In the future, North Sea oil can be competed for by North Sea wind power. At least if Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium get what they want.
The four countries have signed an agreement to quadruple the capacity for wind power in the North Sea by 2030, and tenfold it by 2050. The goal is 150 gigawatts within 28 years.
– This would mean that the four of us would supply more than half of all offshore wind power needed to achieve climate neutrality in the EU, says Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who emphasizes that the transition to green electricity must go fast.
– We are not 30 years old. We are not 20 years old, not even ten years old, she says.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says the project is “unbelievably large”.
– The North Sea is the place where wind power can be produced on a large scale, and already today in an economically defensible way, he says during the presentation of the project in Esbjerg.
But the investment does not only come with the environment in mind. The EU is also struggling to overcome Russia’s dependence on gas and oil.
– Putin’s war shows the risks we have taken by being too dependent on Russian gas, says EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was also present in Esbjerg.
Frederiksen agreed.
– We will phase out Putin’s gas, we want to create thousands of jobs and we want to create a greener and more secure future for all of us, she says.