High heating and a nice long shower. What was obvious to many people up until this year is no longer. However, it is not necessary to go back generations to know how important the security of energy supply is. “We knew it in 1973, but in the world of 2020 we had completely forgotten it,” says energy analyst Jilles van den Beukel in a conversation with NU.nl.
“If we’ve learned anything since then, it’s that we need to build strategic reserves,” says Van den Beukel, who is affiliated with the Hague Center for Strategic Studies (HCSS).
This also happened immediately after the outbreak of the 1973 oil crisis, in that case oil. “This is one of the differences with the crisis of the time, which now concerns gas”.
A typical arrangement is that stockpiles were only started when the damage was already partially done. “It has never been necessary, you will only do it when it is necessary,” explains the energy expert. He calls the fact that our gas reserves are now well filled real progress. “But now it’s happened ad hoc and it must have a structural character.”
Another similarity is that the new energy crisis, which had been dormant for some time, has come to a boiling point due to political developments.
In 1973 there was a conflict between the Arab world on one side and the West on the other. Now between Russia and as good as the rest of the world. “In that sense, Russia has chosen a moment,” says Van den Beukel. Because the gas market was already shrinking.
The closing of the Groningen gas tap has led to more addiction
According to Van den Beukel, this was “largely” due to the closure of the Groningen gas tap. As a result, the European Union’s dependence on Russian gas has increased from 30 to 45 percent in just a few years. “At the same time, the use of coal and nuclear energy has been reduced, further increasing the demand for gas.”
And suddenly no more LNG capacity has been added, as was the case in previous years. “Since the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster in Japan, significant investments were made in that area, but they stopped in 2020,” the analyst says.
The greatest similarity between the 1973 oil crisis and today’s gas crisis is that prices will never be what they used to be. “After the oil crisis, prices have fallen slightly, but have remained structurally higher than before, and you get used to it.”
Higher prices usually attract new investors, but sometimes it can be different in the case of the gas crisis. “The best medicine against high prices is high prices, is a well-known saying in the world of oil. This is no longer the case, everyone is cautious about investing in fossil fuels.”
We’d better get used to those high prices, just like in 1973.
Eerder
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14 jul 2022 om 05:12
Nederland komt ook zonder Russisch gas niet in een crisis volgens Gasunie
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21 jun 2022 om 09:00
Nederland zit op het eerste niveau van een gascrisis: wat betekent dit?
