---
title: "Geopolitical Risk in Renewables | Mikko Kantero and Petri Haataja | Negotiator 155"
titleOriginal: "Geopoliittinen riski uusiutuvissa  | Mikko Kantero Petri Haataja | Neuvottelija 155"
episodeNumber: "155"
guest: "Mikko Kantero, Petri Haataja"
datePublished: 2022-10-03
duration: "32:08"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9c43gKwMw0"
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["geopolitics","investing_markets"]
subtitleMethod: "none"
provenance: "Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata and the neuvottelija.fi episode record. No chapter marks are published here: the publisher's list holds only two marks, at 0:00 and 0:52, and it is a split of the show-note text rather than a chapter list, so republishing it would assert timestamps that do not hold. No transcript is published either — the channel has no English caption track for this episode and the Finnish one is YouTube's automatic track. This episode is a commercial collaboration with Korkia, and both guests work for Korkia, which develops and finances the kind of projects discussed; the episode says so and this page repeats it."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/220-geopoliittinen-riski-uusiutuvissa-mikko-kantero-petri-haataj"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep155-geopoliittinen-riski-uusiutuvissa-kantero-haataja/
---
# Geopolitical Risk in Renewables | Mikko Kantero and Petri Haataja | Negotiator 155

English subtitles are not available on this page. This is an episode summary, not a curated transcript.

## Summary

The bubbles rising over Nord Stream in the Baltic are a reminder that energy is always also geopolitics. Mikko Kantero and Petri Haataja of Korkia explain why country risk is pushing much of the world to build its own energy infrastructure, and why industrial-scale solar now works very nearly anywhere. Their unexpected favourite market is Alberta, the Texas of Canada, where oil money flows into wind and solar on market terms and without subsidy. The conversation covers dependence on China in component manufacturing, the unusually good work done by the Finnish grid operator Fingrid, the battery breakthrough in the British market, and what plant maintenance actually amounts to in jobs. It closes on why the best place for solar is not the Sahara.

## Security is doing the work

The build-out described here is not primarily a climate story. Countries are buying their way out of dependence on someone else's fuel, and renewables happen to be the available instrument. That reframing explains why the pace picked up in 2022 specifically, and it is the episode's main analytical contribution.

## Why Alberta

An oil province is a strange favourite market until one notices what it implies: the projects clear on their own economics, without a subsidy regime to argue about. That is why Kantero and Haataja reach for it as evidence rather than as an anecdote.

## Where the dependence actually is

Solar panels, turbines and cells are manufactured largely in China. Swapping imported gas for imported hardware changes the shape of the exposure and does not eliminate it — a point the guests make against their own book, which is why it is worth keeping.


## Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [Geopoliittinen riski uusiutuvissa  | Mikko Kantero Petri Haataja | Neuvottelija 155](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9c43gKwMw0).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/220-geopoliittinen-riski-uusiutuvissa-mikko-kantero-petri-haataj).

## In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode:
[English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep155-geopoliittinen-riski-uusiutuvissa-kantero-haataja/) · [suomeksi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep155-geopoliittinen-riski-uusiutuvissa-kantero-haataja/).

## Explore the ideas in depth

- [Negotiation Strategy, Leverage and Power: Reading the Counterparty You Actually Have](https://www.neuvottelija.com/guides/negotiation-strategy-leverage-and-power/): A negotiation guide from the co-author of Neuvotteluvalta — the sources of leverage, BATNA and anchoring in practice, using information asymmetry, breaking deadlocks, and what to do when the counterparty negotiates on power rather than consensus. Grounded in Neuvottelija conversations and two decades of negotiation writing.

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — Geopolitical Risk in Renewables | Mikko Kantero and Petri Haataja | Negotiator 155, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep155-geopoliittinen-riski-uusiutuvissa-kantero-haataja/, 2022-10-03. For quotes include episode 155 and timestamp.