Let's put two things out there. I know cars, and I have been to Norway. And both things are related to the fact that Norway is banning crypto mining.
When it comes to electric cars, everyone praises Norway, which is fair enough, but the problem is that people then think their country should follow Norway's example, which is silly, or at the very least naive.
Let's look at what Norway has:
- A very large land mass but a very tiny population, which also happens to very homogenous, both ethnically and culturally
- An extremely high GDP per capita
- An extremely high total GDP
- Extremely high average salaries
- An extremely high level of natural resources
Now let's look at what Norway did to incentivise EVs, because the country essentially did two things:
1, it used revenue generated by selling oil and gas to other countries (at a premium) to fund extremely compelling incentives to buy electric cars while also 2, taxing the ABSOLUTE FCUK out of internal combustion cars.
When I was there, in 2016, EVs were already everywhere because they were exempt from just about any and every tax (that's changing now, can only keep incentives running for so long, huh?), while a Ford Mustang cost the equivalent of 100,000 euros, around half of which (!) was taxes.
And I can prove it, I took a picture of the price sticker that clearly quoted the total asking price and how much of it was taxes. And by the way I took that picture precisely because I figured people wouldn't believe me otherwise.
The point is, taken individually, I can think of a lot of countries that have the things and features Norway has, but I can't think of any country that has all those things combined.
Saudi Arabia. Maybe. I don't know.
The point is (sorry I'm repeating myself), what Norway did is, in my estimation, essentially impossible to copy. You can take inspiration, but you can't copy it. That'd be like trying to replicate someone's else carbonara but you only have eggs but no meat or cheese. Or maybe you have cheese and eggs, but no meat. See what I'm saying?
Anyway, apologies for the preamble but it was just to point out that I find the fact that Norway wants to ban crypto mining ironic.
Why? The reason given cites the usual 'energy-intensive' this and that.
Gotta save energy for those EVs I guess.
Oh and by the way, the government said the proposed ban is only 'temporary'.
But you know what they say, there's nothing more permanent than a temporary government measure.
