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Hello, i have been reading this site for the past few months. Let me introduce me first. I am Jan from the Netherlands. I am 32 years old and single.I am a bit worried . I am still not totally conviced, but i think you guy's here have a few good points. I have a question. If peak oil is really hapening, what about the Netherlands? I am living there and are getting concerned. Holland is a small country, with lots of people. We have the highest population density of europe and the world. We import most of our food and natural resources. Will Holland be very serious affected? I believe, after reading many post, countries with low populaton density and lots of nature, will do best. Thats mean places like: Canada, australia, new zealand and norway. There are more places ofcourse. I am planning on moving to Canada or Norway. Canada will be difficult but Norway will be easier because of the eer agreement. People from the eu can live and work in eer countrys like norway or iceland. Will i have a better change surviving peak oil in Norway then Holland? There is lots of nature, so you can hunt for food on animls, and plenty of wood for heating in winter. Does any one has any toughts on this, and some more advice on wich country is best to live in, when peak oil hits us?

Hello Janser

The Netherlands is part of the EU so I think there will be a degree of cooperation between nation states to ensure that mass starvation doesn't occur.

The netherlands has a massive ornamental plants and agricultural industry which if the shit hits the fan could all be moved over to food production if necessary. All those greenhouses could be used to grow food all year round which is a big advantage. Ok these need heat but Holland has access to its own gas reserves and access to Russian gas via the northern European pipeline from 2009(the gas can also be used for fertilizer).

Remember peak oil does not mean no oil. It will be a declining availability of 1.5% - 3% per year. This will obviously cause siginificant economic problems but this is far from anarchy and mass starvation. The downside of the curve is the time we have to establish as much renewable infrastructure as possible, so the EU will have to establish and prioritise bio diesal for the agricultural and water sectors to ensure social cohesion. As stated above , Dutch agriculture and horticulture is one of the most efficient in the world , so it would make sense to 'look after' those skills.

Just my two pennies worth. PO=economic hardship, but not starvation(well not in your lifetime anyway!)

I know I am being a bit vague , but I cannot be arsed to write a 50 page essay on why I think a soft landing is more likely in the EU !

Hope this helps

PB

I'd stay in The Netherlands than go to Norway: The climate is a lot milder (less energy used heating your house), you also (I assume) speak the native language better and have more family ties.

Seeing that the rising tides of Global Warming are going to overwhelm your dike systems and put you all under water, Norway sounds like a good option. Just go inland. And remember--the Norse kept warm before the invention of central heating, so don't let that stop you!

janser wrote: Does any one has any toughts on this, and some more advice on wich country is best to live in, when peak oil hits us?

It amazes me how easily people talk about moving to a new part of the US or to a new country. Maybe it's because I'm older and rooted in my area ... or maybe I'm just stuck in a rut!

It seems to me that one gives up so much when one moves. Family, relationships, familiar surroundings. It's hard enough when times are good, but when a crisis hits? I want to be around people who know me and who will help me out. I don't want to be around strangers.

I guess this is where I differ from the survivalists, who place their faith in guns and individual preparedness. I think the key will be community and family. That's where people turned throughout most of history and when energy starts running low, I think we will turn to them again.

From what little I know about the Netherlands, I think your society will co-operate and solve whatever physical problems occur.

On the other hand, if you are young and seek adventure... maybe it's time to travel.

Thanks for the replay everyone. I still think a country with 4 million people will do better then 16 million people. Especially if they are so crowed. Also not many people seems to know about peak oil. So when it happens, people may star to panic and do weird things. Holland will never be able to produce enough food. I came across this article:

It is especially ironic that Forbes considered the Netherlands not to be overpopulated. This is such a common error that it has been known for two decades as the "Netherlands Fallacy." *36 The Netherlands can support 1,031 people per square mile only because the rest of the world does not. In 1984-86, the Netherlands imported almost 4 million tons of cereals, 130,000 tons of oils, and 480,000 tons of pulses (peas, beans, lentils). It took some of these relatively inexpensive imports and used them to boost their production of expensive exports—330,000 tons of milk and 1.2 million tons of meat. The-Netherlands also extracted about a half-million tons of fishes from the sea during this period, and imported more in the form of fish meal. *37

So when peak oil hits us and the prices go up, it will be very expensive to import these stuff. These figures are from 20 years ago. Since the population has gone up, we import even more now. But there are other reasons to go to norway or canada. some say there will be a die off and lots of people will die. I will do more reading on this. I also like norway,it is very beautifull. I will still go there probably. My sister and her husband and children want to move there also, so i will not be alone then.

Holland also has a long history of remaining a civilized culture even in times of prevailing barbarianism. For example, things I've read in accounts of life under Nazi occupation. So even under a nearly worst-case scenario, I think the culture would continue to remain civilized.

The problem of rising sea levels due to climate change, remains. I think it should be possible to improve the dyke systems as a matter of national priority.

Those things being said, if you're looking for another place to go, Norway might be better than crossing the Atlantic and moving to Canada. In that case, make the move as soon as possible so you can get yourself established in a town where your existing work skills will be valued. The more you can integrate into the local life, and the more critical your skills are, the more likely you are to be treated as an equal when things get difficult.

Norway will be a very good choice to live in when peak hits, quite inexpensive and at the moment with the project of getting more people from the EU to live in their small towns etc..

I'm sticking in holland though, ill take my chance (besides that i'm 19 and can't finance something like that and i doubt my parents will like it ).
I think that when you are resourceful enough you probably can get a piece of land here to do some gardening on and keep yourself alive. I intend to have a piece of land to garden by next year and convinced my parents to buy an outhouse of some sort.

Besides that if you look at faostat --> http://apps.fao.org/ --> all databases --> Food and balance sheets --> Holland / ALL / 2002

you can see that we have a major excess of kilocalories per person (3300 kilocalories available per person when only around 2000 are needed and even less to just stay alive).

If we were to switch to a more sustainable form of agriculture (less meat more vegetable products, downgrade our overall intake en take more food producing lands i think we can manage in holland). You will still see oil being pumped into food for a long while.

My father's side of the family emigrated from Norway. I wonder if that will be of any help to me....

Keeping the dike systems going TODAY is a prohibitively expensive project. After the crash, it will only be MORE expensive, even if they could be made to work. And money will be of LESS value. If there's someplace else to go, where the cost of adjustments are less overwhelming, people shouldn't waste time protecting areas that are really meant to be under water. After all, it's not like there's gonna be massive numbers of people after the die-off, so there'll be plenty of land to choose from (though its environmental condition could be an obstacle--we've really mucked things up for ourselves, haven't we?).

And your family and friends you'd hate to leave? Take 'em with you! They're a ready-made community! And community is what's gonna preserve ANYTHING in the post-oil world....

The Netherlands existed pre-oil and will continue post oil. Trade will continue post peak as it has for thousands of years. Don't move for Peak Oil. Go to work trying to figure out how to soften the Peak Oil blow.

I just recieved my copy of the february edition of the (reasonably respectable) Dutch popular engineering magazine called "De Ingenieur". In it appeared an article about the possibilities for alternative energy generation in The Netherlands. It may be interesting to some of you. The Netherlands is a small, coastal country to the west of Germany, about 17 millions inhabitants.

Incidentally, according to the authors, there appeared to be a taboo on obtaining the necessary data from the various state institutions concerning energy and energy research(!)

The main points were:
The Netherlands used a total of 3051 [PJ] of energy in 2000. 40% industry, 33% residential and 15% transport.

71 Nuclear power plants of 1600 [MW] (water pressure type) could supply all needed energy. Total needed landarea (including surface storage of waste): 11.3 [km²]

116000 wind turbines of type 2[MW] could supply all energy, covering 66% of the Dutch part of continental surface of the North Sea, or about 39000[km²]

10500 [km²] of solar panels could supply all energy, or 31% of the Dutch land surface

183000 [km²] for biomass, or more than 5 times the surface area of Holland.

It appears that nuclear energy is the only realistic alternative of holland, although probably all the different types will be developed to some degree. There was no effort made to take into account which type of energy is most suited to each type of energy need, only the raw energy demand was used in the calculation.
Here is the link with a brief summary of the article: link

Global uranium reserves are limited, and the ore quality is constantly declining. An alternative is thorium, which is three times as abundant as uranium, but if everyone switches to thorium, it will become depleted quickly. Out of the 1.8 million tons of U3O8 available in the world, Europe has 111,000 tons. The only country with significant reserves except for France (77,000 tons) is Spain (16,000 tons). The countries with the largest reserves outside of Europe include the United States (180,000 tons), Canada (299,000 tons), South Africa (321,000 tons), Nigeria (210,000 tons), Namibia (155,000 tons), and Brazil (155,000 tons). These calculations are old (1982) and might have been revised. They were made based on the real 1982 dollar price of $30 per pound of U3O8. At $50 per pound, the resource base would go up to 2.2 million tons, but who knows whether the additional ore would give a good EROI.

If nuclear energy were coupled with large-scale wind and solar infrastructure, then it might be a viable solution and allow the time for more research into fusion or other technologies. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that if economic growth is not curtailed, energy demand will eventually outstrip supply.

The other thing is that the Netherlands is a small country which does not need long-distance transport as much. It is right next to other industrial economies and traveling from one end of the country to the other can be literally accomplieshed on a bicycle. This will be important when peak oil comes. On the downside though, Holland is very dependent on trade, and a large share of its GDP comes from exports. If its trading partners collapse, then its economy will go down with them. Considering the fact that France is 75% nuclear when it comes to electricity, and that Germany is pushing for more renewables, it might be in good company, but then again, we will not know for sure until we see the situation in the rearview mirror.

People, rising seas from GW will overwhelm even the creative engineering skills of the Dutch. Very little, if any, of The Netherlands is going to be habitable a few decades from now. So even if these ideas were feasible (they're not), they'd apply to OTHER countries, not this one!

Once sea levels have stabilized in that area, though (next century?), it'd be interesting to see if significant tidal power could be generated from Atlantic waters....

Nano wrote:It appears that nuclear energy is the only realistic alternative of holland,

The article doesn't mention the cost (price) of building nukes does it?
Rather pricey items, nukes.

Same old dilemma - current consumption rates cannot be sustained; significant change is necessary.

Nano, if you are saying that nuclear energy is the only viable alternative you're seriously misquoting the article, or at least the part published on the website. The part on the site ends with the sentence "Toch zal niemand op voorhand hebben gedacht dat er op de Noordzee voldoende ruimte is om ons land op de been te houden." Roughly translated this means "Anyhow, no one would have thought beforehand that there would be enough room on the North Sea to keep our country going". This is very different from what you put in your posting and means that I will be very sceptical on any information you will contribute to this forum.

Most of these studies miss the real point THAT TODAY we use to much energy & WASTE way too much of that which we use. This is primarily down to things being built down to a cost, rather than up to a quality that can both use less energy & have a longer working life.

We will use much less energy in the future, more than 50% of the energy we expend today is for frivilous purposes, do you need that new toy ? do you need to drive 100miles for a day out ? Does your wife really need that new outfit that she will only wear once ? Get the idea.

So you can save 50% straight away & thus cut those quoted figures in half. with some effort, it could be cut by 60-70%. house swaps will be a thing of the future, where people will swap property to be closer to their place of work, to reduce the commute. Remember most commuting is only done because travel is cheap & it gives an artificial sence of properity by taking city wages home to the suburbs.

If we assume a 66% reduction i.e. 2/3rds less than today, then a combined system would require 25 nuke stations, 25% of the sea area, & 10-15% of the land mass, not much really. As time goes by that 17millions will be halved in 50years, no one wants to bring kids into a depressed world & thus the energy available per capita will actually increase. Two generations on, new kids will be brought up by parents that have never known any different & their grand parents will tell them of the "good old days" & the "great change" then life will go on, one way or another.

That is assuming that the place stays above the high tide mark

Clementi wrote:Nano, if you are saying that nuclear energy is the only viable alternative you're seriously misquoting the article, or at least the part published on the website. The part on the site ends with the sentence "Toch zal niemand op voorhand hebben gedacht dat er op de Noordzee voldoende ruimte is om ons land op de been te houden." Roughly translated this means "Anyhow, no one would have thought beforehand that there would be enough room on the North Sea to keep our country going". This is very different from what you put in your posting and means that I will be very sceptical on any information you will contribute to this forum.

Clementi: putting up close to 40000 km² of wideturbines just doesn't seem so realistic to me. 71 nuclear power stations seems more realistic IMHO.

You could have just disagreed with my suggestion that nuclear power seems more realistic and leave it at that. I have no idea where your anger is coming from. You're barking up the wrong tree.

Nuclear reserves amount to 5-7% of world's energy usage. At this rate we will have enough uranium reserves for 40 years. If you look at the Atomic Energy Agency's usage which is 250 years it involves the thorium etc. with breeders. Breeders are a possiblity but take a long time to work properly. There is one operating breeder in India the ones in France and Japan have closed down due to sodium burns.

So if you extrapolate this picture, unless we have universal working breeder reactors nuclear is not an option. It is interesting to see what will happen in India.

You also have to take in Energy costs to build the powerstation, it takes quite a while to get return energy.

I wouldn't take this article too seriously. The article is a bit skewed in one direction. If I do some calculations on his numbers.

71 nuclear plants x 1600 MW = 114 GW
116000 turbines x 2 MW = 232 GW
1050 km2 solar panels x 50 W/m2 = 525 GW
Which is not surprising knowing the source of Jordi's information. No doubt the figures on alternative energy were provided by the nuclear lobby.

From the European Nuclear Society:

Jordi Huisman wrote at 08.12.2004
Hello, For the Dutch engineering magazine "The Engineer" I'm currently working on an article about nuclear energy.
It's about how efficient it is in relation with the surface it requires. In other words: how much land surface is needed to produce (for example) 1 MWh of power using state of the art technology.
I hope you can help on this.
Kind regards

Although "de Ingenieur" usually has a good standard, I'm not terribly impressed by this article.