Record LNG-aanvoer. Ooit bespot als 'nutteloos' deel van de gasrotonde, heeft Gate nu de hoofdrol. Wat een 'mazzel' dat we zo'n terminal hebben! Tevens dat NL nu de kennis, ervaring en contacten heeft om snel op te schalen. Zo belangrijk is robuust energiebeleid.#grafiekvandedagpic.twitter.com/OicOdiP8yT
Dark = 2022, light 2021. Share LNG imports related to total gas consumption in percentages. Note that in the summer much less gas is consumed than in the winter.
The Netherlands manages to import surprising amounts of LNG, because it has an LNG-terminal in Rotterdam, the usefulness of which was long in doubt. No more.
Due to US imperial adventures in Ukraine, Germany is now forced to build 2 LNG-terminals Brunsbüttel and Wilhelmshaven “at Tesla-speed”.
[wikipedia.org] – Liquefied natural gas (LNG)
[offshore-energy.biz] – Uniper to build, operate Germany’s first LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven
Het vullen de NL gasopslagen gaat gestaag door. Inmiddels is de 50% vulgraad gepasseerd. Op naar 100% en dan graag zo snel mogelijk. De tussenstand van 'de grote drie': Norg: 66% Grijpskerk: 47% Bergermeer: 37%#grafiekvandedagpic.twitter.com/Bz3fBK4R42
Today, the Dutch electricity system is once again heavily dependent on gas. Hardly any wind, only sun in the south. Partly because NL also exports significant electricity, approximately 12000 MW of electricity is currently produced in NL using natural gas. That requires 700 m3 of natural gas per second!
The renewable electricity euphoria of the past few days is over, and the dependence on natural gas becomes painfully clear again. In the coming years, the weather forecast will get a dramatic quality.
[twitter.com] – Martien Visser
[energieopwek.nl] – Real time total Dutch renewable electricity generation
The Dutch province of Groningen still has 1000 billion euro worth of gas in its soil against current prices [*] or three years of government budget. The Dutch government decided to phase out production because of soil subsidence. Professor of energy technology David Smeulders of the Technical University of Eindhoven pleads for review of that decision in the light of current developments in Ukraine. According to him, subsidence can be countered by injecting some replacement gas, like nitrogen.
[tue.nl] – ‘Groningen is het Saudi-Arabië van Europa’
[*] – that is relatively cheap Russia gas. Dirty US fracking gas costs 40% more, so make that 1400 billion euro. For that money, you can build all the offshore wind parks the Netherlands will ever need.
It stays warm, so we’re going to make it this ‘winter’. In the meantime, concerns for winter 22/23 are mounting, because there is no market incentive to fill the gas storage, while regulations to enforce this are lacking. That puts NL in a precarious position again.
NL gasverbruik per sector. Belangrijkste is elektriciteit. Weliswaar groeien wind en zon snel, maar kolen moet terug, terwijl de eigen gasproductie snel daalt. Verder zit Gate LNG al vol, levert NO al maximaal en is gasinzet kunstmest al beperkt. Onze opties?
“…those feelgood Vattenfall Swedish-feminized adds about “fossil free within one generation”, with high IKEA/Greta Thunberg/Pippi Långstrump-calibre”
[cnn.com] – Europe was already facing a winter gas crisis. The risks just got even bigger
The German Bundesnetzagentur has decided to suspend the certification process of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline on a bureaucratic technicality, thereby seriously risking gas shortages in Europe, later this winter. They still can’t accept that Russia holds the energy cards, not the self-styled ‘morally superior’ West, that is about to lose the geopolitical wrestling with Eurasia, leaving a trail of wrecked countries after sneaky western organized regime changes succeeded/failed (Germany-1939, Vietnam-1955, Russia-1991, Afghanistan-2001, Iraq-2003, Libya-2011, Syria-2011, Ukraine-2013, Belarus-2020), all motivated by a US deep state (since 1933) and their European vassals (since 1945) desire to conquer the entire world and park it into a single borderless power structure (Open Society Program), run by Anglo oligarchs, with triple capitals Washington-New York-London and all its globalists institutions UN-SC-WHO-WTO-IMF-WB-UNICEF-WEF-Wallstreet-FED-$-Pentagon-CIA-Hollywood-CNN-NYT-WP-Time-BBC.
However, two Anglo centuries (British Empire 1815-1945, US Empire 1945-202x) are about to come to an end. All the signs are that Anglosphere/Five Eyes is losing the geopolitical competition and will be forced to step down from planetary hegemony. The fact that the US is deeply polarized will only hasten its demise, with the distinct possibility that the US will fall apart in a Yugoslav-style process of dismemberment and secession.
Good riddance to the US empire and its British water carrier. Tighten the energy thumbscrews, Vlad! All it takes is a good trade war EU-UK over the Northern Ireland Protocol and a Chinese/North-Korean attack in East-Asia to humiliate AUKUS, and we in continental Europe can dump the Anglos for good. Europe, that ruled the world between 1492-1939, as a set of competing mid-sized nations, is too good to be anybody’s colony. As a united political entity Paris-Berlin-Moscow (EU + Russia/Ukraine/Belarus) we can organize a comeback and still be the first address on this planet.
[source] Orwell’s world vision from his dystopian novel “1984”, published in 1948. Samuel Huntington and his “Clash of Cvilizations” would have approved, more or less. Euro-Siberia or “Christian State” (orange), China or “Confucian State” (green), Anglosphere or “Judaic State” (pink) and finally the Disputed Territories or “Islamic State” (yellow). Orwell only had Turkey wrong. Rather than being a Kemalite European appendix, Turkey is the most prominent candidate to lead global Islam. Erdogan at least is willing.
Never waste a good crisis. A few weeks of the entire European population sitting in the cold, courtesy the Bundesnetzagentur, would achieve more than all those feelgood Vattenfall Swedish-feminized adds about “fossil free within one generation”, with high IKEA/Greta Thunberg/Pippi Långstrump-calibre. A good space heating crisis could cause moving the public attention away from abstract, difficult-to-verify, long-term climate deliberations, towards a far more pressing, direct in-your-face fossil fuel SHORTAGES problem. Why worry about emissions, if there is nothing left to burn?
Europe should be prepared to take it on the chin. Covid-19 and gas shortages could become a blessing in disguise, because they could create the conditions for Europe to “tunnel” to the other side of the energy divide fast and first, to borrow an idea from quantum-mechanics. Energy shortages could break the back of the NIMBYs, all those alleged renewable energy proponents, who refuse a wind-turbine and high-voltage lines in their backyard, because it is supposedly bad for the net worth of their real estate. The rule should be that small regions are largely responsible for their own energy needs. No wind energy on your turf? Fine, sit in the dark and cold then.
Proposed measures for a fast transition:
The renewable energy transition is inevitable, hence make a global competition out of it, with Europe very well-placed to actually win that competition. Because of all great powers, the EU is the most serious about its renewable energy strategy.
Cancel long-distance mass tourism for energy and virological reasons. Don’t waste your money on that trip to Bali, finally buy those solar panels or heat pump instead.
Tell Airbus to start the transition towards hydrogen fuel now.
Compensate every business air-mile for 100% with atmospheric CO2-extraction (vegetation), regardless of the cost.
Make the home office the new normal, or rather work from a multi-tenant building at walking distance from your home. All you need is a bureau, computer, monitor, internet connection and a coffee machine.
Allow direct exploitation of autonomous driving: no driver on highways or remote virtual driver in the city, all aimed at encouraging dumping private car ownership.
Make it illegal as soon as realistically possible to sell or buy an ICE car.
Accept the China-proposed New Silk Road as the new economic backbone of the planet.
No local renewable energy generation means no energy.
Regional financial compensation for people living near renewable energy generation facilities.
The intent of this exercise is not (just) tree-hugging, but also a well-considered European hard-power geopolitical-industrial power-grab, aiming at industrial domination of core industries: renewable energy generation and storage, e-transport (cars, trains, ships, planes), space-heating, energy conservation, heat pumps, hydrogen, thermal isolation, etc., etc.
[source] The Grasshopper building in Amsterdam, with the maxim (in old-Dutch spelling): “De cost gaet voor de baet uyt”, meaning: “you need to invest before you can expect returns”. That’s a message Europeans should take to heart regarding the renewable energy transition that will ensure them a return to lost geopolitical prominence.
At current natural gas prices of 65 euro/MWh and 60 euro per ton CO2-tax, green hydrogen becomes competitive.
In all the misery of the high (import) gas price, there is also consolation: the break-even price for green hydrogen is now 3 €/kg. Almost all analysts expect that we will be able to produce this alternative to natural gas ourselves for 1-2 €/kg in the not too distant future.
The cumbersome and somewhat random process of looking for new sources of fossil fuel could be almost over and can be replaced by merely sticking a wet finger up in the air, so to speak.
The largest electricity and gas producers in the Netherlands are: Vattenfall, Essent, Engie, CCI, Delta, EDF, Eneco and E.ON. Tens of additional but smaller players do co-exist.
Oil major Royal Dutch Shell has been given the green light by market supervisor ACM to enter the Dutch gas & electricity market. Shell will be selling kWH’s and m3 to private households, sourced from Dutch solar & wind-parks, as well as gas that is “CO2-compensated”. Shell says it has the ambition to become a significant competitor on this market, as well as to be a major player in the energy transition, under the motto: “pump less, trade more”.
[nos.nl] – Shell gaat groene stroom en gas leveren aan consumenten thuis
[nl.wikipedia.org] – Nederlandse elektriciteitsmarkt
[independer.nl] – Overzicht Nederlandse energieleveranciers
DeepResource 