FEATURE - Norway's green rebel befriends oil industry
Date: 18-Oct-02
Country: NORWAY
Author: Barbara Lewis
Norway's leading environmental campaigner Frederic Hauge seeks to promote his vision of a green and sustainable future by working as a friend rather than foe of the oil industry that has helped make his country one of the richest in the world.
"We have got to make the industry go from being part of the problem to being part of the solution," he says.
Crowned by a mass of unruly fair hair, Hauge is a rebel among traditional environmental activists, normally fierce antagonists of the oil industry.
He ruled out teaming up with environmentalists like Greenpeace because, unlike them, he does not take issue with whaling and seal culling.
The typical environmental group may be pacifist, but the Bellona organisation, which Hauge chairs, is named after the Roman goddess of war.
In some ways, Hauge appears closer to the oil industry than he is to fellow campaign groups because he believes that is the way forward.
The yacht is loaned by big business. It was provided by shipping magnate Petter C. G. Sundt, a big shareholder in Bergesen, one of Norway's major gas and oil transporters.
On land, Hauge can be spotted strolling along the squeaky clean corridors of national oil giant Statoil's headquarters just outside Stavanger, western Norway.
His Utopia consists of small, sustainable and democratic power sources based on hydrogen and solar power, but Hauge says the oil industry's energy and technology are indispensable to that vision.
"We need energy input to produce all these (solar) panels," Hauge says. "Only the energy industry has the technology and the knowledge to (bring about) change."
"The only way is to use fossil fuel for the next 50 years and decarbonise it."
INNOVATION AWARD
Among Hauge's triumphs is that Bellona helped Royal Dutch/Shell find development partners to work on a proposed green fuel cell.
In August, the cell won an innovation award during the Offshore Northern Seas conference, Norway's largest gathering of the oil and gas industry in Stavanger.
Gas-powered and emission-free, the cell would be used as an energy source on offshore rigs - currently responsible for some 30 percent of Norway's carbon-dioxide emissions. Onshore Norway relies on emission-free hydro power.
The cell produces almost pure carbon dioxide as a by-product of the energy it generates. Carbon dioxide can be reinjected into the rock strata, a process that is considered environmentally friendly and can help the industry to extract more oil.
Shell aims to begin running trials in western Norway from 2004. Hauge says Shell and British Petroleum rank ahead of the competition in their environmental policies, but others are responding to the new trend.
ChevronTexaco , for instance, says its goal is "to be recognised and admired worldwide for safety, health and environmental excellence."
Statoil has so far said it will only exploit gas, not oil, in the environmentally sensitive Barents Sea and has pledged to bury any carbon dioxide produced in rock strata.
However, as oilfields further south mature, pressure is mounting on the Norwegian authorities to allow oil exploration in the Arctic.
"If they drill in the Barents Sea, we are going to take action," Hauge warned.
But can he stop them? "Of course," he said. "If I wasn't an optimist, I wouldn't be in this business."
