Norway is a small country, about 5 million people, that has transformed their transport sector to renewable energies.
The country has also framed national policy to support the transition to renewables, firstly by subsidizing costs of EVs by reducing extra costs like VAT and CO2 taxes.
Another vital aspect in transition to renewables is jobs.
According to investment bank UBS, new EVs may represent 40% of all new cars by 2030.
As a result, visionaries are planning gigafactories, following the lead of Elon Musk’s new plant in the Nevada desert.
FREYR Battery are building a gigafactory in northern Norway in a town called Mo i Rana, near a popular ski resort.
Northvolt are building a gigafactory in next-door Sweden which will occupy an area of 70 football stadiums and lead to 10,000 new jobs in the region.
In Northumberland, the UK are planning a gigafactory managed by Britishvolt scheduled for late 2023.
Texas might be thought comparable to Norway because of its vast wind farms in the north and west regions of the state.
But the electricity sector accounts for only 13% of end-use consumption, where oil and gas dominate with 86%.
Comparing with the bullet list above shows that an extra 15 GW of wind power is a 50% increase from Q3 2020, and the monetary increase is of the same order.
But the big disparity is that renewables in Texas will remain a small percentage of in-state energy consumption, compared with 67% in Norway.
Texas will have to address and reduce the demand for oil by proactively shifting into green energy businesses, or by lobbying for policies like carbon-pricing that will constrain GHG emissions.
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