Energy Wars: documentary on the geopolitics of oil, gas and renewables

Tonight Dutch national public broadcaster VPRO shows part one of its prestigious series of documentaries on the future of energy, entitled "Energy Wars". Part of the documentary program Tegenlicht ('Backlight'), the two films will highlight the rising geopolitical tensions over energy, and the potential of renewables at opening an entirely new energy paradigm. The Biopact is glad to have had the priviledge of consulting the film's researchers on the future of bioenergy and biofuels, especially when it comes to their potential in the Global South.

Part one of Energy Wars focuses on the present state of the geopolitics of oil and gas, with Thomas Friedman as a guide. Friedman, author of The World is Flat, formulates his "First law of petro-politics": there is a causal relationship between rising oil prices and the emergence of authoritarian, dictatorial and totalitarian political systems. When oil prices skyrocket, as they have done over the past few years, political leaders in oil producing countries find it easier to concentrate power and to negate efforts at more democratisation.
The steady rise of 'populist' figures like Ahmedinejad in Iran, Chavez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, and the consolidation of power by Putin in Russia, seem to give some credence to Friedman's law.

The Cold War and the War on Terror were all about ideology and globalisation, but in the 21st century energy security and access to declining reserves of oil and gas will take center stage instead. The Energy Wars of the coming decades will limit the progress of free market liberalism, which was thought to be unstoppable after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Francis Fukuyama, who wrote that history came to a standstill with the collapse of the Soviet Union and that the entire world will simply become a clone of democratic free market economies, was shown to be entirely wrong. Instead, resource wars will drive a new era in history, an end game putting different and shifting coalitions of oil-hungry nations (like China, the US, and India) against each other.

What kind of international political system will emerge from these Energy Wars? Will the multilateralist vision on global politics survive? What kind of risks for the world economy do the new geopolitical fracture lines entail? Energy Wars finds out by presenting reports from Russia and Georgia, where a conflict over natural gas is brewing; from Caracas, Venezuela, we get a view on how Hugo Chavez's 'Bolivarian Revolution' was made possible by the re-nationalisation of the country's oil industry, and on how petro-dollars are transforming Latin America; finally, a Saudi Energy minister explains how in the future oil producing countries may use their resources as an economic and political weapon.

The second film, to be shown next week, delves into the new era of renewables and takes us to developing countries, where bioenergy, solar and wind energy are transforming the energy landscape. Will renewables influence the global energy end game?

VPRO, Tegenlicht, Energy Wars, part one, can be watched online here (from tomorrow onwards). In the Low Countries, viewers can catch the film on 'Nederland 2', tonight at 9.00pm local time (or on Friday, november 3, at 9.55am local time) [entry ends here].
bioenergy :: biofuels :: sustainability :: oil :: energy :: Friedman :: Chavez :: Putin :: war :: geopolitics ::