Do natural resources impede renewable energy production in the EU? A mixed-methods analysis
Open accessAbstract
Since signing the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997, the European Union (EU) has been working on increasing its renewable energy supply. However, the progress has been uneven across member states. A vibrant literature advances several explanations for this variation, but pays insufficient attention to a critical structural factor – varying levels of natural resource wealth across the EU – and provides an incomplete account by focusing on consumption indicators. Reconciling divergent views in the literature in a single framework, we hold that while overall natural resource abundance can be conducive to renewable energy production within a country, specific natural resources, such as petroleum, are likely to be harmful. These hypotheses find empirical support in a mixed-methods study that combines a fixed-effects statistical analysis of comprehensive panel data between 1997 and 2015 with a comparative qualitative case study of the Netherlands and Belgium. The findings suggest that to achieve the ambitious goals on renewable energy deployment, the EU needs additional policies that explicitly tackle pernicious effects of specific natural resources, including rent-capturing by politicians, rent-seeking by corporate vested interests, and lack of economic incentives to diversify. • We examine the impact of natural resources on renewable energy production in the EU. • Combine EU panel data analysis with a case study of Belgium and the Netherlands. • Overall natural resources are conducive, petroleum harmful to renewable energy. • Policy factors are more salient than government ideology and governance quality. • EU needs extra regulatory interventions to tackle the effects of petroleum rents.
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Natural resource rents maintain ecologically unsustainable forms of production and are in part responsible for a cost-of-living crisis in many economies today following rising energy costs due to the Russia-Ukraine war.
“Natural resource rents maintain ecologically unsustainable forms of production (Ahmadov and van der Borg, 2019) and are in part responsible for a cost-of-living crisis in many economies today following rising energy costs due to the Russia-Ukraine war.”
From Mapping modern economic rents: the good, the bad, and the grey areas (2023) · cites this paper as Ahmadov and van der Borg, 2019
The citation attaches to the claim about rents maintaining ecologically unsustainable production, not to the subsequent cost-of-living claim. The paper’s Results (section 5) associate petroleum rents with decreased renewable energy production, which supports the point for petroleum rents. But it associates total natural resource rents with increased renewable production, so the claim overgeneralizes from petroleum to natural resources as a whole. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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Mapping modern economic rents: the good, the bad, and the grey areas
Mazzucato, M., Ryan-Collins, J., & Gouzoulis, G. (2023) · Cambridge Journal of Economics · doi:10.1093/cje/bead013 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
- Authors
- Ahmadov, A. K., & van der Borg, C.
- Affiliations
- Leiden University (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Ahmadov, Anar Kamil
- Venue
- Energy Policy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-03
- Volume
- 126
- Pages
- 361-369
- ISSN
- 0301-4215 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2903507823
- Cited by
- 183
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 29 · 2024: 39 · 2023: 34 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 4
- FWCI
- 15.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Energy Policy (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (publishedVersion)
- Leiden Repository (Leiden University) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › General Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Natural Resources and Economic Development
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Energy, Environment, Economic Growth
- Physical Sciences › Energy › General Energy › Global Energy Security and Policy
- Keywords
- renewable energy generation, natural resource wealth, oil rents, rent-seeking, rent capture, resource curse, energy diversification, EU energy policy, Amsterdam Treaty, Netherlands, Belgium, government ideology, governance quality
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