Fighting Windmills? Green Energy Presence in Chinese Energy Security Literature

Abstract

This thesis constructs a comprehensive overview of the published academic energy security literature in China during the 12th five-year plan period, with the goal of determining the presence of green energy development in this literature. A framework is constructed to categorize the theoretical approach to energy security of a text, and for quantifying the attitude towards green energy development as part of energy security theory. The study concludes that the published literature as a whole is very varied, spanning from very restricted to very comprehensive definitions of energy security. The study also finds that literature with a more comprehensive energy security definition are more likely to make green energy development considerations. Although a large portion of the published literature does not make green energy considerations, the literature that do generally view green energy development as contributing to the overall energy security. A discussion is presented about possible deciding factors of the focus of energy security literature.