In all these cases, private foresight is not sufficient to internalise the impacts of a supply interruption and public action is warranted. One can attribute this need for public intervention to the existence of informational asymmetries or transaction costs. One aspect of this is that, in technical terms, energy supply risks do not follow a well-defined probability distribution function that would let private insurance markets take care of the issue. Another aspect of the issue is that the action of one actor in an energy system impacts the well-being or profitability of another, without taking this impact into account. Frequently, this is unavoidable for technical reasons. Gas and electricity are grid-bound and even oil and coal use common infrastructures such as dedicated ports, shipping lanes etc.