Thanks for the follow up Schalk.
You are way more into the details of the statistics on this than me, but are you not looking a bit blind on this.
Your whole point of writing this is I assume to hope to influence indirectly policy somehow. To take some different action.
Hence we cannot simply assume everything is set in stone. It will be up to us as citizens to try to push for changes where it is necessary.
Pushing for a more rapid transition in heavy industry may just be one of those things that needs to be done. You also probably know that projections in many industries have been exceedingly conservative.
Everyting in this industry is extremely interconnected. The price of green hydrogen is directly connect to the cost of green energy. As we expand solar and wind farms the price of green hydrogen will drop rapidly. This isn't a linear thing. Once you start getting overcapacity that excess electricity gets extremely cheap, often negative. That will profoundly change the equation on green hydrogen. That will again affect the cost of making green steel.
As we have seen with Solar, Wind and EVs it is a volumes game. As you get more familiarity with a technology and ramp up volume prices drop.
Countries like Germany and Norway has spent large amounts of money in subsidizing things like EVs and solar. But the benefit of that trickles down to others as volume production means lower prices for everyone. Sure the developing world may not be able to pay curent rates, but if the rich world go ahead first and get volume up we will have technology in placed which is competitive with fossil variants.
A lot of developing countries have a lot of poluting industry today because we have made a framework for world trade where we close our eyes to how things are made. Out-of-sight-out of mind. It may be in order to put carbon taxes on imports and thus actually encouraging some of the worst industry to actually come back to the West.
That may not be popular here, but that is one of the things I strongly advocate: That we in the West must be willing to accept some of the environmental destruction required for all the mining, wind turbines and other things done.
It is better to do it here than in developing countries as we have better regulatory regimes and technology to minimize damage. Norway has a lot of minerals needed for battery production. I think it is right that we share the burden and do some of that mining. It is too easy for us to opt out because we are rich. I'd say we precisely because we are not desperate to have this kind of industry we should be exactly the ones to have it. We will not be cutting corners in desperation to get it. We can make sure it is run in the most responsbile way you can run a mine.
This principle could be extended to all sorts of green industry whether manufacturing batteries, solar panels or wind turbines. Let us do it here. It will bring jobs and make sure it stays as clean as possible.
