Energy and plastics: The slow transition

Abstract

This chapter, exploring fossil subsoil resources, focuses on two domains: energy and plastics. The energy section analyses the difficult transition to renewable energy sources. The focus here is on electricity because promising renewable energy sources like biomass, windmills and solar panels contribute above all to the supply of electricity. There is, moreover, a close relationship among oil, natural gas and electricity. Dutch electricity supply was long trapped in tensions among the policy of the provincial electricity suppliers, the energy policy of the national government (in particular the Ministry of Economic Affairs) and the environmental movement, with as main issues decentralised electricity generation, the inclusion of nuclear power, the role of domestic natural gas and energy-saving. Privatisation and liberalisation are setting the electricity sector completely on its head. There is now more room for other forms of electricity generation, in particular decentralised generation and heat-power coupling. Opportunities for renewable energy sources have increased, among other things thanks to international agreements ('Paris') in connection with climate change. The plastics sector too has undergone dramatic changes in this period. The production of bulk plastics and artificial fibres still takes place in the Netherlands, but hardly at all by Dutch firms. The plastics processing industry, that consists above all of small and medium-sized firms (up to 50 employees) has developed into the Netherlands' most innovative sector. The attitude toward plastics has become ambivalent. They have shaped a life of comfort, ease, luxury, sport, and games. At the same time they are a source of litter, waste, 'plastic soup' and micro plastics.