Dutch petroleum company NAM joins green energy coalition

Dutch petroleum company NAM singed up with the Transition Coalition - a coalition of about 50 companies working to accelerate the Netherlands' transition to renewable energy sources, NAM director Gerald Schotman announced in his New Year speech, ANP reports.

"As far as I am concerned, the transition can, if not must, be more ambitious", Schotman said.

He sees no problem in the fact that he is calling for a quicker departure from generating energy from fossil fuels - which his company specializes in. According to Schotman, NAM is "actually a large engineering firm" which possesses the knowledge necessary for an energy turnaround.

Schotman also said that, despite the problems caused by fracking earthquakes in Groningen, natural gas will still play a role in energy generation for a long time, because it is the least polluting fossil fuel. The first priority is to lower CO2 emissions, and in that respect gas is "low hanging fruit", he said.