Abstract
As the world is taking its initial steps into a Green Energy-economy, to what extent will the ‘Geopolitics of Renewable Energy’ be different or similar to the ‘Geopolitics of Conventional Energy’? Exploring and developing conventional energy (oil, natural gas, coal) demands for huge capital investments and a military machine to control. Today, in an age of increasing scarcity, producer, transit and consumer countries are positioning themselves geopolitically so as to safeguard their energy security. The ‘Geopolitics of Renewable Energy’ could potentially be different; developing it will demand much capital, but there is the potential that energy will be much more decentralized, which could have a positive impact upon geopolitical relations in the world, but there are also drawbacks. This book chapter explores the Geopolitics of the Renewable Energy Game and its potential impact upon global power relations. First, we lay out some internal and external geopolitical consequences of the energy transition. Second, we explain that this transition in fact entails an “energy technology-revolution”. Third, we look at the global control over patents and knowledge, investigate the potential of renewable energy sources and their geopolitical consequences. Special attention is given to lithium and the electric car. Last, we formulate some conclusions.
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Notes
- 1.
Stranded assets are “assets that have suffered from unanticipated or premature write-downs, devaluations or conversion to liabilities.” Stranded assets can be caused by a variety of factors and are a phenomenon inherent in the ‘creative destruction’ of economic growth , transformation and innovation, as such they pose risks to individuals and firms and may have systemic implications. Coal and other hydrocarbon resources may have the potential to become stranded assets as the world engages in a fossil fuel phase out.
- 2.
Trump has put this back into question. However, the US can only officially exit ‘Paris ’ on 4 November 2020 at the earliest, one day after the next American elections.
- 3.
Again according to Rifkin, globalisation from the top down, has failed. It was based upon a too narrow energy regime ; it involved only a fraction of the world’s population and needed an enormous concentration of capital and military power to keep together. Rifkin states that the financial-economic crisis of 2008 was not so much created by the housing bubble in the US, but rather by the high energy prices in the summer of 2008. Less than two months later, the economic crisis took hold. Rifkin sees a direct relation or “perfect storm” between the economic crisis, the (conventional) energy crisis and the climate crisis. In this, he sees evidence that the oil age has reached its dawn, and thus that a new energy regime —this time based upon renewables—will gradually take its place.
- 4.
Marianne Haug is among others president of the Board of Directors of the ‘Forum für Zukunftsenergien’ in Berlin , an independent think tank on energy policy . She is also member of the advisory group OMV Future Energy Fund. For the European Commission, she is president of AGE7— Advisory Group for Energy for the 7th Framework Programme and member of the High-level Advisory Council for the European Technology Platform on Hydrogen and Fuel Cell . Between 2001 and 2005, she was Director in the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris , responsible for the ‘Office of Energy Efficiency, Technology and R&D’.
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Criekemans, D. (2018). Geopolitics of the Renewable Energy Game and Its Potential Impact upon Global Power Relations. In: Scholten, D. (eds) The Geopolitics of Renewables. Lecture Notes in Energy, vol 61. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67855-9_2
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