Each energy crisis has echoes of the past, and the acute strains on marketstoday are drawing comparison with the most severe energy disruptions in modern energy history, most notably the oil shocks of the 1970s. Then, as now, there were strong geopolitical drivers for the rise in prices, which led to high inflation and economic damage. Then, as now, the crises brought to the surface some underlying fragilities and dependencies in the energy system. Then, as now, high prices created strong economic incentives to act, and those incentives were reinforced by considerations of economic and energy security. But today’s global energy crisis is significantly broader and more complex than those that came before. The shocks in the 1970s were about oil, and the task facing policy makers was relatively clear (if not necessarily simple to implement): reduce dependence on oil, especially oil imports. By contrast, the energy crisistoday has multiple dimensions: natural gas, but also oil, coal, electricity, food security and climate. Therefore, the solutions are similarly all encompassing. Ultimately what is required is not just to diversify away from a single energy commodity, but to change the nature of the energy system itself, and to do so while maintaining the affordable, secure provision of energy services.