Energy and environment

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You may soon be making coffee powered by your car battery

Power cuts can be caused by heavy snow and icing, as well as lightning strikes and strong winds bringing down power lines. Together with more extreme weather events, Norway is also facing a major power supply deficit. So, what can we do to avoid a total electricity crisis?

Bat in hand.

How bats survive Norwegian winter nights

Bats hunt at night, navigating in the dark using echolocation to find insects and other food. During the winter, bats in Norway have to manage as best they can by hibernating, but until now, not much has been known about how they do this.

W. Ludwig Kuhn

Ultrasound can save fish in hydropower rivers

Shooting sound waves through water can remove dissolved gas that results from hydropower production in rivers. This gas can harm fish. Researchers are now ready to test techniques to reduce the risk in real hydropower plants.

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Why we need biofuels

Necessary reductions in greenhouse gases will be achieved too late if we have to wait for all our aircraft, ships and trains to transition from fossil fuels. This is why we need biofuels – in spite of the criticisms levelled at their use in a recent article published on the opinions website ‘NRK Ytring’. Biofuels are no ‘climate change mitigation ruse’, as these authors would have you believe.

second hand clothes

Second-hand clothing is good, but less is best

Norway will reap major environmental benefits if residents stop sending wearable clothes out of the country, according to a recent study on clothing consumption in Norwegian households.

Seabed mining

Norway will be the first in the world to approve seabed mining. Is it a good idea?

The transition to a greener, renewable economy will require large amounts of minerals, and society has to get them from somewhere. Norwegian politicians have reached an agreement approving deep sea mining, in a proposal that has reaped both cheers and frustration from scientists and activists alike. Here’s what our scientists think.