Netherlands Gas Tokens
Token Issuing cities and Municipalities
(incudes a few privately issued tokens)
Gas as a source of energy
Natural gas, often found together with oil, could not be used commercially, until an infrastructure for transport and storage was built and that would happen only when enough demand was foreseen. However, compared to coal and oil, gas is relatively clean.Amsterdam founded one of the first municipal biogas (based on rapeseed oil) companies in 1825, mainly for street lighting. Rotterdam followed suit in 1826 with a plant using natural gas. As electric street lights replaced gas light, municipal companies turned towards industrial plants and, increasingly, to consumers. Oil was cheaper and safer, though, so it replaced coal and gas for heating and driving, while, due to the invention of the electric light bulb, electricity replaced gas in lighting. Gas remained a viable option for cooking.
Gas consumption was heavily influenced by the discovery of a large gas field in the North of the Netherlands in 1959. Gas consumption was encouraged with subsidies. The exploitation of the gas was entrusted to a state monopoly, Nederlands Gasunie. This company built a dense pipeline distribution network, obviating the municipal companies and their storage facilities. Due to the greening of the country and more efficient technology, the company saw its turnover diminish from 1.7 billion euros in 2011 to 1.2 billion euros in 2018. In the framework of climate action, a further downturn in use is to be expected, all the more because gas exploitation has made the land above the gas field unstable.
Ref used : A.J. Kooij, Catalogus van Nederlandse betaal- en reclamepenningen