Alberta is physically located between the 49th and 60th parallel in the northern hemisphere. It has an area of 661,190 sq. km (255,290 sq. mi) and a population estimate for 2018 of 4.334 million people. Norway lies between the 57th and 81st parallel, has an estimated 2018 population of 5.359 million, inhabiting a land area of 385,252 square kilometres (148,747 sq. mi). Oil has been found in both of these dominions, and both have a savings fund based on the revenue from these resources.
Despite Norway being much further to the north geologically than Alberta, this Arctic nation has taken on the task of seriously addressing their carbon footprint. Per capita, Norway is the world leader in electrical vehicle adoption, with more than 200,000 units on the road. Fifty-two per cent of all cars sold in December 2017 were electric with the Tesla Model S the top-selling vehicle in Norway.
Alberta, by contrast has an estimated electric vehicle registry of just over 1,000. It is interesting to note that Norway promotes the use of electric vehicles by using tax incentives; conversely Alberta uses a punitive carbon tax system.
Although both the country of Norway and the province of Alberta have similarities in natural resource assets, and population, Norway is half the size of Alberta, and its climate is far more formidable, with longer winters and frostier average temperatures. The latitude of the nation’s southernmost point lies between our northern towns of Manning and High Level.
Norway’s efforts to reduce the nations carbon footprint, and meet their commitments laid out in the Paris Accord, does not stop at just electrifying the vehicles on their roadways, the Norwegians now have designs on electrifying their skies.
Avinor, the state owned Aviation Company has pledged a commitment to developing electric aircraft for its short haul flights.
They plan on offering commercial flights by 2025 and propose that by 2050 the countries entire aviation service will be supplied by planes with minimal environmental impact. To this end they have approached the major aircraft manufactures to bid on supplying the electrified airplanes.
Airbus has come up with the E-FAN series of electric aircraft one of which was successfully flown across the English Channel, and been demonstrated at the Farnborough Air Show in the UK. E-Fan X is the next step in Airbus’ electrification journey. In partnership with Siemens and Rolls-Royce, the company plans to develop an E-Fan X demonstration aeroplane using a British Aerospace RJ100 to test the 2MW hybrid-electric propulsion system by 2020.
Slovenian manufacturer Pipistrel has supplied Norwegian airlines Widroe, with a two seater Alpha Electro G2 plane which has a one hour flight time. Zunum Aero, backed by Boeing, is working on having a 12 passenger aircraft with a 700-mile range running by 2022.
Perhaps the most impressive proposal, Wright Electric’s 150 seat airliner, will fly the short haul market, i.e. travel under 300 miles.
Extraordinary dreams, perhaps, but with vacation aviation alone producing eight per cent of the worlds GHG, the effort is meaningful.
Lorne Oja can be reached at lorne@carbon2solar.com