Norway's $47bn coastal highway

DumbBrunette

This is extraordinarily ambitious, it makes our hopes of an Atlantic road corridor look like a 20th century joke:

https://youtu.be/HCT-FurFVLQ

The mad thing is, I think population density along Norway's west coast is similar to Ireland's so maybe we should start a campaign for similar - tunnels and bridges across Galway bay, Clew Bay and Donegal bay.

Also, I'm not sure the price tag is realistic!

L1011

Norway has oil revenues

We don't.

Also, the commitment to build this is basically "eh, we'll do it, eventually..."

Our equivalent wouldn't actually involve any of those links/tunnels as it would just be the Cork-Donegal bit of the Atlantic Corridor proposal anyway. Most of which is still somewhat underway to the same standard ("motorway or semi-motorway")

Some of the engineering that'll be required is jaw dropping.

The B1M is a brilliant Youtube channel.

Widdensushi

****, we can't keep the jack lynch tunnel open for one reason or another

magicbastarder

DumbBrunette wrote: »

The mad thing is, I think population density along Norway's west coast is similar to Ireland's

mad indeed.
can you imagine the encapsulated carbon involved, for a low population density area?
85% of norway's 5.5m population is urban - so a 50bn (if it got within an asses roar of that) road would be for less than one million people, or about 6k per person.
and that'd be based on the assumption that 100% of non-urban population is within usable distance of this road.

combat14

L1011 wrote: »

Norway has oil revenues

We don't.

Also, the commitment to build this is basically "eh, we'll do it, eventually..."

Our equivalent wouldn't actually involve any of those links/tunnels as it would just be the Cork-Donegal bit of the Atlantic Corridor proposal anyway. Most of which is still somewhat underway to the same standard ("motorway or semi-motorway")

norway has a trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund we have .... approx. 205-245 billion in debt... there is no comparison ..

Pinch Flat

Norway's cash reserves are about half that of our national debt. So yeah they've got the cash to do it.

noodler

Sounds like terrible value for money

joeysoap

No point it sitting in someone else’s bank account when you’re own citizens can enjoy it.
And afford it

Suckit

L1011 wrote: »

Norway has oil revenues

We don't.

Also, the commitment to build this is basically "eh, we'll do it, eventually..."

Our equivalent wouldn't actually involve any of those links/tunnels as it would just be the Cork-Donegal bit of the Atlantic Corridor proposal anyway. Most of which is still somewhat underway to the same standard ("motorway or semi-motorway")

That's an understatement.

They were literally looking for ways to spend their money a few years ago because they had too much.

Multipass

The ferries are good fun, and a lot cheaper than the tolls on existing bridges. Using that road will cost more than flying!

magicbastarder

magicbastarder wrote: »

85% of norway's 5.5m population is urban - so a 50bn (if it got within an asses roar of that) road would be for less than one million people, or about 6k per person..

i made a stupid error here. it's not 6k per person, it's 60k per person. at a theoretical minimum.
for a road. say it covers 1000km, at €50m per km. that's 500 quid per centimetre, or 50 quid a millimetre, on a road to cover a rural population.

Suckit

From 2013
https://www.businessinsider.com/norway-has-more-money-than-it-knows-what-to-do-with-2013-9

IIRC they pumped a load into public transport, new fleets of buses, new trains etc. They 'properly' cleaned all the streets and roads (not that they needed cleaning) and all of the government buildings, followed by all city buildings. New fleet of aeroplanes for the national airline, and hired a load of the considered top minds in finance to help them find ways to spend the money without creating a see-saw effect and creating problems elsewhere. They even gave every Norwegian 1 Million Kroner a year for 10 years, with those working in the public sector getting more.
I read a great article on it years ago, have no idea where, but even after all of that spending, they couldn't put a dent in it, but needed to or their money risked becoming worthless.
This must be one of the many methods that they explored. If it is, It doesn't seem the best imo.

magicbastarder

Why not spend the money on scientific research? On renewables, carbon capture, etc?

Harry Palmr

They could create an amazing solar farm in somewhere like Jordan and pipe it north for the winter building a road is nuts.

Alun

combat14 wrote: »

norway has a trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund we have .... approx. 205-245 billion in debt... there is no comparison ..

Pinch Flat wrote: »

Norway's cash reserves are about half that of our national debt. So yeah they've got the cash to do it.

joeysoap wrote: »

No point it sitting in someone else’s bank account when you’re own citizens can enjoy it.
And afford it

True, but they are also very aware that once they spend it it's gone, and that going forward, the oil and gas income that generated that wealth will eventually decrease significantly.

As a result, they are actually extremely careful on what they spend it on. Take the new library in Oslo, ten years in the building, beset with technical problems and budget overruns, and was once threatened with cancellation half way through the project. A spectacular building though.

piuswal

I travelled from Bergen to Kirkenes and back, by sea, a number of years ago.

https://www.hurtigruten.com/destinations/norway/voyage-of-discovery-bergen-kirkenes-trondheim/#key-info


Some people used the ship route to travel from town to town; cars on and off. In fact Hurtigruten was set up to service all the coastal towns over a century ago when land access was impossible or very limited.

I imagine they want to keep all these communities in place and this is he best way of doing so.

cgcsb

That's vanity engineering, not too different from what you see in the middle east. If I were them I'd invest in making Oslo less depressing.

Brian CivilEng

cgcsb wrote: »

That's vanity engineering, not too different from what you see in the middle east. If I were them I'd invest in making Oslo less depressing.

Have to take issue with that. Other than the ugly town hall, what is depressing about Oslo? Architecture is attractive, public transport is fantastic, plenty of public amenities and since the parking ban a very comfortable city to walk and cycle around. I'd love to be having a pint sitting on the street outside Grünerløkka Brygghus right now.

Graham

magicbastarder wrote: »

Why not spend the money on scientific research? On renewables, carbon capture, etc?

Have you not watched Occupied (Okkupert) :eek:

minikin

Hmmm, could we sell our sovereignty to them for 200 billion?
Would have no problem becoming a Norwegian, in the 'national interest'.
The Oslo to Dublin tunnel would help burn another few hundred billion for them.

cgcsb

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

Have to take issue with that. Other than the ugly town hall, what is depressing about Oslo? Architecture is attractive, public transport is fantastic, plenty of public amenities and since the parking ban a very comfortable city to walk and cycle around. I'd love to be having a pint sitting on the street outside Grünerløkka Brygghus right now.

The lack of a nightlife and general lack of people. They do have high quality streetscape compared to most of europe and the best public transport of any City in the world I've been to.

bk

cgcsb wrote: »

The lack of a nightlife and general lack of people. They do have high quality streetscape compared to most of europe and the best public transport of any City in the world I've been to.

Weird, any time I've been in Oslo, I've found the nightlife to be great.

Once I was there that had a massive musical festival, all over the city there were bands just playing on stages set up in the streets, went all weekend, very cool. Never seen anything like it here.

Oh and very cool going into a night club at 11 and it is still bright and then getting kicked out at 3am and it being almost daylight! Loads of people just milling around the streets at 3am just chilling and chatting. Very nice relaxed night-life compared to the craziness of Temple bar.

magicbastarder wrote: »

Why not spend the money on scientific research? On renewables, carbon capture, etc?

They spend a fortune on renewables, CCS, etc.

98% of Norways electricity is renewable! The best in the world. Of course most comes from their hydro power and increasingly they are being used as the battery of Europe, supporting wind power in their neighbours.

They have invested massively in Electric Vehicles. Over 60% of new car sales are now all EV.

Norwegian Oil and Gas companies are pivoting to green energy development. Heavily involved in offshore wind, etc.

Their National Wealth Fund is investing heavily in green tech companies and is deinvesting in heavily polluting industries.

Frankly they are one of the world leaders in renewable energy. Way better then us, we are terrible by comparison.

On the subject of the coastal road. An amazing engineering project, but no point in comparing it to anything in Ireland.

Not just for cost reasons, but there is simply no need for something like that here in Ireland.

Norway needs to do this, because the center of their country is basically a massive mountain range that is largely unpassable. The only way to travel the length of the country is along the coast and even then it is an extreme challenge. This is why regional airports and regional flights are so popular there.

Non of this applies to Ireland. The center of our country is basically flat and it is very easy to build pretty standard motorways between our cities without any mad engineering like this. We are pretty lucky in this regard, though pity we don't have more hydro like them.

Our challenge will be approaching their levels of renewable energy use.

Brian CivilEng

bk wrote: »

Norway needs to do this, because the center of their country is basically a massive mountain range that is largely unpassable. The only way to travel the length of the country is along the coast and even then it is an extreme challenge. This is why regional airports and regional flights are so popular there.

My Norwegian in-laws pointed out to me a lay-by as we drove a mountain road in the summer. They said that during the winter the roads are mostly impassible, so to maintain access drivers wait in the lay-by until a snow plow arrives, then a train of cars follows the snow plow across the mountain. By the time they have passed it is likely that enough snow has fallen that the road is impassible again. I think tunnels would be useful there!

If you ever come across the Norwegian film Kraftidioten, Stellan Skarsgard's character plays a snow plow driver and they demonstrate the snow plow and train of cars quite well.

bk

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

My Norwegian in-laws pointed out to me a lay-by as we drove a mountain road in the summer. They said that during the winter the roads are mostly impassible, so to maintain access drivers wait in the lay-by until a snow plow arrives, then a train of cars follows the snow plow across the mountain. By the time they have passed it is likely that enough snow has fallen that the road is impassible again. I think tunnels would be useful there!

Yep when they talk about Snowplows in Norway, you are talking about insane stuff like this:



Fantastic video here for how insane some of the snowplowing is and the incredible mountain ranges they are passing through:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ofGq4usOtY

YellowBucket

bk wrote: »

Weird, any time I've been in Oslo, I've found the nightlife to be great.

Once I was there that had a massive musical festival, all over the city there were bands just playing on stages set up in the streets, went all weekend, very cool. Never seen anything like it here.

Oh and very cool going into a night club at 11 and it is still bright and then getting kicked out at 3am and it being almost daylight! Loads of people just milling around the streets at 3am just chilling and chatting. Very nice relaxed night-life compared to the craziness of Temple bar.



They spend a fortune on renewables, CCS, etc.

98% of Norways electricity is renewable! The best in the world. Of course most comes from their hydro power and increasingly they are being used as the battery of Europe, supporting wind power in their neighbours.

They have invested massively in Electric Vehicles. Over 60% of new car sales are now all EV.

Norwegian Oil and Gas companies are pivoting to green energy development. Heavily involved in offshore wind, etc.

Their National Wealth Fund is investing heavily in green tech companies and is deinvesting in heavily polluting industries.

Frankly they are one of the world leaders in renewable energy. Way better then us, we are terrible by comparison.

On the subject of the coastal road. An amazing engineering project, but no point in comparing it to anything in Ireland.

Not just for cost reasons, but there is simply no need for something like that here in Ireland.

Norway needs to do this, because the center of their country is basically a massive mountain range that is largely unpassable. The only way to travel the length of the country is along the coast and even then it is an extreme challenge. This is why regional airports and regional flights are so popular there.

Non of this applies to Ireland. The center of our country is basically flat and it is very easy to build pretty standard motorways between our cities without any mad engineering like this. We are pretty lucky in this regard, though pity we don't have more hydro like them.

Our challenge will be approaching their levels of renewable energy use.

I find Norway’s position on energy hypocrisy at its finest. Domestically they’re great at renewables but their economy is based on export of hydrocarbons - oil & gas.

Overall their carbon footprint is enormous per capita, they just take no responsibility for the CO2 they dig out of the ground so long as they’re not the ones burning it. However they’re quite happy to benefit enormously from the economic inflows from all of that burnt gas and oil.

Comparing Norway to Ireland on ability to public spend like this is ludicrous too. Compare us to Finland, Sweden or Denmark, but Norway is basically a social democratic version of an oil rich Middle Eastern country. Money no object projects are easy in that context and they do not need to make financial sense.

It’s like trying to say we should just do what the UAE does on infrastructure and energy policies.

I’m not saying we would have done any different had we ever had huge oil reserves, but it’s not a reasonable comparison with any other similarly sized European country.

Shedite27

Architects: "aren't we clever"
Engineers: "WTF"