Why the Netherlands Refuses to Get Stupid Rich

FULL TRANSCRIPT + SOURCES:

MAIN SOURCES:

The Rise and Fall of the Dutch Groningen Gas Field (European Gas Hub):

Natural gas revenues almost 417 billion euros (CBS):

Nederland gaat voor het eerst in 60 jaar de winter in zonder Gronings gas (NOS):

[DenDave_]

Something that wasn't mentioned, but in my opinion is very much relevant, is that these earthquakes happen at around ~3 kilometers below the surface. In comparison, most ''natural'' earthquakes in the shallow category occur at 10 kilometers deep. So while a magnitude of 3.6 may not seem that bad, the proximity to the surface means more and stronger vibrations carry to the surface resulting in more damages to buildings. And thats in a country that normally doesn't even get real earthquakes in the first place. So yea, from a outsider perspective it might seem weak, but theres a lot more to it than just the magnitude.

[gingerkilkus]

My greatest concern is how to recover from all these economic and global troubles and stay afloat especially with the political power tussle going on in Netherland.

[Shirolicious]

The biggest problem imho is that the gas company/dutch government didn't just help the residences to fix their houses. Just hear what your saying yourself. BILLIONS of revenue. But this is where the greed unfortunately comes in. Now the result is that these fields will be closed off. The money gained from those things could have been used to do much good things.
The government should have always kept control of the resources and never let a company take it over. And use the money to compensate the residence there while at the same time doing lots of good things for the benefit of the entire country.

[slapperorange]

I’m from Groningen, and I honestly felt kinda hurt how you sounded almost indifferent talking about the wellbeing of people here, and completely ignored the gaslighting of Groningers by the government and the NAM. Also you’re talking about the wellbeing in past tense as though this has all been resolved, far from it.

Since 1986 we have earthquakes, but the government kept saying that we were imagining things cause gas extraction cannot lead to earthquakes. In 1991 the KNMI concluded that the gas extraction did indeed lead to earthquakes. Nevertheless, the NAM only publically acknowledged that in 2012, and until then any claim was automatically refuted.

From 2012 onwards filing claims was possible, however the burden of proof was on the citizens instead of on the NAM, and the investigation of people’s houses was performed by the NAM instead of an independent party. The NAM had instructed its employees to not acknowledge any damage, otherwise they’d get in trouble (p.80 in postmes et al 2018). This wasn’t a one time occurrence, it was at every single step along the way. People weren’t just stressed about whether their house would collapse on top of them, but also having to juggle the 7th house inspection with their full-time job and still hearing that it was all just in their heads.

On top of all that, the earthquakes could’ve been easily prevented if the NAM would’ve injected nitrogen into the ground as they extracted the gas. This cost has been estimated to €6-10 billion, but was deemed to expensive by the NAM. Mind you, since 1969 the company has made €64.7 billion with a total cost of €27.8 billion. Half of the costs were made in the past ten years where the NAM had to pay back damage claims, which they could’ve also invested in the nitrogen injections.

All in all, it’s no surprise that the parlementaire enquete “Groningers boven gas” concluded that the inhabitants suffered disproportionately. Heck, the Norwegian petroleum museum cites the Netherlands as an example of how not to do it. If the government (and the NAM) would have been more reasonable towards the Groningers, I have no doubt we wouldn’t find it a problem to continue extracting the gas. But alas, that still is not the reality, so therefore I think it is for the better that we have stopped gas extraction.

The way you talked about the Groningers in this video resonated to me with the attitude of Dutch people outside of Groningen: a far from my bed show, and the people from Groningen should just suck it up so that the nation can profit from the gas earnings. I hope that your patreons can get these kinks out for you in future videos.

[BeesKneesBenjamin]

I have a friend who lived through a couple earthquakes in that region where his parents eventually lost their house as it became too unstable to restore. It's absolutely criminal how our government has dealt with these people. Leaving them in lines in the middle of the winter to appeal for damages, refusing to give money to help them in the risk of giving money to a couple bad apples whose damage to their houses isn't directly earthquake related... These people should get a chunk of the profits so they can live a proper life without risking losing their houses. If our politicians refuse to provide them a good sum of money for compensation, I am very glad they closed the field off for now completely. I don't care about the profits, I don't need my taxes lowered at the cost of the unnecessary stress put on the people at the other end of the country whilst they're already going through a crap time with companies and hospitals shutting down and an increasingly bad labour market to begin with.

It shows how disconnected politics in this country and how poorly some regions are represented. Over half the politicians are from Holland, I doubt for many of them to have ever really set foot in the other 10 provinces of the country. I'm tired financing the capital, I hope some money flows towards the north, east and south as well for once

[shadwpk]

I will never understand why the people that had issues with damage to their houses were never compensated for repairs. Living through frequent earthquakes, if not dangerous levels, is perfectly fine, if not a bit uncomfortable. But living in a house that can collapse on you any time is something else. They had billions of revenue didn't they?

[KraKra-Ah]

Yes, the people who live there, The Groningers, didn't really profit from it but do get the downsides of earthquakes. I live in the city and have cracks in the walls. But you could make the Groningers stupid rich and then make the rest of The Netherlands profit from it as well... I am down for that. This option is not investigated...

[Naturenerd]

So the earth sinks from extracting natural gas causing dozens or hundreds of earth quakes each year. Not a good idea to live on a natural gas field. Like the city is floating on gas. Crazy phonomina.

[bastian]

Sappemeer used to be Hoogezand-Sappemeer and within the NAM some would say they would go to "High Sand Sappy lake" which is a not-that-good translation of Hoogezand-Sappemeer. You forgot to note that they "forgot" to invest in the electricity network as an additional reason we can't easily transition to electricity. I'm still happy my parents decided to leave Delfzijl in time in 1994/1995. back then we already had earthquakes. I still do have some family there. In Groningen we did not see a lot of the funds.

[blodekont]

Exxon and Shell still refuse to compensate.. many houses still cracked, and Exxon/Shell send their lawyers to the civilians who can't pay these big laweyrs to defend them...State makes commissions, but they only fill their own pockets, hardly anything is done for the people IN the earthquacke region. Yet money is thrown to places who by accident where allowed to get compensation, eventhough no quakes where damaging in these places, these people just go without experts compensation money.. while in Delfzijl where I live, people are time and time again turned down.. "quacademics telling the cracks in the walls are frost damage...

[stephanHK]

they did't keep the field under pressure all does years resulting in earth quakes, if we extract and keep the the field under pressure there should not be a problem. Off course compensate does how suffer

[TheDerpyDeed]

Ah, that familiar accent, wonderful - I can hear the smile, too!
Loving the production value too~

[mradventurer]

Majority of gas income went to the state which used it for social welfare programs and general budget. The province (Groningen) did not see a lot of that money. Also the money was not used much to compensate people who suffered losses hence people there got fed up with the small earthquakes. In Norway, they had more oil and gas but they used it to put into a state fund which is now worth trillions of dollars.

[bavelnaard]

I live in this area somewhat just outside the disaster zone, in the eastern and poorest part of the province which is sometimes even called the Eastern Block.
Here the groundlevels are dropping rapidly as well, not just because of gas extraction but also and mostly because of mining that huge amount of salt beneath this particular area.
People do try their best to make something out of their lives, but beneath the surface (in a literal sense and as figure of speech) it's not a happy place at all to be if one opens their eyes.
Just like with the gas exploits the government decided to sort of semi-privatize the mining of salt here using shell companies for Shell and the NAM and thus the government, but it's not very well known to the public.

[hungrymusicwolf]

This was a beautiful summary of this long lasting issue. Some things even I didn't know even though I live in the Netherlands.

[Halli]

To a layman like me, it seems the Dutch ran smack into "new" economic pitfall, now called "the Dutch Disease" - something the Norwegians learned from and managed to avoid many years later. To top it off, the Netherlands had been a geologically stable country, and houses were NOT built to withstand geological deformation, hence the disproportional damage to ordinary houses.
I live in Iceland, a famously unstable country in geologic terms, and our reinforced-concrete houses generally breeze through modest geological subsidences like in Gröningen. My last observation: What if the Dutch had replaced the volume of the compressed gas that was extracted by pumping down something they have in abundance like, say, seawater?

[Sev]

I'm astounded that I knew nothing of the Groningen gas field. Amazing video!

[kaasmeester]

One thing to note: for decades, the Netherlands has given much that gas away to Italy, more or less for free. They got it at cost, basically.

2 things happened. The first is that the prime minister at the time (in the 60s) had the idea that in 30 years, all energy would come from nuclear power. He wanted to produce all of the gas quickly and cash out while the getting was still good.

Then, Italy made plans to start buying natural gas from Russia. There were cold-war fears about a NATO partner becoming too dependent on Russia, so a deal (super secret at the time) was struck, and we would give our gas to Italy instead. A factor in that decision might have been that our foreign minister was in line to become secretary general to NATO, and hoped to secure his appointment with this deal.

In terms of money, it is estimated that this little present to Italy has cost the Dutch taxpayer well north of €100 billion over the years.

[schutsheer_des_vaderlands]

The Netherlands doesn't refuse this, some of our politicians do.

[EdLeslie-hw]

I'm a Brit living in Austria. But I have traveled to Holland many times and especially when I lived in the UK. Saturday morning a cup of coffee outside a coffee shop in Haarlem on Market Day takes some beating. Enjoying your page.