One solution to Putin’s war in Ukraine, inflation and global warming? It sounds too good to be true. Jeroen Smit and Stef Kranendijk claim in their opinion piece ‘Embrace Groningen, hinder Putin and improve the climate: turn on the gas tap’ (O&D, 2 September) that there is a solution, namely opening the gas tap in Groningen. And, to make it even more beautiful, there is hardly a price tag attached to this solution: the people of Groningen must ‘just be amply compensated’. After all, there is enough money for that.
Is this really the egg of Columbus? Or are Smit and Kranendijk going a bit too far in their wishful thinking? For starters, safety. They base this on outdated statements by Theodor Kockelkoren, Inspector General of Mines, that 12 billion cubic meters is a safe extraction level.
About the author
Susan Top is former secretary of the Groningen Gas Council. She was interrogated on 27 June by the parliamentary inquiry committee for natural gas extraction in Groningen.
In the meantime is the supervisor’s position that only a closure of the field could provide a safe situation in the shortest possible time. Smit and Kranendijk wonder ‘how great would the risks be if we go back to the level of a few years: 20 to 25 billion cubic meters?’ Well, those risks are great. Easy.
Big risk
This makes the issue more complicated. Are we prepared to accept a major risk for Groningen to solve major European issues? Smit and Kranendijk also present a solution for this: building 27,000 new homes. And that’s where it goes wrong. To start with, with an increase in gas production, the number of properties that must be declared unsafe will increase. The buildings that have already been reinforced will also have to be recalculated, since the assumptions under those calculations are no longer correct.
But even if we’re talking about 27,000 new homes, what are you actually saying? What does that mean? Let it sink in for a moment. This means that you will turn Groningen into one large Vinex district. That means none of the characteristic villages will survive. And what do we do with the extensive cultural heritage in this area? With all the medieval churches the empire has? They are no longer safe either. How on earth are we going to organize this operation?
People now live in those 27 thousand homes. Many of them are deeply rooted in the area, their home being more than just a random place where their bed happens to be. They have to tell you that their house is being demolished or is being renovated beyond recognition. They have to get out regardless of the circumstances.
Elderly people and children
The elderly, sick people, small children, we all put them in temporary housing units in the middle of a construction site, as far as the eye can see. And not for three months, for years. How are we going to organize the construction? Where do we get the architects, the contractors, the craftsmen? Where do we get the necessary materials from? How do you compete with the national target of building nearly 100 thousand new homes every year?
In any case, the elaboration of this operation will take time, but Smit and Kranendijk want to open the tap as soon as possible, preferably before the coming winter. What do we do with the 25,000 homes that are already potentially unsafe? Do we evacuate the residents? According to Smit and Kranendijk, residents should be able to take control themselves.
But again, how do you imagine that in this situation? You are 83, bad with the computer, and you have a letter at home stating that your house may collapse in a major earthquake. But don’t worry, we will deposit four tons into your account and good luck with it! Or the young family with double jobs to be able to pay the energy costs? How are they going to do that? Even if we were to set up a – literally – military crisis organization here, it would still be an operation of at least twenty years. With a wiped out past, and a minimized, severely traumatized Groningen population as the end result.
Poverty
So, as long as there are no more real solutions, this is the assessment that Smit, Kranendijk and the rest of the Netherlands will have to make. Are we willing to pay that price? And how sure are we that we beat Putin with it, avert poverty and saved the climate? If we knew that for sure, then I think there would still be people from Groningen who say: ‘That’s just the way to go.’
Groningers are loyal and solidarity-based people, nowhere in the Netherlands are relatively as many refugees as in Groningen. But you cannot lay down this consideration in surveys among Groningers.
You offer them another unworkable solution, and if they don’t accept it, you saddle them with a latent guilt that the war in Ukraine, energy poverty and climate change are their fault. On top of everything they already have to stash.
Personally, I believe that the people of Groningen don’t deserve that.