| Summary/Abstract |
Simon Dalby has most fervently argued to reframe various current security challenges as ‘anthropogenic geopolitics’. This paper takes up Dalby’s call discussing theoretically classical as well as critical readings of geopolitics arguing that both are helpful analytical lenses that do, however, focus on very different aspects. Empirically, these two geopolitical frames are used for an analysis of the current boom of renewable energies. The paper thus first analyses geographic and territorial determinants of the new energy revolution showing the relevant, but overall more benign conflict potential RE might entail and does so regarding material input, RE installations, storage and the grid system. In a second step, the spatial politics of RE are debated with a focus on the German energy transition arguing that a new regional geopolitical discourse has emerged after the Ukraine crisis. The paper is a critical – although normatively favourable – reading of the promise of Prometheus and the potential unintended consequences that are in store in Pandora’s box claiming that in the end the fulfilment of RE’s potential depends on politics.
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