer is “Syria is a strategic State“. Wrong!
Africa is strategic: It has the vast lands for cultivation, all the raw materials, the water resources, the cheap labor force…
Singapore and Malaysia are strategic: More than 80% of the world trade passes by the straights in these two countries. The trade crossing Syria is insignificant, and Syria is a small country and lacking raw materials…
The second ready-made answer is “Syria is floating on oil and gas…”
This is correct, but oil and gas have been transformed into market commodities. Any producing country wants to sell its oil and gas, and will sell it to whoever is willing to buy… Israel is benefiting from this long delay in extracting gas and oil: Since Israel has already started exploiting its offshore oil fields, this delay will increase Israel market share in Europe from the production of the Eastern Mediterranean energy fields.
Unless an Armageddon War is being planned, and all resources to be denied the “enemy” and strategic lines of supply closed…
The third ready-made answer is “All the main oil and gas pipelines in the Middle-East must cross Syria to be profitable, and Syria refused that Turkey be selected as the main export port for oil and gas to Europe...”
That sound a reasonable excuse for the multinationals and Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf Emirates with over-sized Ego that consider money to buy everything… and react violently to buffeted monarchical ego. (Read link in note 2)
Another fourth ready-made answer is: “Unstable Syria will be more lenient in negotiating oil and gas deals with multinationals. And Syria will get whatever it gets for the reconstruction process...” This is a false and lame excuse: This Syrians will not succumb to such blackmails, and the western nations will be coughing up plenty of financial aids, until any stable government in Syria is ready to deal and deliver…
Still, the four previous reasons cannot be the main root-cause for a calamity of that magnitude: They are catalysts to convince short-term profit mongers in the global decision makers to disturb political systems and plague the people…
The fifth ready-made answer is an illusion that is taking roots in the feeble minded: “The western powers want the last semi-secular bastion in the Middle-East, after the various “Arab Spring” upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt to fall to Islamic extremists and pinpoint a “credible” global enemy to its citizens, as during the Communist Iron Wall… “
And why the western nations want the Middle-East to be ruled by extremist Islam? Is that the best way to convince their citizens that a third world war is imminent, and the various western parliaments will open the purses for printing money in order to relieve the short-term financial difficulties?
It has been demonstrated again and again that global wars ends with many empires falling and crumbling, and the economy of the winners to improve in the short-term, but never in the medium and longer-terms…
Do you think that China would vanish in a global war?
Do you think that Russia would vanish in a global war?
Do you think that the USA would vanish in a global war?
Do you think that India would vanish in a global war?
Do you think that Brazil would vanish in a global war?
All these vast and populous countries won’t vanish in a global war…
So which States will be eradicated, dismembered, subjugated to mandated powers?
The main root causes for the Syrian catastrophe may be:
1. One good reason that is barely posited upfront is the availability of water resources that most country in this region lack and will certainly be lacking in the coming decade. (Read link in note 3)
2. An extension to Iran economic embargo by exhausting Iran’s economy and finances in recurring wars, such as in Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain. Cutting the path for Iran to get firmly established in a stable and secure Syria, as it is established in a convulsive Iraq, and an unstable Lebanon might relieve Saudi Arabia and Israel momentarily, but the deep problems in these two States are endemic and are not related to Iran.
Basically, It is Israel and Saudi Arabia who are raising so much dusts over Iran nuclear program, and the US is trying to temporize with these two irrelevant States with capacity of only giving the US humongous headaches due to their well-financed lobbies.
3. Every one of these reasons has Israel looming from behind the scene: Israel want Syria to emulate policies matching the readiness of the adjacent “Arabic” States of Egypt and Jordan to negotiate a lopsided peace treaty that is biased toward Israel, and water and gas pipelines reaching and crossing Israel are in the forefront of Israel’s demands.
Are the elite classes in the western Nations still viewing the people in the Middle-East and Africa as colonial States and should be totally relying on them for their survival?
That a million dead here and a million slaughtered there in the former colonies are not matters of concern to mankind civilization?
This turmoil was to last barely six months and things went out of hands.
And every one engaged in that morass lost, and lost heavily financially, morally and in world credibility as reasonable governments.
Many regimes will fall before a transitional government is settled in Syria.
Already, the Emir of Qatar handed over the reign to a son. Egypt of Morsi fell. The Moslem Brotherhood in Tunisia is battling for dear life.
And Turkey has lost all credibility as a moderate and developed nation in human rights, democratic processes and human development indicators… Turkey is one of the biggest loser: Shaky and flimsy democracy that is no longer tenable to cope with extensive Extremist Islam on its borders and a Kurdish movement increased confidence and means to check Turkish military preemptive attacks…
Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf Emirates are grappling with this last hurrah to be on the world scene.
Russia wanted also a weakened regime in Syria, but this calamity disturbed the name of the game. Russia has jumped at this opportunity to re-establish its global role on “The Hot”, a condition that impresses the minds and is very convincing on its determination to regain its global position as a superpower. Russia could have resolved the situation in 2011 if it wished to limit the damages.
If the US fails to grab this golden opportunity to settle peacefully the Iranian nuclear program, the US will be losing on all score boards in the Syrian catastrophe. Iran will have no choice but to firmly link with China and Russia on their global strategy.
The US should know by now that apartheid Israel and obscurantist Wahhabi Saudi Arabia have no choices but to rely on the US for their survival. These two irrelevant and “rogue” States can bark their head off and pretend to show whatever rotten teeth they have, they are plainly a huge liability on the US moral and democratic credibility in the coming decade.
Note 1: Three decades ago, Norway had no expertise in oil and gas exploration, extraction and even processing. And it managed to do it without major oil multinational disruption of Norway decision to doing it on its own and setting precedents in drawing laws for the distribution of this new found wealth and allocating portion to a “Sovereign National Reserve Fund” for the generation to come… Why Norway was not destabilized?
Actually, it was an Iraqi oil expert, a resident of Norway, who lead the Norwegian oil team to becoming a success story
Note 2: Gas pipelines https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/one-truth-behind-the-war-in-syria-qatarius-natural-gas-pipeline/
Note 3: Water resources https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2013/10/08/longer-term-cause-for-destabilizing-the-near-east-region-pipelines-for-water-resources/
Posted by: adonis49 on: March 24, 2009
The Jante Law: Mediocrity is King, (March 24, 2009)
In Scandinavia, the Jante Law said: “You are worthless. Nobody is interested in what you think. Mediocrity and anonymity are your best choices. If you act according to the Jante Law, then all your problems will vanish”
This Janti Law is the most common and most adhered to principle by most countries and people, though it was never formulated as clearly or known as the Law of the Lands of Mediocrity.
The Janti Law was stated in the novel “A refugee surpasses his limits” by Aksei Sandemose in 1933. This law was disseminated recently when the Norwegian Princess Martha-Louise married the writer Ari Behn.
Ari Behn was a recognized and acclaimed writer before he wedded the princess. After the marriage, Ari was vehemently critiqued and lambasted by writers for no other reason but for daring to surpass his class status. That is how the world got familiar with this Scandinavian Law.
By the way, Princess Martha-Louise embroidered her gown with the names of who counted in her life for her 30h birthday, and many started to emulate her generous spirit.
People always claim that many wars would not have started if an anti-Janti Law was preponderant:
1. That people knew that they are worth far more than what they think.
2. That what you do on earth is far more important than what you believe in;
3. That acting against injustice and expressing your opinions against tyrants will ultimately prevail.
That might be so, but it was still an abstract notion until 2003, when the King of Mediocrity, George W. Bush, prevailed against all the world community and launched his preemptive war against Iraq.
The Spanish PM Aznar defied the wishes of 90% of the Spanish citizens and so did the British PM Blair. The UN did not cover the operation.
Turkey declined 26 billions dollar in aid and denied the US troops a right to cross the Turkish land or launch military operations against its neighboring State.
Colin Powell was forced to forge falsified proofs, documents, and aerial photographs that Hans Blix, the inspector of Iraq disarmament on nuclear and chemical engines of war, contested for many months.
Britain Foreign Minister, Jack Straw, went as far as justifying this war on moral grounds.
The European Nations and their people were against this war. The Arab States unified to decry this war. The entire world demonstrated for two months but the King of Mediocrity prevailed.
No, it was not all in vain. Things have changed even if a few leaders still feel shy to denouncing the genocide that the Zionist State perpetrated against the Palestinians in Gaza.
The results of democratic elections are recognized, even if they don’t suit the philosophy of a few powerful nations. A new urgency for diplomatic resolutions is taking over in world politics. Sure, financial and economic downturns are helping that climate of overture, but Mediocrity is subsiding among nations.
The common people of nations are reawakening to known fundamentals that terrorism and religious extremism are the symptoms of fear, inequality in rights, injustices, and lack of freedom of speech coupled with anemic economies and lack of opportunities and professional diversity in jobs.
In order to establish just, prosperous, and democratic political systems around the world we have got to believe that it is very possible because it is right and urgent.
Note 1: The theme of this post was inspired by “Like a Flowing River” by Paulo Coelho with re-arrangement.
Note 2: This post was published over three years before the Arab mass uprising and the Occupy Wall Street protests in the US and in Europe
Posted by: adonis49 on: January 27, 2009
“No mas” for Nobel Peace prizes (January 15, 2009)
The Norwegian Nobel committee, for awarding “Peace Prizes” for personalities who contributed greatly to communicating the spirit of peace and actively working toward instituting peace around the world and in their communities, has been politicizing their policies which contributed to lavishing totally undeserving war criminals and criminals against humanity.
The latest of awardees is Israel president Simon Perez who said lately: “Israel can protect its babies against Gaza babies” and who participated in the decision making to perpetrate genocide on the Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Many deserving Nobel Peace Prize awardees signed a petition saying that they feel ashamed that Peres was awarded such an honorable prize.
The Norwegian committee has awarded this prize to Kissinger, the US Secretary of State under Nixon who prosecuted the Viet Nam war until it was a losing case; Kissinger is the one who planned and prosecuted the Lebanese civil war in conjunction with Sadat of Egypt.
Mind you that Sadat shared this honorable prize with Menahim Begin, the Zionist terrorists since 1920 and who became Prime Minister and invaded Lebanon in 1982 and entered the Capital Beirut.
Mind you that Arafat also shared this honorable prize with General Rabin, the Zionist Prime Minister who pre-empted the war in 1967 against Egypt and Syria and led terrorist activities against the Palestinians. Arafat cooperated with Sadat to set Lebanon afire for over 15 years.
What is it with Norway that it feels compelled to politicize the Nobel Peace Prize? What! Do I have to wage a pre-emptive war and then work out a flimsy peace negotiation in order to be awarded a peace prize? Do I have to be a Zionist zealot in order to increase my odds for being considered a worthy peace recipient?
What next? Are Bush Junior, Cheney, Olmert, Ehud Barak, Natanahu, Mubarak, and Condo potential candidates for Nobel Peace prizes? What next? Would Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama be the next candidates if they succeed to eliminate Hamas over the death of 1,000 babies and 5,000 injured Palestinians in Gaza? Would Mahmoud Abbass be awarded a Peace Nobel as a consolation prize? Would the Wahhabi Saudi monarch, the leader of the darkest and terrorist religious sect, be considered a serious candidate if he offered one billion dollars for the prize?
It is not enough to feel ashamed! It is the responsibly of the Norwegian government or its Parliament to strip the names of those who won these prizes and then proven to be undeserving from the list of this Hall of Fame or we will label this list the Hall of Shame!
Posted by: adonis49 on: January 15, 2009
“No mas” for Nobel Peace prizes (January 15, 2009)
The Norwegian Nobel committee, for awarding “Peace Prizes” for personalities who contributed greatly to communicating the spirit of peace and actively working toward instituting peace around the world and in their communities, has been politicizing their policies which contributed to lavishing totally undeserving war criminals and criminals against humanity.
The latest of awardees is Israel president Simon Perez who said lately: “Israel can protect its babies against Gaza babies” and who participated in the decision making to perpetrate genocide on the Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Many deserving Nobel Peace Prize awardees signed a petition saying that they feel ashamed that Peres was awarded such an honorable prize.
The Norwegian committee has awarded this prize to Kissinger, the US Secretary of State under Nixon who prosecuted the Viet Nam war until it was a losing case; Kissinger is the one who planned and prosecuted the Lebanese civil war in conjunction with Sadat of Egypt.
Mind you that Sadat shared this honorable prize with Menahim Begin, the Zionist terrorists since 1920 and who became Prime Minister and invaded Lebanon in 1982 and entered the Capital Beirut.
Mind you that Arafat also shared this honorable prize with General Rabin, the Zionist Prime Minister who pre-empted the war in 1967 against Egypt and Syria and led terrorist activities against the Palestinians. Arafat cooperated with Sadat to set Lebanon afire for over 15 years.
What is it with Norway that it feels compelled to politicize the Nobel Peace Prize? What! Do I have to wage a pre-emptive war and then work out a flimsy peace negotiation in order to be awarded a peace prize? Do I have to be a Zionist zealot in order to increase my odds for being considered a worthy peace recipient?
What next? Are Bush Junior, Cheney, Olmert, Ehud Barak, Natanahu, Mubarak, and Condo potential candidates for Nobel Peace prizes? What next? Would Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama be the next candidates if they succeed to eliminate Hamas over the death of 1,000 babies and 5,000 injured Palestinians in Gaza? Would Mahmoud Abbass be awarded a Peace Nobel as a consolation prize? Would the Wahhabi Saudi monarch, the leader of the darkest and terrorist religious sect, be considered a serious candidate if he offered one billion dollars for the prize?
It is not enough to feel ashamed! It is the responsibly of the Norwegian government or its Parliament to strip the names of those who won these prizes and then proven to be undeserving from the list of this Hall of Fame or we will label this list the Hall of Shame!