The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate will hold an "open seminar" on the supply of offshore installations with power from shore, as the country grapples with facts which say 25 percent of Norway's greenhouse gas emissions orginate offshore.

The Stavanger meet will host Norway's troika of environmental watchdogs -- the Petroleum Safety Authority, the Pollution Control Authority and environmentalists -- as well as researchers and industry. The control agencies have been tasked with providing a cost analysis for "emissions-free" power and power from shore.

The September 20 workshop comes after Oil and Energy Minister Odd Roger Enoksen recently expressed his willingness to reopen a controversial case in Norway. Industry writings in national newspapers have largely put down the idea of clean power to offshore platforms from land.

The supply chain in Norway, however, boasts sub-sea cables of a type that could make the scheme workable. ABB, for one, has the technology.

Oil companies, government and the supply chain might be cheered by the more buoyant prices for carbon expected in 2008, when the trade in carbon goes global. Carbon savings from the use of power cables could yet absorb much of the cost.

Ditto for Norway's tax on carbon emissions.