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What goes missing in the analysis of energy sources is their geostrategic impact. The vast majority of government motivations for 'green energy' is geostrategic

What goes missing in the analysis of energy sources is their geostrategic impact. The vast majority of government motivations for 'green energy' is geostrategic. Oil/coal/etc. is distributed 'unhelpfully' for western and asian interests, and it's use once. So the countries which have it must be permanently available for oil trade. Whereas with green energy, barring the provision of somewhat renewable metal supply, states do not need particularly complex diplomatic relationships. The reason for the world's attention now being drawn to the middle east isn't as simple as Hamas. Europe needs trade open from the middle east, and it needs oil. This is at the heart of trying to balance interests in the region wrt israel. Both china, us and europe are overwhelmingly against any disruption in the region which is why it hasnt spiraled into a full-blown regional conflict yet. Issues such as these play strongly on the minds of states as they try to transition. China's "going green" because its a net importer, and very worried about its dependence on russia and the middle east. This, I think, should give us hope. Whilst going green is an economic hit, it's a massive security boost. And states almost always trade wealth for security (, since, in the end, without secrutiy your wealth will disappear).

a321neo 3y ago
The Houthis/Iran blockading cheap Chinese things from reaching Europe might even be an environmental blessing in disguise.
- seydor 3y ago
  They are not blockaded, just delayed. I don't see why this is a good thing. Among these goods are solar panels
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Besides three weeks longer transportation leas times and higher trabsportation costs, there won't be much of an impact either way so. That the US and the UKndecide to bomb the Houthis over this, and escalate the whole already FUBAR situation is not the best idea of you ask me.
- TomK32 3y ago
  The Houthis don't attack Chinese or Russian ships https://www.dw.com/en/decoding-china-how-beijing-deals-with-the-houthis/a-68097763 https://www.dw.com/en/decoding-china-how-beijing-deals-with-...
nntwozz 3y ago
I agree, but I wonder what will happen to the middle east in the future once the transition is complete. What might they be thinking today about this?
- mjburgess 3y ago
  I guess it would be possible to see the Saudi-Iran (now dead) reconsiliation, mediated by China; and the Saudi-Israel (now dead) reconsiliation mediated by the US --- as made-possible by these issues. Though, I suspect, most of that shift comes from the US now being an energy exporter because of shale. If that had been the case earlier, it seems likely the iraq war wouldnt have happened, in that there would be no motivation for the US to 'improve' the region. It also seems likely that US support for Israel may end with increasing shale and increasing green energy. It's hard to image the severe consequences the US has faced for support will outweigh the value of having a stronghold in the region. Perhaps Israel might sense this waning US dependence on the ME, and this may be part of its prior attempt to normalise relations with SA, etc. It has always struck me that one of the precipitating issues 'in the air' for Hamas was likely a concern for israeli-arab friendships forming. If that were to happen, presumably the arab-world sentiment about israel could shift against them, and that would be a catastrophe for Palestinian interests. It's quite plausible then that much of what we see at the moment is partly a result of US shale plus long term concerns about green transition.
  - staunton 3y ago
    This is a very US-centric view. The things you mention might have an impact but not everything that happens is just due to what the US does. Israel wants to normalize relations with neighbors because that's what any country wants to do in order to keep existing (also, if the US is a factor here, it's mainly in pushing hard diplomatically for normalization of Israeli relations with arab countries). The Suni (Saudi arabia) vs Shia (Iran) divide currently dominates power politics in the middle east. This is also what motivates Israel's foreign policy (and also Iran's and Hamas' actions). Since the start of the war in Afghanistan, the US has been trying to excert military influence in the region without investing either troops or money. Afghanistan shows how that tends to work out. US influence on the region is at a historic low both economically and politically.
stephen_g 3y ago
It is an important point - here in Australia we don't have adequate onshore fuel reserves and we have only two or three remaining oil refineries, meaning the vast majority of our fuel is refined offshore and imported. This means basically our entire transport industry would fall over in (if I recall) around 20 days if our shipping was blockaded. But I think you're wrong on one point - going green isn't an economic hit in the scheme of things - even not counting the possibly incredibly high costs of climate change into the future (food insecurity, more frequent and more severe weather disasters, etc.) - renewable generation is cheap, and storage is also getting cheaper every year. Energy efficiency improvements have also seen demand trending down even as populations increase and there is a push towards electrification. Meanwhile nuclear has always been pretty expensive, and coal and gas prices have been fairly high in recent years. With some demand management, more distributed storage, new battery technologies, economies of scale etc., the cost of highly renewable grids is not likely to be a big deal.
- vitro 3y ago
  Also brings decreased health expenses associated with treating illnesses caused by pollution.
- hgomersall 3y ago
  I read recently about South Australia and what they've achieved with transitioning their grid in no time at all. It gives me hope it might happen (in time?) through sheer self interest.
  - ehnto 3y ago
    South Australia also has a de-salination plant to protect against drought and the other states over-using the main river that runs through them. As well the steel plant is trying to go green through a local hydrogen electrolysis plant (an article related was on the frontpage today). Both processes running off a renewable grid is a great step forward.
  - Staple_Diet 3y ago
    As someone living there presently rooftop solar is massively subsidised and an obvious choice given our near year round sun. A standard install is approx. $5k AUD ($3.5k USD) and will produce 30kw/h or more on a sunny day, this means a summer energy bill is around $100 for the 3 months (those that locked in higher buyback rates can even make money off the provider in summer). We just need better/cheaper storage solutions, as a $10k Tesla battery just doesn't stack up.
anovikov 3y ago
Well, U.S. produces a lot more oil than it consumes and can supply most of Europe's net imports this way. Counting in Canada, in a pinch, North America and EU put together, can make do with just the (fossil fuel) energy supplies of their own. So what you say was the case 20 years ago but no longer. Energy supply-wise, U.S. does not care about Middle East at all, and Western world overall, only somewhat cares, but it's not a major concern, not like it was in 1970s let alone not like it was in 2000s.
hackerlight 3y ago
This is the main reason why China is accelerating renewables. Renewables solves their energy sovereignty problem which they are very stressed about. If they decide to invade Taiwan, they have no easy solution to an oil blockade. They only have ~3 months of strategic reserves. They're fine on coal (albeit they can't really expand use that much, they can just keep it steady), it's oil that's the issue. https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2023/03/22/chinas-economic-security-challenge-difficulties-overcoming-the-malacca-dilemma/ https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2023/03/22/chinas-economic-secur... The other 4 reasons are smog over cities, growing political leverage of the domestic renewables industry, climate change, and the improving learning curve making it financially pragmatic. I think this provides a framework for how to market renewables to a domestic conservative political audience. It's cheaper, yes, but primarily it's good for national security and sovereignty. It's even better for individual sovereignty if we're talking about individual household solar, whereas oil and gas makes the individual beholden to the state or corporations (or worse, a foreign hostile state).
- jacquesm 3y ago
  > It's even better for individual sovereignty Only if you are off-grid, otherwise without the grid you have no power unless you get a setup that uses an inverter that is of an entirely different class than the ones commonly used. And then you need a substantial amount of local storage as well and you're going to have an absolutely minimal energy budget in the winter.
  - midasuni 3y ago
    50kWh of battery is quite cheap compared with a house and will keep you going a long time without grid power
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      A 50KWh capacity battery will last a very energy efficient house < 5 days. For grid independence you need to have either multiple redundant sources of energy and a backup generator (which consumes a fossil fuels), an absolutely massive battery (far larger than is economically feasible) or a grid hookup. I've reduced the energy consumption of our house about as far as it will go without seriously affecting quality of life, and yet it won't go down below 500 W draw on average, so about 10 KWh on a daily basis. On an annual basis we're 7.7MWh surplus but in winter we are net consumers. Starting March 1st we are in the plus on a daily basis and we could - if we had a battery, which we do not - be neutral. But we're still heating with gas and that leaves four months to cover or about 120 days. During those 120 days we consume 4 times 350 KWh, so 1400 KWh or thereabouts and produce about 700 KWh with the biggest gap near the solstice in December (due to the very short days). It is simply not feasible to bridge that gap with batteries and we also consume about 450 cubic meters of gas per month in that period, which for a house this type and size is actually pretty good. So I don't buy the 'personal autonomy' argument unless you want to cut your winter consumption to ~30% of your summer consumption, set your house to 14 degree room temperature (in many households that would be grounds for divorce) or get a 500 KWh battery system, which would set you back approximately $300K at the best prices that I can find today. I don't think that's worth it.
calpaterson 3y ago
I don't agree that the "vast majority" of government motivations for green energy are "geostrategic". Some of it is but much is clearly driven by genuine concern about the environment by elected representatives. If Germany were most motivated by energy independence they would not have closed so many nuclear power plants. There are in fact lots of decisions that politicians make that are inconsistent with aiming for strategic benefits but are consistent with an earnest (and sometimes quixotic) concern for the environment. If the UK was so bent on energy independence we would have made more progress on heat pumps. Yet gas boilers (lifespan: 15 years) are still being fitted today. In truth, governments thing about energy security a bit, they think about green stuff a bit and they aren't always very effective agents of change... I also think you're not right to imply that energy production largely happens as a result of government direction. In fact, energy prices are high at the moment and the prospect of profit drives development of green energy a great deal (not that subsidies don't have an effect as well). To be honest (and I hope I'm not straying into a personal attack here - that's not intended) I think your viewpoint sounds clever because it is cynical. Cynical views - especially the attribution of an ulterior motive - usually sound clever. But I think your post is at best partly right and perhaps even mostly wrong. Political realism is a drug to take only in small doses.
- Gud 3y ago
  Germany closed their nuclear plants when the fear of nuclear was at an all time high, due to Fukushima. At the same time, the risk of war has been downplayed ever since the fall of the Soviet Union.
  - midasuni 3y ago
    I don’t get Fukushima driving a worry about nuclear but not about tsunami or earthquake which killed orders of magnitude more and caused Fukushima in the first place.
    - flohofwoe 3y ago
      Nuclear powerplants exploding have a tendency to make pretty large swaths of land uninhabitable for decades or centuries, in a densely populated country like Germany that's a bit of a problem.
maxglute 3y ago
But also need to consider industry hallowing out due to lack of access to cheap gas as feedstock not energy, see EU's contracting PMI. At the end of the day, it also matters for geoeconomics if you don't have access to cheaper inputs than your competitors, especially if it leads to industrial death spiral that's difficult to recover from the longer it lasts.
TomK32 3y ago
The geostrategic impact is the most important point my eyes as well. Except for the USA, Norway and Britain pretty much all of the West's oil is from autocratic countries. Every wind generator, every solar panel that we put into use now will reduce that consumption for decades to come. Only an increase of energy consumption would work against this, but for example the EU is very much pushing it's citizens to save energy, even something small like LED light bulbs will contribute. Putin's war on Ukraine and the outfall in form of the EU reducing its gas addiction will mean that Russia is loosing millions of gas consumers not just for the duration of the war, but forever. Europe replaces its gas heating installations with other systems and pushes for better insulation. No one will go back to gas no matter how Putin's insane war ends. As a cyclist I'm not a fan of car and the current EVs, but once batteries take that big hurdle and production isn't reliant on China, all the money sent to autocrats to buy oil and lithium batteries will stay in the West. I'm all for that.

a321neo 3y ago

The Houthis/Iran blockading cheap Chinese things from reaching Europe might even be an environmental blessing in disguise.

seydor 3y ago
They are not blockaded, just delayed. I don't see why this is a good thing. Among these goods are solar panels
- hef19898 3y ago
  Besides three weeks longer transportation leas times and higher trabsportation costs, there won't be much of an impact either way so. That the US and the UKndecide to bomb the Houthis over this, and escalate the whole already FUBAR situation is not the best idea of you ask me.
TomK32 3y ago
The Houthis don't attack Chinese or Russian ships https://www.dw.com/en/decoding-china-how-beijing-deals-with-the-houthis/a-68097763 https://www.dw.com/en/decoding-china-how-beijing-deals-with-...

nntwozz 3y ago

I agree, but I wonder what will happen to the middle east in the future once the transition is complete. What might they be thinking today about this?

mjburgess 3y ago
I guess it would be possible to see the Saudi-Iran (now dead) reconsiliation, mediated by China; and the Saudi-Israel (now dead) reconsiliation mediated by the US --- as made-possible by these issues. Though, I suspect, most of that shift comes from the US now being an energy exporter because of shale. If that had been the case earlier, it seems likely the iraq war wouldnt have happened, in that there would be no motivation for the US to 'improve' the region. It also seems likely that US support for Israel may end with increasing shale and increasing green energy. It's hard to image the severe consequences the US has faced for support will outweigh the value of having a stronghold in the region. Perhaps Israel might sense this waning US dependence on the ME, and this may be part of its prior attempt to normalise relations with SA, etc. It has always struck me that one of the precipitating issues 'in the air' for Hamas was likely a concern for israeli-arab friendships forming. If that were to happen, presumably the arab-world sentiment about israel could shift against them, and that would be a catastrophe for Palestinian interests. It's quite plausible then that much of what we see at the moment is partly a result of US shale plus long term concerns about green transition.
- staunton 3y ago
  This is a very US-centric view. The things you mention might have an impact but not everything that happens is just due to what the US does. Israel wants to normalize relations with neighbors because that's what any country wants to do in order to keep existing (also, if the US is a factor here, it's mainly in pushing hard diplomatically for normalization of Israeli relations with arab countries). The Suni (Saudi arabia) vs Shia (Iran) divide currently dominates power politics in the middle east. This is also what motivates Israel's foreign policy (and also Iran's and Hamas' actions). Since the start of the war in Afghanistan, the US has been trying to excert military influence in the region without investing either troops or money. Afghanistan shows how that tends to work out. US influence on the region is at a historic low both economically and politically.

stephen_g 3y ago

It is an important point - here in Australia we don't have adequate onshore fuel reserves and we have only two or three remaining oil refineries, meaning the vast majority of our fuel is refined offshore and imported. This means basically our entire transport industry would fall over in (if I recall) around 20 days if our shipping was blockaded. But I think you're wrong on one point - going green isn't an economic hit in the scheme of things - even not counting the possibly incredibly high costs of climate change into the future (food insecurity, more frequent and more severe weather disasters, etc.) - renewable generation is cheap, and storage is also getting cheaper every year. Energy efficiency improvements have also seen demand trending down even as populations increase and there is a push towards electrification. Meanwhile nuclear has always been pretty expensive, and coal and gas prices have been fairly high in recent years. With some demand management, more distributed storage, new battery technologies, economies of scale etc., the cost of highly renewable grids is not likely to be a big deal.

vitro 3y ago
Also brings decreased health expenses associated with treating illnesses caused by pollution.
hgomersall 3y ago
I read recently about South Australia and what they've achieved with transitioning their grid in no time at all. It gives me hope it might happen (in time?) through sheer self interest.
- ehnto 3y ago
  South Australia also has a de-salination plant to protect against drought and the other states over-using the main river that runs through them. As well the steel plant is trying to go green through a local hydrogen electrolysis plant (an article related was on the frontpage today). Both processes running off a renewable grid is a great step forward.
- Staple_Diet 3y ago
  As someone living there presently rooftop solar is massively subsidised and an obvious choice given our near year round sun. A standard install is approx. $5k AUD ($3.5k USD) and will produce 30kw/h or more on a sunny day, this means a summer energy bill is around $100 for the 3 months (those that locked in higher buyback rates can even make money off the provider in summer). We just need better/cheaper storage solutions, as a $10k Tesla battery just doesn't stack up.

anovikov 3y ago

Well, U.S. produces a lot more oil than it consumes and can supply most of Europe's net imports this way. Counting in Canada, in a pinch, North America and EU put together, can make do with just the (fossil fuel) energy supplies of their own. So what you say was the case 20 years ago but no longer. Energy supply-wise, U.S. does not care about Middle East at all, and Western world overall, only somewhat cares, but it's not a major concern, not like it was in 1970s let alone not like it was in 2000s.

hackerlight 3y ago

This is the main reason why China is accelerating renewables. Renewables solves their energy sovereignty problem which they are very stressed about. If they decide to invade Taiwan, they have no easy solution to an oil blockade. They only have ~3 months of strategic reserves. They're fine on coal (albeit they can't really expand use that much, they can just keep it steady), it's oil that's the issue. https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2023/03/22/chinas-economic-security-challenge-difficulties-overcoming-the-malacca-dilemma/ https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2023/03/22/chinas-economic-secur... The other 4 reasons are smog over cities, growing political leverage of the domestic renewables industry, climate change, and the improving learning curve making it financially pragmatic. I think this provides a framework for how to market renewables to a domestic conservative political audience. It's cheaper, yes, but primarily it's good for national security and sovereignty. It's even better for individual sovereignty if we're talking about individual household solar, whereas oil and gas makes the individual beholden to the state or corporations (or worse, a foreign hostile state).

jacquesm 3y ago
> It's even better for individual sovereignty Only if you are off-grid, otherwise without the grid you have no power unless you get a setup that uses an inverter that is of an entirely different class than the ones commonly used. And then you need a substantial amount of local storage as well and you're going to have an absolutely minimal energy budget in the winter.
- midasuni 3y ago
  50kWh of battery is quite cheap compared with a house and will keep you going a long time without grid power
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    A 50KWh capacity battery will last a very energy efficient house < 5 days. For grid independence you need to have either multiple redundant sources of energy and a backup generator (which consumes a fossil fuels), an absolutely massive battery (far larger than is economically feasible) or a grid hookup. I've reduced the energy consumption of our house about as far as it will go without seriously affecting quality of life, and yet it won't go down below 500 W draw on average, so about 10 KWh on a daily basis. On an annual basis we're 7.7MWh surplus but in winter we are net consumers. Starting March 1st we are in the plus on a daily basis and we could - if we had a battery, which we do not - be neutral. But we're still heating with gas and that leaves four months to cover or about 120 days. During those 120 days we consume 4 times 350 KWh, so 1400 KWh or thereabouts and produce about 700 KWh with the biggest gap near the solstice in December (due to the very short days). It is simply not feasible to bridge that gap with batteries and we also consume about 450 cubic meters of gas per month in that period, which for a house this type and size is actually pretty good. So I don't buy the 'personal autonomy' argument unless you want to cut your winter consumption to ~30% of your summer consumption, set your house to 14 degree room temperature (in many households that would be grounds for divorce) or get a 500 KWh battery system, which would set you back approximately $300K at the best prices that I can find today. I don't think that's worth it.

calpaterson 3y ago

I don't agree that the "vast majority" of government motivations for green energy are "geostrategic". Some of it is but much is clearly driven by genuine concern about the environment by elected representatives. If Germany were most motivated by energy independence they would not have closed so many nuclear power plants. There are in fact lots of decisions that politicians make that are inconsistent with aiming for strategic benefits but are consistent with an earnest (and sometimes quixotic) concern for the environment. If the UK was so bent on energy independence we would have made more progress on heat pumps. Yet gas boilers (lifespan: 15 years) are still being fitted today. In truth, governments thing about energy security a bit, they think about green stuff a bit and they aren't always very effective agents of change... I also think you're not right to imply that energy production largely happens as a result of government direction. In fact, energy prices are high at the moment and the prospect of profit drives development of green energy a great deal (not that subsidies don't have an effect as well). To be honest (and I hope I'm not straying into a personal attack here - that's not intended) I think your viewpoint sounds clever because it is cynical. Cynical views - especially the attribution of an ulterior motive - usually sound clever. But I think your post is at best partly right and perhaps even mostly wrong. Political realism is a drug to take only in small doses.

Gud 3y ago
Germany closed their nuclear plants when the fear of nuclear was at an all time high, due to Fukushima. At the same time, the risk of war has been downplayed ever since the fall of the Soviet Union.
- midasuni 3y ago
  I don’t get Fukushima driving a worry about nuclear but not about tsunami or earthquake which killed orders of magnitude more and caused Fukushima in the first place.
  - flohofwoe 3y ago
    Nuclear powerplants exploding have a tendency to make pretty large swaths of land uninhabitable for decades or centuries, in a densely populated country like Germany that's a bit of a problem.

maxglute 3y ago

But also need to consider industry hallowing out due to lack of access to cheap gas as feedstock not energy, see EU's contracting PMI. At the end of the day, it also matters for geoeconomics if you don't have access to cheaper inputs than your competitors, especially if it leads to industrial death spiral that's difficult to recover from the longer it lasts.

TomK32 3y ago

The geostrategic impact is the most important point my eyes as well. Except for the USA, Norway and Britain pretty much all of the West's oil is from autocratic countries. Every wind generator, every solar panel that we put into use now will reduce that consumption for decades to come. Only an increase of energy consumption would work against this, but for example the EU is very much pushing it's citizens to save energy, even something small like LED light bulbs will contribute. Putin's war on Ukraine and the outfall in form of the EU reducing its gas addiction will mean that Russia is loosing millions of gas consumers not just for the duration of the war, but forever. Europe replaces its gas heating installations with other systems and pushes for better insulation. No one will go back to gas no matter how Putin's insane war ends. As a cyclist I'm not a fan of car and the current EVs, but once batteries take that big hurdle and production isn't reliant on China, all the money sent to autocrats to buy oil and lithium batteries will stay in the West. I'm all for that.