Hydrogen, paths of transitions, and geopolitics

1
Hydrogen, paths of transitions, and geopolitics

• Exploring the use of coherence between
  institutions and geography in geopolitics

Wouter Pieterse, 3rd of March 2008.
2
Content

• Hydrogen
• Research question
• Geopolitics
• Technical system
• Critical functions
• Coherence

3
Welcome to the future
4
Research question

• How can a framework be conceptualized
• that creates insight in the role of geopolitics
  in the development of energy systems
• and what does this role mean for the development
  of hydrogen as energy carrier?
• Can coherence play a role in a geopolitical
  context of energy?

5
Geopolitics of strategic minerals

• The international disribution of power as a
  function of
• Geographical configurations (location, distance
  and transport)
• Climate
• Security of access to needed materials

Haglund 1986
6
Geography is a technical system

• Energy Geography involves (technical)
  infrastructure and/ or networks
• Value chain Location, distance and transport
  links and nodes
• Production of resources are geographically fixed,
  centralized, and generally not where it is
  consumed.

7
Critical functions

• Interoperability
• Patterns of demand and supply availability and
  capacity gt (physical) security of supply
• Interconnectivity
• Linking energy resources syn-gas and hydrogen
  Security of supply through diversification.

8
Critical functions

• Capacity management
• Transport, distance and location gt allocation of
  rents, capacity and transit
• System management
• Geopolitics involves different nations and
  therefore unbundled systems.
• Rents, power, environmental and security issues

9
Geopolitics and coherence

• Quest for access to strategic raw materials leads
  to competition between nations and opportunistic
  behavior.
• Changes in geopolitical field of tension, leads
  to (new) institutions and arrangements, changing
  geographic configuration.
• This affects other nations coherence
• ? Continuous search for coherence!

10
(No Transcript)