GRONINGEN, Netherlands - Earthquakes in this velvety green patch of Dutch countryside have cracked homes, made businesses uninhabitable, even brokenup marriages. After losses worth billions of euros, and after protests that included local farmers riding tractors around The Hague, the Dutch government finally agreed to phase out natural gas drilling that had cost 1,000 since the 1980s. It caused more earthquakes.
But now, as Russia cuts gas flows and energy prices remain high, Europe is casting a greedy eye on this corner of the Netherlands - where 12th-century churches, rustic farmhouses and fairy-tale villages dominate the continent. Sitting above the Mother Lode, a gas field with a shelter. equivalent to three years of Russian imports.
The United States and Germany in particular have raised a fraught question: Can the Dutch keep drilling in Groningen for the greater good of Europe?
"We should be forbidden to ask this question," said John Wigbolds, chairman of the local activist group Groninger Geisbrad. "But they do."
And so this enclave of nearly half a million people, with 26,000 badly damaged homes, is emerging as a stark test of how far governments are willing to go to support Ukraine, and how much people can tolerate. Are ready. and isolating Russia.
European leaders accuse the Kremlin of weaponizing energy exports to Ukraine in exchange for EU money and weapons and its sanctions against Russia. Threats from Russia to completely cut off gas to Europe this winter, and the EU's desire to limit Kremlin leverage, have European governments scrambling – and reconsidering. It was unimaginable.
The use of coal, a fossil fuel disliked in green Europe for its high carbon emissions, is on the rise. Talk of fracking is picking up again in countries that have banned the release of earth-shattering, land-polluting shale gas, including Germany and Britain. Germany - by far the continent's largest economy - is also weighing a controversial extension of the life of its nuclear power plants.
"Everything is on the table now," said Olga Khakova, a European energy expert with the Atlantic Council. "Thoughts that in the past seemed extreme or crazy are now being considered."
Nowhere in Europe is the sacrifice greater than in Groningen, a province on the North Sea.
On a recent afternoon in the quake-hit town of Woltersham, Laurens Mengernick, a 64-year-old electrical engineer, easily plucked a red brick from an exterior wall of his dangerously damaged house.
"See?" He chuckled darkly. "It falls apart."
More shocks could seriously weaken his house – and ruin his neighbor's newly completed renovation. Yet Mengernick is among those who support renewed drilling.
"I think we need to turn the gas tap back on," he said.
"We need gas because of the war in Ukraine, because of Russia," he said. "We need our solutions, our energy, not theirs."
Other residents strongly disagree – some of them are openly questioning European sanctions against Russia.
"Turning the gas back on will kill us," said Ate Kuipers, a dairy farmer whose business suffered about $800,000 in damage from the quake. Asked if the gas shortage was worth punishing Russian aggression, Kuipers paused, then said: “I don't think so. This is not realistic. We need gas from Russia. We need oil from Russia. We can't handle everything here with just renewables. . . . And Groningen cannot be in [Europe].
Dutch authorities have sought a middle ground this year by backing down on plans to shut down wells, while maintaining that drilling will only increase if the worst shortages leave hospitals, schools and homes in the dark. will be covered.
Extraction from the vast field, which once contained more than 2,700 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas, began in the 1960s. Since the late 1980s, residents have complained of rumblings in the ground that scare off cattle, startle pets and often cause hairline cracks in walls. He says he was told by the Dutch government and a commercial partnership of gas extraction companies that there was nothing to fear from drilling.
At least as far back as the 1990s, official reports have documented a connection between the tambour and extraction from Groningen's soft, marshy ground – fracturing from faults that cause the ground to shrink like a squeezed sponge when the gas is extracted. causes
"But the general opinion at the time was that the impact and the maximum magnitude were relatively small," said Tom van der Lee, head of a parliamentary committee investigating the government's response to the decades-old earthquakes. "It wasn't taken too seriously."
That changed 10 years ago after a 3.6-magnitude earthquake that felt stronger because of the shallowness in the soft ground. Another relatively strong earthquake rocked the province in 2018 – the year Groningen farmers, with cracks in their stables and houses, marched into The Hague on tractors in protest. That same year, the national government agreed to a phased shutdown.
The main street in Lupersum - a village of 2,500 - is now a grim reminder of the earthquake years, including small aftershocks that continue today, albeit with little extraction. The Lopster Kroon Cafe, where locals once nursed mugs of Dutch beer, was forced to close, with cracks in its brick building making it unsafe. A bike shop and a butcher closed, along with other businesses, some temporarily, others for good. Peter and Paul Church - built in 1217 - is covered in massive scaffolding. Some residents have been relocated to temporary housing clusters.
Many locals are still waiting for the Dutch government - in charge of who receives damages and relief aid, and how much - to agree to the claims, a process that has been years in the making for most residents. Is.
The struggle is at its peak. A study by the University of Groningen found that at least 10,000 adults in the region suffered from stress-related health problems due to earthquake damage.
Ger Warinek, a 60-year-old owner of a guitar store on the main street of Lupersum, said he had suffered heartbreak last year while dealing with an official over renovation projects for his damaged showroom and home. He is forced to temporarily move his equipment and living quarters to a fortified structure across the street.
He said he did not want to extract more gas but believed a restart was inevitable given Europe's energy crisis. Part of that, he said, would be understanding.
"Who am I to say that it's not okay to extract gas because people are dying in Ukraine and gas prices are going up," he said. "It's scary. It's really scary."
There are demands from the Dutch to step up.
"Grungen . . . has the potential to weaken Russia's energy grip on Europe," Alice Stollmeier, executive director of the Hague-based Defend Democracy think tank, and Lukas Trokemavicius, an expert at the NATO Energy Security Center of Excellence, wrote in a joint statement. Written in option. last month.
"The Dutch may come to the rescue," he wrote.
How well Groningen can ease Europe's energy crisis is another question. At the peak of extraction, Groningen supplied about 10 percent of Europe's gas. About 450 bcm remains underground, enough to power the European Union for an entire year, according to Jules van den Beukel, an energy analyst at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies, a Dutch think tank.
It estimates that the technically maximum ramp-up in Groningen is 40 bcm per year – or about a quarter of the gas the EU bought from Russia last year. But the Dutch authorities consider these levels to be seismically dangerous. Beukel said a ramp to 10 or 20 bcm was politically "more realistic", such a move could lower the benchmark price in Europe by 10 to 20 percent.
"You could say that as Groningen has cut production in recent years [for its phase], Europe's dependence on Russian gas has increased, as has Putin's power and ability to use gas as a weapon. It is," he said. "I have a feeling that the Dutch government is reluctant to increase production of Groengen, because they see it as a political nightmare. But as a citizen, I say, they should do it.
In January, as fears of a Russian attack grew, German suppliers drew the ire of Dutch officials by trying to buy more Groningen gas. That same month, U.S. officials sought to discuss energy options with Dutch officials, including what role Groningen could play in easing the region's gas crisis.
In response to the Washington Post, US and German officials denied any "pressure" on Holland to resume production, and characterized the talks as exploratory.
In recent months, the German government has asked the Netherlands to explore more gas extraction in Groningen, said Dutch State Secretary for Extractive Industries Hans Wijlbreef.
"They did mention Groningen," he said. "But basically, we made them understand what I'm saying now. Yes, you can ask for solidarity. But it's dangerous to get gas out there.
There are technical limits to how much gas can be sent to Germany, but permanent contracts could still force production increases in "emergency" cases: "If people in Germany freeze because of shortages," Wigelbrief said. are dying. of gas, and the Germans have taken all the other measures like shutting down the industry, and we can solve it by transporting gas from Groningen. But he called such an event " "Unlikely." If Groningen ramps up, he said, it would be limited and temporary — with the goal of sealing the wells by 2024.
If emergency excavation resumes, residents in favor say it should be done with new technologies that can stabilize the ground and limit the potential scope of future earthquakes – and destroy incomes. be diverted to help the affected community.
But further evacuations are a non-starter for residents like Annette Sans, a 65-year-old nurse whose Lupersum house was torn apart by the earthquakes. She deeply sympathizes with the plight of Ukraine – and attends weekly community meetings to collect donations and aid. But she also believes that extracting more gas here will not benefit Ukrainian or European consumers. The Dutch government – which gets a large share of the gas profits – as well as the partnership between Shell and ExxonMobil that conducts the drilling, he said, will surely reap the rewards.
"We still have earthquakes, and they can't predict what will happen if there are more earthquakes," he said. "'Oh, that might mean a bit of damage,' he says. But still there is a possibility of a big earthquake and then our houses will collapse.
