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Offshore hydrogen is often presented as a technical challenge: how to combine offshore wind, electrolysis, pipelines and existing North Sea infrastructure. Yet before those systems can operate at scale, Dutch law must answer a more basic question: what, legally, is a hydrogen-only offshore installation? The answer determines much more than terminology. Classification decides which authority grants the permit, which safety standards apply, whether the operator must secure futu

The Dutch kavelbesluit has become a broader planning instrument for offshore wind. Since 1 January 2026, it can also accommodate installations that convert wind-generated electricity into another energy carrier, including hydrogen. The change creates a legal gateway for integrated offshore wind-to-hydrogen projects. It does not, however, establish a complete offshore-hydrogen regime [1]. Under the Wet windenergie op zee, a kavelbesluit identifies a site within a designated of

picture by author, June 2026. Degrowth is often discussed as a dispute between ecological necessity and economic orthodoxy. Advocates argue that wealthy economies cannot continue expanding material and energy consumption indefinitely while remaining within planetary boundaries. Critics respond that deliberately shrinking economic activity would undermine employment, public finances and political stability. Yet this familiar framing obscures a more concrete question: what happ

Saint Francis of Assisi, depicted by the Spanish painter Jusepe de RibePhotograph by Leemage / UIG via Getty. An assumption of environmental social sciences, is that environmental degradation and its management are irreducibly societal phenomena. They are generated by human actors operating within historically specific socio-economic structures, institutions, and meaning systems. Cultural explanations form one distinct causal register within this ontology, ask whether particu