Somewhere between Porsgrunn harbor and the wooded uplands of Lannerheia lurks a problem Norway can no longer avoid. Porsgrunn is the Norway no tourist guide ever shows. Yes, there is a fjord with its shining blue waters. But there are also smokestacks and men in neon jumpsuits milling among the clank and crash of industry as wisps of smoke and vapor drift overhead. This is Norway’s industrial heartland, and these businesses came here for one big reason: cheap energy. For generations, they have sipped from what appeared to be a bottomless well. Norway had more clean hydropower than it knew what to do with. Residents benefited with some of the lowest energy prices in Europe. So did businesses. So more came. Why We Wrote This Norway’s money and hydropower have insulated it from the world’s energy pressures – until now. The way it solves these challenges could set a global example. Now, a few miles up the river, Google is building a $700 million data center outside the city of Skien. The amount of energy needed to cool its high-performance servers will be immense. One media report raves: “This decision highlights Norway’s growing attractiveness as a hub for data centers, driven by its robust infrastructure and abundant renewable energy resources.” The problem is, those abundant renewable energy resources don’t feel all that abundant anymore. Norway’s growing thirst for energy has tipped it from huge surpluses to growing deficits. There are no more hydropower sources left. Many experts suggest wind power is the best solution – with one proposed project above Porsgrunn in Lannerheia. But those efforts have been shut down by voters, deeply unpopular. Mark Sappenfield/The Christian Science Monitor A view of the harbor in Porsgrunn, Norway, which sits at the center of the Scandinavian country’s industrial heartland, April 30, 2026. Norway has long had an enviable way out of tough problems: money. Lots of it. After the discovery of huge reserves of oil and gas under the North Sea in the 1970s, the government created what is now the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, valued at $2.2 trillion, or about $390,000 for each Norwegian citizen. The money has kick-started the world’s most successful transition to electric vehicles, for instance, with EVs now accounting for 98% of new car sales. But there is a growing recognition that the country cannot buy itself out of the wrenching choices ahead, many of which the rest of the world has faced for decades. How Norway responds will be a test of whether it can keep to its pioneering course on clean energy. But it is also a test of Norway’s collective spirit. With the discovery of oil, the country took steps to make sure the energy benefited everyone. Today, the question is whether the country can move beyond rising political divisions to use its wealth not as a way to sidestep hard choices, but as a tool to incubate new solutions – for Norway, and for the rest of the world. An EV transformation If any country can figure this out, it might be Norway. And the way to a solution might look a lot like Erik Telle. Bald, obliging, and on his way to training classes for his Irish setter, Mr. Telle is more the portrait of avuncular Norwegian affability than a would-be climate warrior. But sitting at a Circle K convenience store as the traffic of a nearby Oslo highway roars past, he admits he has shocked even himself. He has bought an electric car. As he talks, his voice is still tinged with shades of doubt and regret. The affection for his old diesel Volvo is apparent in the crinkled eyes that brighten when he mentions it. He says he cried when he sold it a week before – joking, but wistfully. Mark Sappenfield/The Christian Science Monitor Erik Telle stops at a Circle K charging station in Oslo on April 29, 2026. He says he cried when he sold his diesel Volvo but is getting used to his new electric car. “Do I really want to do this?” he remembers thinking. But in the end, there was no real reason not to. Electric cars are cheaper than gasoline-fueled cars in Norway. Charging stations are everywhere; a map on the dashboard display of his new electric Škoda shows more than a dozen nearby. And, perhaps most important, “I have been bullied by my daughter and son-in-law,” he grins. “They’re on their second EV.” Norway’s oil wealth was crucial to the first steps of this EV transformation. Electric cars were exempt from import taxes and value-added taxes, and drivers could pay reduced tolls – a significant dent to revenue that the Norwegian government knew it could swallow to make the cars more affordable. When drivers complained of a lack of charging stations, the government stepped in to fund a starter network of charging points between and within Norway’s biggest cities. The investments quickly started creating their own momentum. As the roads filled with more electric cars, companies jumped in to fill the charging gap. “After 2015, almost all the fast-charging stations have been commercially funded,” says Unni Berge, a spokesperson for the Norwegian EV Association. “We created the market for the companies.” Norwegian auto buyers also began to see the economic logic. As Dag Arne Ribe pauses to charge his vehicle at the Circle K along the E6 highway in Oslo, he notes that a Tesla in Norway is far less expensive than a Volkswagen or an Audi. “Most people were negative in the beginning, but now, it’s shifting,” he adds, standing among more than 30 fast chargers at the Circle K, with another six visible about 100 yards away in a McDonald’s parking lot. “There’s not a single argument that you’d rather have a fossil-fuel car than an electric.” Mark Sappenfield/The Christian Science Monitor A driver charges his car at the Circle K along Norway’s E6 highway, April 29, 2026. It is one of the largest charging stations in Oslo, with 36 chargers. The Norwegian energy example This is one key reason Norway’s energy experiment matters to the rest of the world. When countries take the right steps, many experts say, more people choose sustainable options – not for moral reasons, but because they make economic sense. “The most striking thing about Norway’s energy transition is how unremarkable it feels to the people living through it,” says Jan Rosenow, leader of the Energy Program at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, in an email interview. “Norwegians didn’t transition out of climate conviction, they transitioned because the math worked, and that quiet normality is precisely what makes it interesting.” When it comes to growing energy shortages, however, the math is definitely not working. Marius Roheim Aarvold knows that perhaps better than anyone. As mayor of Skien, he appears trapped. On one side are businesses, who leave no doubt about the top item on their agenda: energy. “It’s the hottest topic,” he says. “Industry is getting louder and louder about the need for more power.” On the other are voters who do not want wind turbines – the option Mayor Aarvold sees as the most practical solution. Paolo Picciotto/Reda/Universal Images Group/Getty Images Windmills produce energy on the coast of Norway, on May 16, 2025. Those in Norway who oppose wind energy say it will damage pristine landscapes. Sitting beside him in Skien’s city hall is Stein Birger Johnsen, the city’s business manager. While Mayor Aarvold fits the image of a next-gen politician with his blue suit and neatly trimmed beard, Mr. Johnsen is the consummate technocrat, bespectacled and businesslike, always searching for solutions, at times waxing philosophical about society’s ability to evolve. Skien’s next evolution includes new industries such as data centers, he says. Until recently, Norway had no hyperscale data centers. The one under construction nearby is Google’s first in the country. “We need to have new ways of working,” Mr. Johnsen says. “We need data centers to set new goals.” That means more energy. “We have the same amount of electricity” as a decade ago, he adds. “If we want to produce more, we need to use nature.” In some ways, Norway would appear the perfect place for wind development. A United Nations Population Division study found that only 0.7% of its land is urbanized, the lowest share in Europe apart from Iceland. From fjords to farms, forests roll over the rumpled coastal landscape south of Oslo, the deep green of pines peppered with the spring green of budding birches. Many Norwegians argue that such undisturbed landscapes are not an economic opportunity, but a sacred trust. A study released last year shows that only 37% of Norwegians support wind power. When it comes to wind projects near one’s own home, support drops to 27%. Voters worry that “we are taking away the nature, taking away the look when you are on the mountain,” Mayor Aarvold says. Building the political unity to make such a controversial decision seems impossible today. But a decade ago, the country did something similar. Its EV revolution began with the 2015 National Transport Plan. Its goal: 100% of new passenger car sales would be zero emission by 2025. There was support from all political parties, says Bendik Nybakk Torsæter, an EV expert at SINTEF, an independent research organization based in Trondheim, Norway. “All decided that this was a goal no one should move.” But the global forces of polarization have hit Norway, too, he says. “I don’t think you would get that through at the same level today.” Industries in Porsgrunn see the same shift. Thirty years ago, “when labor unions would say, ‘These are our concerns,’ society would respect that. Now, everything is subject to a point of view,” says Ådne Naper, a project leader for Powered by Telemark, a collection of companies in Telemark County, which surrounds Porsgrunn. Mark Sappenfield/The Christian Science Monitor Marius Roheim Aarvold, left, and Stein Birger Johnsen, the mayor and business manager of Skien, Norway, respectively, stand in the city hall, April 28, 2026. They want the region to investigate the prospects for wind power. He worries that the ability to find common ground is disappearing. “It doesn’t matter what industry says or what the experts say, if you disagree with someone, or don’t like what they are saying, then they must be corrupted or just don’t know anything.” The Porsgrunn harbor at the head of Frierfjord could be a scene from Rust Belt America or the English Midlands. Cranes spread their rusting arms over the still harbor with timeworn warehouses, their brick shoulders hunched against the indignity of broken windows. Yet cheap power has kept many industries alive here. In the near distance, the smokestacks and oil drums of Herøya Industrial Park rise above rooftops in stubborn protest. Its parking lot is full, its factories abuzz with activity. This is home to more than one-third of the 10,000 industrial jobs across Telemark, estimates Mr. Naper, suggesting that is no small number for a county of 178,000 people. But without more energy to keep power cheap, Mr. Naper says, the equation collapses. The situation in Skien – adding a data center but no energy generation – “really sums up the paradoxical nature of the energy debate,” he says. “It’s been catastrophic because Skien is so typical of ways to respond.” Climbing from the five fountains of its hilly harbor, Skien is a collection of shops and tree-lined squares that lose no opportunity to pay homage to the city’s favorite son, playwright Henrik Ibsen, whose image is everywhere. The residents milling about decline to share their opinions about wind power – except Sonja Thorsen. Basking in the late spring sunshine at a café not far from city hall, she says she’s open to the idea. She even considers the windmills pleasant to look at, like little flowers on the hillsides. But after the last local elections in 2023, Mr. Aarvold needed to make a deal. To build a governing coalition, he had to agree to put any proposed wind-power studies in the area on hold for four years. Part of the problem, experts say, is that Norway’s oil wealth has spared voters from feeling the financial pinch of the growing competition for energy. A new scheme called “Norway’s Price” locks in homeowners’ energy costs at 50 Norwegian cents per kilowatt-hour – about five American pennies. American consumers are paying about 17 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour. In Germany, some customers are paying more than 40. But that means voters are being insulated from making tough choices. One of the most obvious ways to cut into the new power deficit would be to address energy efficiency, where Norway lags. But “Norway’s Price” also creates a disincentive. The price of energy for homeowners will be the same whether they do something or not. “Energy efficiency is an example of where Norway is not so good,” says Sverre Alvik, an energy expert at DNV, a risk-management consulting firm near Oslo. Norway’s “fortune is disabling our ability to prioritize. It’s a challenge that we think this fortune can and should save us from everything else. We’re not willing to sacrifice.” Above the fjords in the hills of Lannerheia, Eivind Funnemark sees the situation differently. As an organizer for Motvind, an anti-wind power advocacy group, he knows business leaders and politicians see him as an impediment. But he sees himself as a caretaker of the Norwegian spirit. “They say we say ‘no’ to everything, but [what they want to do] is not good for society,” he says. “We should live our values in a different way.” Mr. Funnemark’s grandfather built the family’s summer farm in the hills above Porsgrunn in 1924, laying down a log to mark the property line. It is still there today, weathered and mossy amid constellations of wood anemone and bare blueberry bushes eager for summer. Today, it marks the line between his property and the proposed wind park with its 800-foot-tall windmills. He knows what the businesses are saying. He doesn’t agree with much of it, seeing windmills as a dangerous blight and data centers as having dubious economic value. But in any case, he asks, wouldn’t it be wise for Norway to put its money into promoting energy efficiency first instead of rushing to mar pristine forests? One SINTEF report suggests that, in a best-case scenario, Norway could save 42 terawatt hours between now and 2050 through efficiency alone – the equivalent of thousands of windmills. As he walks through the area for the planned wind park, Mr. Funnemark is part determined activist, part David Attenborough. Through squelching bogs and along deer paths, past breeding grounds for wood grouse and stands of ancient oak half a millennium old, he ends at his tidy red cabin, where the water welling up from a nearby spring is so crisp and clear you can drink it by the ladle. His fight is not just for his cabin, he says, but for countless areas like this across Norway – for Norway itself. “This is how things look when you haven’t been there with humans.” Wind companies are trying to address those concerns. One of the reasons the site by Mr. Funnemark’s cabin is so appealing to them is that some of it is already being used as a rock-and-gravel dump for a nearby highway project. There’s also a small shooting range nearby, with the pops of rifles distantly audible from Mr. Funnemark’s cabin. “The proximity to existing infrastructure means that the project can be realized with relatively small interventions,” the project website says. Mr. Funnemark disagrees, and voters across Norway seem to be siding with him. Since the federal government gave localities veto power over wind projects in 2021, development has stalled. Mark Sappenfield/The Christian Science Monitor A man sits by the harbor in Skien, Norway, April 28, 2026. The area has become a key flash point in Norway’s debate over wind power. Nordic-style solutions At least part of the solution might be up the coast in Oslo. There, data centers are being used as energy sources themselves. In an unassuming building clad in dark pine, Ulven Energy Central uses four heat pumps and a steady stream of near-boiling water from the data center next door to heat surrounding neighborhoods. Water enters the data center at 120 degrees Fahrenheit and comes out at over 175 degrees. That makes it ideal for the local district heating system, which uses water heated at a central location for buildings in the area. While many cities use some form of excess heat – like waste incineration – for district heat, data centers offer a relatively new option that could spread, says Truls Erling Aas Jemtland, a spokesperson for Hafslund Celsio, the renewable energy company that runs the facility. In Hamina, Finland, for example, a Google data center is expected to provide 80% of the city’s heating needs. That would be impossible in Skien, with the data center located in a relatively rural area. But one idea is to build what Mr. Johnsen, the business manager, says would be the biggest greenhouse in the world, with the data center’s heat just the right temperature for growing tomatoes. As former mayor of Skien, Hedda Foss Five has her own idea. She wants to get all the stakeholders in the community together and tour the wind parks to help address questions. “I’ll put them on a bus where they can’t get out,” she grins mischievously. She understands the concerns around the issue. “People in Norway, we love nature. It’s the Norwegian soul, in a way.” But as managing director of the local Grenland Business Association, she thinks there must be a way forward, both by looking back and looking ahead. “People are afraid of what this is going to do to our nature. But we see that the industrial tradition in Telemark has always been to use nature,” she says, referring to hydropower. “The industrial culture is so natural to us. It’s part of who we are. This is what Norway was before the oil.” Perhaps Norway can recover that sense of finding solutions together, she says. “We’re trying to get the political climate a little more positive.” Post navigation বিচারক হার্ভে ওয়েইনস্টেইনের নতুন ধর্ষণের বিচারকে জুরি অচলাবস্থার পরে একটি ভুল বিচার ঘোষণা করেছেন আড়ম্বর ও আড়ম্বরের বাইরে, শি জিনপিং ডোনাল্ড ট্রাম্পকে একটি বার্তা পাঠিয়েছেন