Overland (2019) opines that the objective of this article is to nip in the bud four emerging myths about the geopolitics of the rise of renewable energy and the concomitant increase in electricity usage. The article presents alternative perspectives, arguing that:
1) the risk of geopolitical competition over critical materials for renewable energy is limited;
2) the resource curse as he knows it from the petroleum industry will not necessarily reappear in many countries in connection with renewable energy;
3) transboundary electricity cut-offs will mostly be unsuitable as a geopolitical weapon; and
4) it is not clear that growing use of renewable energy will exacerbate cyber-security risks.
In all four areas, the evolving literature could place more emphasis on uncertainty and risks and less on one-sided scenarios and maximization of threats. The founding fathers of the study of geopolitics conceived of it as a deterministic causal relationship between geography and international affairs, focused on the permanent rivalry, territorial expansion and military strategies of imperial powers. With time, “geopolitics” came to denote the influence of geography on the power of states and international affairs more broadly, with less emphasis on determinism and more on the strategic importance of natural resources, their location, transportation routes, and choke points.
During World War I, warfare became mechanized and Winston Churchill made his famous decision to shift the British navy from coal to oil. From then on, access to oil was a key component of much geopolitical analysis. As car ownership grew, Western countries came to depend on oil imports from the Middle East and were caught off guard by the oil crises of 1973 and 1979. These events transformed oil security from a military issue into one of economic stability. Often the focus of geopolitical analysis was on great power rivalry over specific oil-rich parts of the world such as the Persian Gulf, the Caspian, or the Arctic, or on choke points such as the Strait of Hormuz or the Suez Canal. Sometimes the analysis took on a neo-Malthusian, peak-oil hue. Later on, the gas crises between Russia and Ukraine in 2006 and 2009 raised concerns about natural gas, with particular emphasis on the use of monopoly, gas transportation infrastructure, pricing power, and supply disruption as foreign energy policy tools.
The current rapid growth of renewable energy is giving the impetus to a yet another phase in geopolitical thinking, this time focusing on changes in the positions of states in the international system that may follow from the rise of renewables. Although the geopolitics of renewables represents a new direction for geopolitical analysis, some arguments are already being repeated with such frequency that they may come to be seen as common knowledge. They tend to involve the transposition of the geopolitical logic of oil and gas onto renewables, despite the considerable differences between the energy types and their associated technologies and infrastructure.
While shifting focus from fossil fuels to renewables, geopolitical analysis remains centered on resource-rich locations, key infrastructure, transportation routes, control over energy supplies, and the potential for supply disruptions. The continuing underlying assumption is that control over resources and their distribution endows states with power in the international system. In this article, Overland therefore seeks to nuance and challenge four specific arguments concerning the geopolitics of renewable energy.
Traditional geopolitical thinking found its counterpart in critical geopolitics, a constructionist approach to the maps and texts produced by actors involved geopolitical theory- and policy making, but so far there have not been any critical geopolitical contributions on the geopolitics of renewables. This article could be thought of as a first step in that direction.
The article is a response both to the emerging academic [and industrial] literature on the geopolitics of renewables and to the discussions at seminars and conferences convened between 2016 and 2018 by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA); the ministries of foreign affairs of Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Emirates; the Clingendael Institute, Columbia University, Harvard University, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, and Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik.
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