En-why-ronment

The company I work for, Alstom, held a seminar today over environmental issues.
We are as a nation (well "they") in a quite unique situation
among the worlds 214 countries. 99% of our 120 TWh of power
is generated in hydro-plants wich would make Norways power
production the cleanest one in the world.

Invited to the seminar was, outside our own office, the political spokeswoman for FrP (Fremskrittspartiet) the most far right of the established parties as well as the one responsible for environmental issues in the most far left and green of the established parties - SV (Sosialistisk Venstre) on top of this our own responsible for CO2-capture techonolgy and an ex-IEA (International Energy Agency)

It was in some ways a two-part day. Half was pure techonology and forecast-talk from our side on what we have in the pipeline for technologies to clean CO2 and what the need for it is the coming years.

All-in-all to sum that up: if our pilot plant @ Mongstad in collaboration
with Statoil turns out well this company will be around and well in the top
on the market for another 30 years :)

The other side was the general overview of the situation.
This was the new part for me and the interesting part,
mostly represented by the former IEA employee.
(and in the end a small statement on where the parties have their views)

Perhaps it is time to wake up and not just sleep it all away:

Where concerns about the world getting warmer
The people thought they were just being rewarded
For treating others as they like to be treated
For obeying stop signs and curing diseases
For mailing letters with the address of the sender
Now we can swim any day in november

Dont wake me i plan on sleeping

Postal Service - Sleeping In

The most intereting points made was some random fact I picked up

*1250 new power plants will be built in China before 2020

*15.5 billions of ton of CO2 exhausted per year and an incentive is going around 20€ per ton at 2030 if we continue to increase the polution in this speed.
Giving a market to trade with incentives of around 3 000 M€
(2005's exhaust levels were somewhere around 9.2 billiond of ton)

*To reach a goal of a 50% cut in todays CO2-levels the developed countries
will have to cut our CO2-waste with 80-90% to allow for the developement countries to increase their levels with some 65% since they can't really halt all their progress

*Norways power production could easily be boosted by another 10% by just upgrading current hydro plants. Wich today have technology dated back as long as the 1950's,
(another part of our business area @ Alstom)

What all of these shows is that this company'll be around for some time.
Time to tie oneself up with some loans on housing, cars and everything else now then!

Adam H - Design Engineer of Alstom Power Norway AS

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Gotta stay true to my tradition to make lots of threads into a
yin and yang mish-mash of different topics. This one is on the topic: They say jump you say how high as Zack chants in Bullet in the Head. This time my dear sister T told me to jump, and I am not the one to argue on her advice and guidance. Remains to see if/what/when something happens though.
(Hmm this last little rant didn't leave much info did it? Surrounding myself with an air of mystique just to appear more interesting :P And hopefully I won't screw things up all too much and something good might even come out of it.)