Why does your research focus on the period 1968–86?

“The Club of Rome was founded in 1968, and it’s also when Paul Ehrlich’s The population bomb was published. Awareness of the scarcity of energy sources was growing. In the 1970s it seemed as if change might be possible; that oil would come to play a smaller role in the economy. Politically, too, oil production was under pressure. In many oil-producing countries there was instability due to wars or the oil industry was being nationalised, including in the Middle East, which meant Western oil companies like Exxon, BP and Shell feared losing access to this oil. At the time, they appeared to have no other choice than to look for alternatives.

“The mood changed again over the years as new sources of oil were found, for example in the North Sea and Alaska. In the 1980s political instability and the nationalisation of oil companies proved less of a problem than they were in the early 1970s. OPEC, the organisation of 14 oil-producing countries founded in Iraq in 1960, became a kind of partner to the Western oil companies. And the financial model changed—at least, that’s what I suspect, but it still needs to be investigated. As a result, the oil companies switched their focus from long-term investments to short-term results. Shareholders became less interested in investing in research on new technologies that would only yield returns years later, and opted instead to simply cash in by extracting oil from the ground. All these developments are reflected in the price of oil, which rose during the 1970s, dropped after 1980, and by 1986 was back to its pre-crisis level, the same price as it was in 1973. That’s why I take 1986 as my end point.”

What are you hoping to find in your research?

“I’m hoping to discover all sorts of unexpected things, but what I’m quite certain we’ll be able to demonstrate is that the oil industry is much more involved in the development of new technologies than we think. Not only the oil industry’s money is important for scientific research; so too is the training it provides. Many key researchers have spent part of their careers in the oil industry, which influences what is studied and how it is studied. Usually this influence is seen in a negative light: they undermine the climate debate, they promote climate change denial. They’ve done that too, and we’ll certainly look at that in this project—for example, how the oil industry retreated from and even undermined solar energy in the 1980s. But they’ve also done a great deal of good for science, and contributed to many fantastic discoveries. One of the Nobel Prize winners for chemistry for 2019 has spent much of his life working in the oil industry. He worked on the lithium ion battery, a rechargeable battery often used in mobile phones, laptops and electric vehicles. We have to give them credit for that. But if we want a more sustainable society, with a sound innovation system and research infrastructure, we’ll need to find alternatives to make up for the contributions the oil industry has made.” 

Could the corona crisis change things?

“I’d like to be optimistic. But the current drop in demand for oil won’t last forever. Industries will soon go back to their pre-corona levels of oil consumption—not all, but most of them. What I’m concerned about is that the economic recession that’s bound to follow this crisis will have negative consequences for the alternative energy industry, while the oil industry, which has higher cash reserves, will largely be spared. That’s the pessimistic scenario. The optimistic scenario would be that the government puts money into the economy to get the wheels turning again, and in doing so it focuses on the alternative energy industry in order to foster a more sustainable economy. But, for that, you need political will—and it’s unclear whether that will is there.”