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2018 | Buch

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The Geopolitics of Renewables

herausgegeben von: Dr. Daniel Scholten

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Lecture Notes in Energy

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

Renewable energy represents a game changer for interstate energy relations. The abundant and intermittent nature of sources, possibilities for decentral generation and use of rare earth materials, and generally electric nature of distribution make renewable energy systems very different from those of fossil fuels. What do these geographic and technical characteristics imply for infrastructure topology and operations, business models, and energy markets? What are the consequences for strategic realities and policy considerations of producer, consumer, and transit countries and energy-related patterns of cooperation and conflict between them? Who are the likely winners and losers?

The Geopolitics of Renewables is the first in-depth exploration of the implications for interstate energy relations of a transition towards renewable energy. Fifteen international scholars combine insights from several disciplines - international relations, geopolitics, energy security, renewable energy technology, economics, sustainability transitions, and energy policy - to establish a comprehensive overview and understanding of the emerging energy game. Focus is on contemporary developments and how they may shape the coming decades on three levels of analysis:

· The emerging global energy game; winners and losers

· Regional and bilateral energy relations of established and rising powers

· Infrastructure developments and governance responses

The book is recommended for academics and policy makers. It offers a novel analytical framework that moves from geography and technology to economics and politics to investigate the geopolitical implications of renewable energy and provides practical illustrations and policy recommendations related to specific countries and regions such as the US, EU, China, India, OPEC, and Russia.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. The Geopolitics of Renewables—An Introduction and Expectations

Abstract

This volume explores the geopolitics of renewables: the implications for interstate energy relations of a transition towards renewable energy. Noting the different geographic and technical characteristics of renewable energy systems vis-à-vis those of fossil fuels, it investigates specifically how these might (re)shape strategic realities and policy considerations of producer, consumer, and transit countries and energy-related patterns of cooperation and conflict between them. Focus is on contemporary developments and how they may shape the coming decades. The objective is to establish a comprehensive overview and understanding of the emerging energy game, one that puts the topic on the map and provides practical illustrations of the changes renewables bring to energy geopolitics and specific countries. To this end, a novel analytical framework is introduced that moves from geography and technology to economics and politics and developments are studied on three levels of analysis: (a) the emerging global energy game, winners and losers; (b) regional and bilateral energy relations of established and rising powers; and (c) infrastructure developments and governance responses. This introductory chapter lays the groundwork for a comprehensive overview of contemporary developments by introducing the topic and field of geopolitics of renewables, developing an analytical framework, and posing expectations on what the transition towards renewable energy most likely implies for interstate energy relations.

Daniel Scholten

The Emerging Global Energy Game; Winners and Losers

Frontmatter

Chapter 2. Geopolitics of the Renewable Energy Game and Its Potential Impact upon Global Power Relations

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.

David Criekemans

Chapter 3. Redrawing the Geopolitical Map: International Relations and Renewable Energies

Abstract

In the emerging renewable energy era, political influence will accrue to those states with renewable resources that attain self-sufficiency and export dominance. The losers will be the countries lagging behind, still bound to hydrocarbon supplies and asymmetrical supply relations, and unable to reap the full political and economic benefits of renewables. Drawing upon theories of international relations, this chapter explores the links between energy and national power as well as the implications of energy-related dependencies. In general, states in asymmetrical relationships are vulnerable to external pressure and more constrained in their foreign policy options. With renewable energies, energy relations will be more mutual and symmetrical. However, states could be import dependent in at least three areas: (1) electricity supply via high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines; (2) biofuels, and (3) critical materials. The hydrocarbons-to-renewables transition may take decades to unfold, but the trajectories countries opt for now will be decisive. With insights extracted from the scholarship on technological change (the multi-level perspective), three variables are identified that represent the forces either facilitating or impeding transitions to renewable energies: (1) raw renewable energy potential, (2) political receptiveness, and (3) the strength/weakness of the hydrocarbon lobby. These variables provide a way to surmise which countries might be the winners or losers and how renewable energies could redraw the world’s ‘geopolitical map’. The chapter closes with a discussion of the implications and argues that the power dynamics associated with renewable energies will be far different from those of oil and natural gas.

Karen Smith Stegen

Chapter 4. Battling for a Shrinking Market: Oil Producers, the Renewables Revolution, and the Risk of Stranded Assets

Abstract

Oil and gas producers such as the OPEC countries and Russia are easily portrayed as the ‘losers’ of a transition to renewables. This chapter investigates their role in the new energy game and explores the strategies they could employ in a carbon-constrained world. After recounting how and why petroleum became the most important energy source in the global economy, this chapter discusses the likelihood of peak oil demand. It then looks at how private international oil companies and oil exporting countries would be affected by a global transition to renewable energy, and considers possible strategies that oil producers might follow in the face of dwindling demand and abundant reserves. The chapter concludes by arguing that the common wisdom about the geopolitics of oil needs to be revisited, as it will revolve around abundance rather than scarcity. Oil abundance creates winners (most notably the United States and import-dependent countries) but also losers (especially petrostates that are heavily dependent on oil revenues and have few competitive industries beyond fossil fuels).

Thijs Van de Graaf

Regional and Bilateral Energy Relations of Established and Rising Powers

Frontmatter

Chapter 5. The Geopolitical Implications of a Clean Energy Future from the Perspective of the United States

Abstract

A future in which clean energy substantially displaces fossil fuels could affect the economic and national security interests of the United States in at least five major ways. First, the United States may reduce its presence in the Middle East as fossil fuels wane in importance. Second, the United States is on track to cede market share in nuclear power to countries like Russia and China that are smarter and more aggressively investing in nuclear innovation, leading to economic opportunity costs and increased threats from nuclear proliferation. Third, the United States will likely invest in a smarter and more interconnected power grid to cope with intermittent renewable electricity supply; that could enhance relations with Mexico and Canada but also increase the threat of cyberattacks on the grid. Fourth, the rise of clean energy might tempt countries around the world to boost domestic manufacturing, by flouting the norms of the international trade regime that has brought prosperity to the United States. And fifth, in the face of the various negative potential implications of a clean energy future, the United States will have an opportunity to advance national and global interests by leading efforts to strengthen international institutions, confront climate change, and invest in clean energy innovation.

Varun Sivaram, Sagatom Saha

Chapter 6. The International Reverberations of Germany’s Energiewende; Geoeconomics in the EU’s Geo-Energy Space

Abstract

Germany’s Energiewende is an important example of a national policy to increase the share of renewables. Given the close proximity of European countries, this policy does not remain without implications on the European level. The European Union has been set up to balance political frictions where they arise. However, energy is an area where the leeway of the EU Member States to pursue national agendas is particularly wide. Despite the involvement of the European Union, the Energiewende, therefore, affects the bilateral relations between Germany and the other EU Member States. To capture these and similar effects, this chapter analyses the technical and economic reverberations of Germany’s Energiewende in the EU’s geo-energy space, that is the entanglement of energy systems across Europe; further, it discusses the geoeconomic implications for European energy politics.

Thomas Sattich

Chapter 7. China and Renewables: The Priority of Economics over Geopolitics

Abstract

The geopolitics of energy has traditionally focused on security of access to supply of fossil fuels. The fact that renewable energy resources are fundamentally different from fossil fuels reframes the problem the geopolitics of energy. In China, the geopolitics of energy has been viewed in the traditional frame of security of energy supply. Renewables have not been considered a geopolitical question, either by the Chinese government or scholars. The Chinese government approaches renewable energy from multiple dimensions, including energy supply, climate change, and environmental impacts. However, while exploitation of renewable energy resources themselves are central to Chinese government policy, this is matched in importance by the economic and industrial policy goals of exploitation of technology, production, markets, trade and investment in the renewables sector. Rather than the geopolitics of energy, industrial policy has been the key to renewable policy in China, and will in turn determine how the geopolitics of renewable energy develops in China.

Duncan Freeman

Chapter 8. Drivers, Apparatus, and Implications of India’s Renewable Energy Ambitions

Abstract

India’s renewable energy growth has been historically driven by a domestic political economy centered around finding an appropriate and cost-effective balance between different energy sources and various categories of energy consumers. While the contestations between different interests at the domestic level will continue—and even grow to an extent—the international political economy of energy, in general, and renewable energy, in particular, will assume greater significance in the near to medium term. In the long run, a new equilibrium might emerge in India’s energy sector but at this stage, it would be foolhardy to attempt any deterministic forecasts in that regard. As India becomes the largest and one of the most dynamic market places for renewable energy in the world, it will need to remember the drivers of the market—energy access, job creation, climate change, and energy security. The success of the sector will hinge on the ability of renewable energy to respond to each of these drivers. Equally, the complex policy and regulatory apparatus promoting, monitoring, and adjudicating the advances of the renewable energy sector has played, and will continue to play, an integral role in determining the pace and form of India’s renewable energy deployment. There is growing focus and impact of renewable energy deployment and ambition on India’s domestic and foreign policy. These implications range from energy security, climate leadership, and bilateral, multilateral, and plurilateral energy cooperation.

Kanika Chawla

Infrastructure Developments and Governance Responses

Frontmatter

Chapter 9. New Governance Challenges and Conflicts of the Energy Transition: Renewable Electricity Generation and Transmission as Contested Socio-technical Options

Abstract

The emergence of renewable energy sources (RES) has broadened the scope of socio-technical options for energy systems. While the conventional fossil-nuclear system has been a highly centralized one, both technological and in economic respects, RES can be implemented in a highly decentralized manner—but can also fit to the traditional centralized pathway. This new option space is associated with many conflicts. The paper reconstructs one basic conflict by conceptualizing future energy options as a strategic action field with incumbents and challengers as stylized key actors. We illustrate this approach by various cases from Germany, Austria, the Mediterranean, and China. The paper argues against a popular stylization of the strategic action field of RES along the dichotomy of centralized versus decentralized options and sketches a mixed future as the more plausible—and more desirable—one. The paper ends by sketching the design of a global super smart grid as the backbone for such a mixed option.

Fritz Reusswig, Nadejda Komendantova, Antonella Battaglini

Chapter 10. Connecting Visions of a Future Renewable Energy Grid

Abstract

Our fossil fuel energy system is in transition towards a renewable energy infrastructure. This implies that it is changing fundamentally into a new system with other institutional arrangements, infrastructures, habits, and routines. This chapter focuses on the institutional and infrastructure developments related to this transition. The Third Energy Package aimed to create one single EU electricity market. This implies that the level of high voltage lanes and the level of solar panels on the roofs of homes are parts of a single future EU electricity market. This chapter assesses how these different levels develop and whether and how synergy is created. To do so, this chapter analyses the visions of a future renewable electricity system and maps those against actual developments. It concludes that renewable energy developments on the different levels are rapidly ongoing without reflectivity regarding the consequences of design choices on the long-term. Short-term policy ambitions guide these developments. Embedding in a wider and coherent vision could facilitate more deliberate action. Distributed and centralized aspects of the electricity system need integration. The short-term developments do not necessarily result in the best system on the long-term. The guidance and reflection of a vision can help to identify relevant actors, coordination issues, and help to deliver a more robust renewable future energy system.

Marloes Dignum

Chapter 11. Renewables and the Core of the Energy Union: How the Pentalateral Forum Facilitates the Energy Transition in Western Europe

Abstract

The renewables transition influences interstate energy relations in many ways. The emergence of new energy-related patterns of cooperation depends on favourable political and economic circumstances. Within the multi-layered EU energy governance, innovative institutions evolved at the regional level. In 2005, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands formed the Pentalateral Forum (Penta Forum), joined by Austria and Switzerland in 2011 as full member and observer, respectively. In the process of establishing the Energy Union, which seeks to realise the single European energy market and the transition to a low-carbon energy system, the Penta Forum constitutes an intermediate step. The electricity sector is key to realising the Energy Union. This chapter examines how the cooperation between the members of the Penta Forum helps to achieve the integration of the European electricity market. It highlights two facets of the Penta Forum’s institutionalisation. First, as a form of differentiated integration in the context of EU policymaking the Penta Forum increases the member states’ room for manoeuvre within EU energy governance. Second, the design of the Penta Forum depoliticises the conversation about complex policy issues, which in turn is instrumental in limiting frictions among its members to practical issues.

Susann Handke

Conclusion

Frontmatter

Chapter 12. The Strategic Realities of the Emerging Energy Game—Conclusion and Reflection

Abstract

This volume explores the geopolitics of renewables: the implications for interstate energy relations of a transition towards renewable energy. Noting the different geographic and technical characteristics of renewable energy systems vis-à-vis those of fossil fuels, it investigates specifically how renewables might (re)shape strategic realities and policy considerations of producer, consumer, and transit countries and energy-related patterns of cooperation and conflict between them. Focus is on contemporary developments and how they may shape the coming decades. The objective is to establish a comprehensive overview and understanding of the emerging energy game, one that puts the topic on the map and provides practical illustrations of the changes renewables bring to energy geopolitics and specific countries. To this end, a novel analytical framework is introduced that moves from geography and technology to economics and politics and developments are studied on three levels of analysis: (a) the emerging global energy game, winners and losers; (b) regional and bilateral energy relations of established and rising powers; and (c) infrastructure developments and governance responses. This concluding chapter summarizes the core developments shaping the geopolitics of renewables, using the framework to reflect on the relationship under study and our expectations. It also draws overarching lessons for the field of geopolitics of renewables and regarding the challenges and opportunities countries face in securing an affordable energy supply in the emerging energy game.

Daniel Scholten, Rick Bosman

Backmatter

Titel: The Geopolitics of Renewables
herausgegeben von: Dr. Daniel Scholten
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-67855-9
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-67854-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67855-9