https://www.bbc.com/news/world-50974609
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What will the end of oil dependence mean for geopolitics?
James Landale
3 January 2020
If you want to understand the revolution taking place in renewable
energy, come to a power station called Gemasolar in southern Spain.
Here, in the dusty plains of Andalusia, they have worked out how to
generate solar power 24 hours a day.
Yes, you can read that sentence again. At Gemasolar they create
electricity even when the Sun is not shining.
They have rigged up more than 2,500 huge mirrors on hydraulic mounts
that follow the Sun's passage through the sky.
The mirrors - each about the size of half a tennis court - reflect the
Sun's rays to one central point, the top of a 140m (459ft) tower, where
molten salt is heated to almost 600C. This liquid salt is carried down
the tower to where it heats the steam that powers a turbine.
And here's the trick: not all the salt is used at that point. Some is
stored in huge tanks and used later when the Sun has gone down. So long
as the Sun shines every day, the plant can generate power 24/7.
I tell you this not just as an illustration of how fast renewable
technology is changing - this particular innovation is not that new -
but also as an example of how electrified our energy is set to become.
The expansion of electric vehicles is predicted to accelerate
significantly, to a point when it will become the norm rather than the
exception.
Battery technology still has far to go but many scientists and
businesses are competing to find ways of storing electrical power that
is lighter and longer-lasting. Already some electrically powered
passenger aircraft are in production. How long before ships can be
powered by batteries rather than fuel oil?
The obvious and much-contested question is when this renewable
revolution will reach its peak and whether it will come in time to
protect the planet from global warming. That is not something I am
qualified to answer.
What interests me is a separate question: what impact might this new
technology have, not on the world's climate, but its politics?
What happens to the global balance of political power when so many
countries no longer need to buy so much oil and gas? This is a question
that Adam Bowen and I have sought to answer in a documentary for the BBC
World Service and Radio Four.
For more than a century, nations that had oil and gas had power,
literally and politically. Wars were fought over the stuff.
It all began before the World War One when Winston Churchill - as First
Lord of the Admiralty - converted the British navy from Welsh coal to
imported oil.
To secure British access to that oil, the future British prime minister
bought a controlling stake in the Anglo Persian oil company, the
forerunner of BP, in what is now Iran.
From that moment, much of the history of the 20th Century can be seen
through countries' pursuit of hydrocarbons, from Adolf Hitler's attempts
to secure the Baku oil fields to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait to
last September's drone and missile attack on Saudi oil facilities.
Countries with oil and gas used their monopolies to sell the stuff for
huge profits; those countries which relied on it spent much blood and
treasure defending their access to it.
The question is how much the renewable revolution might change this
geopolitical equation. How much influence will be lost by some of the
world's big fossil fuel producers, in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere?
Might there be more regional conflict as these countries fight over an
ever-decreasing share of the hydrocarbon energy market? And what might
happen to these countries internally if they lose their main source of
revenue?
Often these are nations have huge state-led economies, with many workers
employed by governments, with youthful populations accustomed to cheap fuel.
There is little consensus over when the transition from fossil fuels to
clean energy will take place. There are many different predictions about
when global demand for oil will peak and fall away but the planners at
Shell recently forecast it could happen as early as 2025.
So some oil-producing countries are playing safe and preparing for the
moment when they can no longer rely on oil. They are looking to
diversify their economies and find other sources of energy.
But other countries are more sceptical, trusting that demand for their
oil and gas will last for some time.
Some of these countries stand accused of talking about diversification
but doing little about it. The potential consequences of this are
becoming an increasing source of concern.
This is what Prof Paul Stevens, distinguished fellow at the UK foreign
affairs think tank Chatham House, told the BBC: "The oil producing
government gets revenue; if that revenue falls or disappears, the
government is no longer able to sustain the non-oil sector, which means
you will have rising unemployment, you will no longer be able to pay
subsidies to keep your population happy.
"Many of the large oil and gas exporters are what might politely be
described as politically unstable. So the faster the transition [to
renewables], the greater the fall in gas and oil revenues, the more
disruptive it is going to be and so you are looking at potentially a
large number of failed states."
This is what Tom Burke, chairman of the E3G environmental think tank and
a former UK government adviser says: "If you can't deliver food, energy
and water security, as we have seen across the Middle East, it is pretty
difficult to deliver internal stability. Urban populations, when you
fail to meet their expectations, riot. You could have the basic
structures of the state fall apart.
"But much more than that, when people riot or look like they might riot,
what tends to happen in those situations in countries is they seek
foreign adventures in order to distract people from their unmet
expectations."
So just imagine a currently stable oil-producing country in the Gulf
that suddenly becomes a failed state. Not only would this be a disaster
for the country itself, but it could also have huge implications for the
world.
Failed states often become the homes to extremist violence - think Syria
- and they often produce mass migration.
This potential disruption might not be confined to the Gulf. Russia is
one of the biggest exporters of oil and gas in the world. Its economy
and its government depend hugely on the revenues this brings in. Little
wonder that President Putin describes the development of "green
technologies" as a one of the "main challenges and threats" to Russia's
economic security.
Many Russians remember that falling oil prices contributed to the
collapse of the Soviet Union. But the current government is investing
little in alternative renewable energies. If one day the world needs to
buy less Russian gas, that could have a huge impact on the stability of
the Russian state and could transform its relations with Europe.
There are other potential sources of tension and conflict in a world of
clean energy.
There could be a race to secure access to minerals such as cobalt and
lithium which are vital for batteries and can be rare. Much of the
world's best cobalt is located in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
which has a history of instability and poor governance.
At the same time, the new so-called super grids through which
electricity will flow between countries will be more vulnerable to
cyber-attack.
An interesting question is how environmental campaigners should respond
to the political risks involved in the move towards renewable energy.
Should those potential downsides be taken into account or is the need to
protect the world from climate change so paramount that all other
considerations are secondary? How might public opinion be affected if
reducing global warming meant more terrorism and migration?
These, of course, are some of the worst-case scenarios. There are many
potential positives.
When the transition to renewables takes place, countries that were
previously energy dependent will be able to produce their own power. One
of the advantages of renewables is that many more countries have the
ability to generate clean energy.
Some countries with lots of sun, wind or tide could not only become
self-sufficient but could also export some of their energy via huge
so-called interconnectors. There may be something of a peace dividend:
if the world no longer needs so much oil passing through the Strait of
Hormuz each day, then perhaps they will not need such large armies and
navies to defend it?
To a large extent, the geopolitics of energy may cease to be so
significant. As Prof Stevens says, people will still find things to kill
each other over, such as food and water.
But energy, maybe not so much.
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