The Netherlands used to be a major gas producer nation itself. But now that they are going to close the Groningen gas fields they will rely on LNG imports. They have an LNG import terminal. There are also gas pipelines to Norway in both neighboring Belgium and Germany.
North Sea gas deposits have been going down for several years already. That was the whole economic rationale behind the NordStream 2 pipeline to Russia project. There is no viable way to get the massive amounts of renewables they want to work in an economically viable fashion without a variable load power source like natural gas to cover production shortfalls. Battery technology still isn't cheap enough for grid scale. And pumped storage can't be put just anywhere. The actual alternatives are burning coal or using nuclear power to generate electricity. But for political reasons those would be hard to sell in Europe. I still expect coal power to come back in big way though. Only question is where to get the coal. They closed the mines and most coal was coming from Russia already as well. Politics.
North Sea gas deposits have been going down for several years already. That was the whole economic rationale behind the NordStream 2 pipeline to Russia project. There is no viable way to get the massive amounts of renewables they want to work in an economically viable fashion without a variable load power source like natural gas to cover production shortfalls. Battery technology still isn't cheap enough for grid scale. And pumped storage can't be put just anywhere. The actual alternatives are burning coal or using nuclear power to generate electricity. But for political reasons those would be hard to sell in Europe. I still expect coal power to come back in big way though. Only question is where to get the coal. They closed the mines and most coal was coming from Russia already as well. Politics.
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