Dear all, Pleased to announce that Volume 41 of Energy Research & Social Science was published last night, this one a Special Issue carefully crafted by Gavin Bridge, Begüm Özkaynak, and Ethemcan Turhan over the course of the past year. I fully admit my head is still spinning from its contents (in a good way), as it is crammed with so much insight, with so many unique (and often underexplored) case studies, and so many energy systems (nuclear, gas, oil, hydro, solar) examined. The guest editors are copied here should you want to engage. As always, requests for copies of the volume or articles are welcome when sent to me individually. Table of Contents below.
Wishing everyone a good week ahead, Benjamin Sovacool Editor-in-Chief Energy Research & Social Science https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/energy-research-and-social-science/vol/41 Introduction Gavin Bridge, Begüm Özkaynak, Ethemcan Turhan, Energy infrastructure and the fate of the nation: Introduction to special issue, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 1-11, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.029. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618302251) Abstract: In this article we introduce a Special Issue of Energy Research and Social Science focused on energy infrastructure and the political economy of national development. Many countries are experiencing transformational growth in energy infrastructure, such as transmission and distribution systems; import, export and storage facilities; the development of domestic energy resources; and construction of new power generating stations based on wind, water, coal, gas and nuclear sources. Large-scale projects like these are frequently justified by appeals to grand narratives – promoting economic growth, securing energy supply, modernizing energy service provision, and transitioning to more environmentally sustainable energy systems - in which the fate of the nation is closely tied to infrastructural development. The papers in this collection present compelling empirical evidence of how claims for energy infrastructure’s national significance and/or necessity intersect with the (re)production of political and economic power. Drawing on case material from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia and Europe, they highlight the capacity of different energy technologies and infrastructural assemblages to shape political and economic outcomes beyond their role in storing, transporting or transforming energy. This Introduction to the Special Issue does three things. First, it characterises the scale and significance of the contemporary ‘infrastructural moment’, observing how, in many national contexts, energy policy-making remains centralised and divorced from public participation. Second, it critically differentiates existing literature on the political economy of energy infrastructure to identify five distinctive ways in which research understands the ‘political work’ infrastructure performs. Third, it introduces the papers in the Special Issue and organises them into four key themes. Overall, the Introduction affirms the importance for social science of understanding the economically and politically constitutive power of energy infrastructures. The critical reflexivity this requires is essential to moving towards energy infrastructures that are just, equitable and sustainable. Keywords: Infrastructure; Political economy; Nation; Development; Scale; Geopolitics; Liberalisation; Investment; Inequality; Technopolitics; Socio-technical imaginary Energy Infrastructure: Market Frontier or State-led National Development? Thomas F. Purcell, Estefania Martinez, Post-neoliberal energy modernity and the political economy of the landlord state in Ecuador, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 12-21, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.003. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303414) Abstract: This paper offers a value-theoretic critique of ‘post-neoliberal’ energy production in Ecuador. The Ecuadorian government is attempting to end the dependence on finite hydrocarbon resources and unite energy infrastructure with industrial competitiveness through the transformation of the country’s ‘energy matrix’. Based on extensive field research, we argue that the project reveals the contradictions of the landlord state’s attempt to mobilise circuits of ground rent and foreign debt to create cheap energy as a comparative advantage for national industrial development. Riding high on global commodity prices and tapping into a huge stream of Chinese investment, the government massively increased investment in new sources of hydroelectricity and energy infrastructure. Whilst ostensibly bringing about a reduction in energy production costs, this has come at the price of leveraging the country’s natural resources (oil and minerals) and, paradoxically, creating an oversupply of hydroelectricity. Drawing on a Marxist reading of the landlord state and tracing the flows of ground rent, capital and energy we reveal how, far from the claims of post-neoliberal modernity, the project is in fact deepening resource dependence by channelling hydroelectricity towards the nascent Ecuadorian mining frontier. Keywords: Ecuador; Landlord state; Energy matrix; Ground rent Ayşen Eren, Transformation of the water-energy nexus in Turkey: Re-imagining hydroelectricity infrastructure, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 22-31, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.013. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462961830358X) Abstract: This article develops a critical perspective on the water-energy nexus under transformation and introduces ‘infrastructure’ as a conceptual-analytical reference point for revealing relations between water and energy and in understanding how they work. By utilizing this approach, the article focuses on the emergence of a liberalized electricity market and the launch of a hydroelectricity program under the neoliberal water and energy policies of the Turkish state. Through a case study of the hydroelectricity infrastructures in the İkizdere River Basin, the article demonstrates that the liberalized electricity market exerts implicitly ‘structural tensions’ on the hydroelectricity companies on the local level to minimize the natural variability of the river. In return, the hydroelectricity companies built infrastructures in the form of water storage and chained configurations that take the role of providing electricity to the market in a predetermined manner. Hence, they take the control of river flow and regulate it with environmental, social, economic and political consequences. This article hopes to open a door for an infrastructure-oriented direction of research addressing the social, political, economic and environmental nexus relations that are mostly hidden and unvoiced operating on the local scale, and have major implications for the environment and the livelihoods. Keywords: Water-energy nexus; Infrastructure; Hydroelectricity; Electricity market; Neoliberalism; Turkey Darren McCauley, Reframing decommissioning as energy infrastructural investment: A comparative analysis of motivational frames in Scotland and Germany, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 32-38, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.018. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303700) Abstract: Decommissioning is often understood to mark the end of an energy infrastructure, associated supply network or even an entire industry. The long-term nature of this process for large scale infrastructure offers, however, a strategic opportunity for businesses. The paper argues that pro-industry Scottish business interests have proactively reframed decommissioning oil and gas infrastructure as an investment opportunity, whereas their German counterparts in the nuclear industry have struggled to mobilize a positive reframing of the phase-out. A detailed analysis of eighteen interviews reveals critical insight into how each industry approaches mobilising support for their interests through motivational framing in the decommissioning context. Four key differences between the case studies (materiality, industry trajectories, rise of small business and national political identity) are then identified and reflected upon. Keywords: Decommissioning; Energy investment; Energy infrastructure; Oil and gas; Nuclear; Political economy Clemens Hoffmann, Beyond the resource curse and pipeline conspiracies: Energy as a social relation in the Middle East, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 39-47, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.025. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303876) Abstract: This article identifies problematic tendencies in current analyses of the Middle East’s energy relations. All social relations are frequently seen as determined by resource extraction, use and transfer, contributing to the uniquely instable social relations of the Middle East. Social structures despite being energy rich, are seen as incapable to react to old and new geopolitical crises and the effects of global climate change, adding to a picture of chronic underdevelopment and conflict. This article offers an alternative, more optimistic perspective on the Middle East’s energy relations. Privileging the social over the material, calorific, geological or topographic dimensions of energy relations, it argues that social life developed in relation to its natural resources, matter and energy, but is not singularly determined by it. It proposes to historicise and re-politicise the Middle East’s social energy relations, including its nutritional and geopolitical dimensions. Emphasising their dynamic character, energy and its associated infrastructures are subsequently re-defined into political categories, a field of social contestation and change, rather than a limiting biophysical structure. The concept of Social Energy, thus, transforms nature from a constraining externality into an integral part of social analysis and transformation in the Middle East. Keywords: Middle East; Energy geopolitics; Social relations; Capitalism Nathan Andrews, Chilenye Nwapi, Bringing the state back in again? The emerging developmental state in Africa’s energy sector, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 48-58, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.004. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303475) Abstract: Despite the rise and fall of the central role given to states in national development discussions, there is an emerging trend in Africa where several countries are harnessing their natural resources – at least in policy – for broad-based development. Particularly in the energy sector, there is the growing popularity of what is now termed ‘petro-developmental states’ who through the adoption of local content policies and laws seek to increase the participation of their nationals in the energy industry. The objective of our paper is to explore this phenomenon in Ghana, Mozambique, and Uganda by examining the specific laws and policies vis-à-vis the political will and institutional/infrastructural capacity of these countries to advance development. In identifying whether the developmental state model fits with the changing dynamics within Africa’s energy (mainly hydrocarbon) sector, the results were mixed or negative although Uganda is sometimes seen as a promising example. Overall, the paper underscores the intersectionality of energy infrastructure, institutions, political power, and national development. Keywords: Developmental state; Petro-developmentalism; Local content policy; Ghana; Mozambique; Uganda Brian Sergi, Matthew Babcock, Nathaniel J. Williams, Jesse Thornburg, Aviva Loew, Rebecca E. Ciez, Institutional influence on power sector investments: A case study of on- and off-grid energy in Kenya and Tanzania, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 59-70, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.011. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303566) Abstract: With the recent decline of renewable energy technology costs—most notably solar photovoltaics —off-grid energy systems are becoming increasingly attractive alternatives to grid extension for advancing rural electrification in Africa. However, there are institutional challenges to wider adoption of off-grid solutions. Combining a multi-level perspective with project funding data from the Kenyan and Tanzanian energy sectors, we assess the extent to which these new off-grid technologies have been incorporated into the existing energy regimes in both countries. Using a qualitative assessment of academic literature and official documents, and a quantitative assessment of energy investments, we find that although international development agencies have provided financial support for niche, off-grid companies, both global donors and the regime electricity sector operators in Kenya and Tanzania continue to favor on-grid and grid extension activities. While landscape influences on both countries are similar, we find that differences within the institutional regimes result in different development pathways for off-grid niches. In Kenya, unbundling and privatization efforts have attracted private investment in both on- and off-grid projects. Tanzania has more relaxed regulations for off-grid power producers, and a clearer regulatory framework for allowing off-grid operators to impose cost-reflective tariffs, which creates a supportive environment for niche innovation. Keywords: Multi-level perspective (MLP); On- and off-grid energy resources; Regime transition Yifan Cai, Yuko Aoyama, Fragmented authorities, institutional misalignments, and challenges to renewable energy transition: A case study of wind power curtailment in China, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 71-79, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.021. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303815) Abstract: To date, challenges to renewable energy transition have been discussed largely based on the cases and experiences from the Global North. In this paper, we aim at broadening our understanding of this specific socio-technical transition by incorporating the case of wind power development in China. Based on the analysis of policy and legal documents, we examine how institutions are organized and incentives are distributed among relevant stakeholders. We argue that China’s significant wind curtailment problem has been produced and exacerbated by multiple axes of institutional misalignments stemming from China’s fragmented energy bureaucracy. Through the study of the Chinese approach to renewable energy transition, our goal is to demonstrate the institutional plurality of socio-technical transition and the context specificity of its challenges. Keywords: Socio-technical transition; Fragmented authoritarianism; Wind power curtailment; Institutional misalignments Trine Pallesen, Peter Holm Jacobsen, Solving infrastructural concerns through a market reorganization: A case study of a Danish smart grid demonstration, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 80-88, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.005. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303487) Abstract: Following the rapid growth of wind power in Denmark in the past 20 years, energy infrastructure has become increasingly politicized. Fluctuating renewables not only contest the dominant ‘logic’ of operating the system, namely ‘supply-follows-demand’, but it also introduces new actors like aggregators and reconfigures existing market actors. In this paper, we study a case, EcoGrid 2.0 on the Danish island Bornholm, as a case of a ‘marketized’ solution to the infrastructural concerns emerging from the large share of fluctuating wind power in the system. The market design involves transforming ‘flexible consumption’ into an exchangeable good, as well as a transformation of households into ‘distributed energy resources’, making it possible to capitalize on the existing infrastructure in new ways. We end the paper with a discussion of the implications for infrastructure; when households become balancing entities and a digital and smart infrastructure is made indispensable to the operation of the system, the infrastructure grows significantly in terms of scope and complexity eventually introducing yet new challenges. Keywords: Wind power; Infrastructure; Market design; Smart grid; Market reorganization I-Tsung Tsai, Political economy of energy policy reforms in the gulf cooperation council: Implications of paradigm change in the rentier social contract, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 89-96, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.028. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462961830392X) Abstract: Member states of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)) are undertaking a number of energy policy reforms to cope with challenges from low oil prices, intensifying regional conflicts, increasing domestic energy consumption and inefficient power generation. This article offers a perspective on energy policy reform and its implications for energy infrastructure in the GCC. It outlines an observed paradigm change in the rentier social contract where energy subsidies – as the key instruments of rent transfer – are been gradually replaced by a premium associated with state-provided jobs. The new paradigm allows efficient and effective distribution of rent to the growing higher-income national population while mitigating the substantial opportunity cost associated with energy subsidies. The paradigm change is being facilitated by the extension of state control from the oil sector to the non-oil energy sector. The article discusses the theoretical implications of the paradigm change and the near-term institutional setting of energy infrastructure development in the GCC. Keywords: Energy policy; Socio-political institutions; Development economics; Rentier social contract National Energy Imaginaries: Securing Energy for The Nation Lauren Rickards, Elspeth Oppermann, Battling the tropics to settle a nation: Negotiating multiple energies, frontiers and feedback loops in Australia, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 97-108, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.038. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618304158) Abstract: Multiple forms and spaces of energy are enrolled in nation-building projects. In this cross-disciplinary paper, we outline how struggles to govern the relations between climate and the human body have shaped nation-building efforts and electricity infrastructure in the settler-colonial society of Australia. Focused on Australia’s tropical zone, notably the hot, recalcitrant, militarized region of the Northern Territory, we explore how questions of climate have slowed, undone and accelerated efforts to securely settle its capital city, Darwin. In doing so, we highlight the multiple links between electricity infrastructure and air-conditioning that have made it possible to hold ‘climate’ and ‘body’ together, co-producing indoor microclimates and habitable territory while contributing to the warming climate that is now raising questions about the limits of this electricity-enabled habitability. By examining the intersecting spatialities of electricity, we help advance more ‘thoroughly geographical’ (Bridge, 2018) accounts of the relation between energy infrastructures and nation-building, highlighting the multiple forms, frontiers and feedback loops through which energy – broadly defined, as foundational category – acts as hindrance, enabler and side-effect of nation-building projects. We show how this perspective reveals troubling paradoxes and tensions, including accelerating feedbacks between energy use and climate change extending far beyond Australia’s borders. Keywords: Tropics; Heat; Electricity; Australia; Settlement; Climate change Rafael Bennertz, Arie Rip, The evolving Brazilian automotive-energy infrastructure: Entanglements of national developmentalism, sugar and ethanol production, automobility and gasoline, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 109-117, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.022. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303840) Abstract: This paper addresses the dynamic sociotechnical construction of automotive-energy infrastructures, based on the case of ethanol fuel in Brazil in the 20th and early 21st centuries. Energy infrastructure projects are afforded but also constrained by technical and institutional “residues” of previous initiatives and achievements. The notion of “knots” is introduced to explore how sociotechnical entanglements interlinking elements from distinct levels of the societal fabric become stabilized and shape subsequent developments. This extension of the sociotechnical approach is shown to be fruitful to better understand the embedding of ethanol fuel in the process of evolution of the automotive-energy infrastructure in Brazil during the 20th century. This then offers building blocks for analysis and design of energy infrastructures in general. Keywords: Ethanol fuel; Automotive energy; Brazil; Energy infrastructure; Sociotechnical perspective Bleta Arifi, Philipp Späth, Sleeping on coal: Trajectories of promoting and opposing a lignite-fired power plant in Kosovo, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 118-127, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.012. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303578) Abstract: The young Republic of Kosovo sits atop the fifth largest geological lignite reserve on the planet. In the face of an unreliable electricity supply, the Government has promoted the New Kosovo Power Plant as a key project for energy security and national economic development. Efforts to add new coal-based generation capacities have sparked a debate over appropriate approaches to achieve a reliable and affordable electricity supply. Drawing on a governmentality-inspired analytics of protest, we explore how critical civil society organizations engage with and challenge the rationalities and practices that establish the New Kosovo Power Plant as a project of major national importance. We conceptualize dissent as a counter-conduct—resistance enacted in the context of ‘the conduct of conduct’. We find that critics employ different notions of energy security to promote alternative paths to governing a reliable energy system. We argue that critics simultaneously challenge and reinforce a political strategy of securitization, which constructs power plants fuelled by domestic resources as backbones of national economic development. The case helps illustrate possibilities for and constraints on enacting dissent against a project of national prestige, which are also likely to occur in comparable conflicts elsewhere. Keywords: Energy security; Coal; Power plants; Counter-conducts; Kosovo Ekaterina Tarasova, (Non-) Alternative energy transitions: Examining neoliberal rationality in official nuclear energy discourses of Russia and Poland, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 128-135, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.008. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303530) Abstract: Neoliberal trends are a part of the sociopolitical contexts that shape present-day energy transitions. Economic arguments extensively used in nuclear energy discourses regarding the Nuclear Renaissance period may indicate that neoliberal trends have penetrated discussions about energy transitions. This article examines the presence of neoliberal rationality in the official nuclear energy discourses coming from Russia and Poland. These countries are interesting in respect to their relatively recent changes towards a market economy. Neoliberal rationality is defined in the article as the combination of market rationality, limited role of state, political consensus, governance structures and securitization, following Foucault and Brown. Discourse analysis of the energy policies and speeches of politicians that contain statements about nuclear energy development is carried out. The analysis confirms the significant presence of these themes in nuclear energy discourses as well as discourses reflecting the specificities of the two countries. The combination of the defining features of neoliberal rationality in official nuclear energy discourses seem to leave limited space for challenging nuclear energy development and discussing alternative energy transitions. Keywords: Energy transition; Nuclear energy; Neoliberalism; Market rationality Magdalena Kuchler, Gavin Bridge, Down the black hole: Sustaining national socio-technical imaginaries of coal in Poland, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 136-147, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.014. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303608) Abstract: This paper explores the socio-technical imaginaries surrounding infrastructures of coal mining and coal combustion in Poland. Contemporary policy makers in Poland mobilise a national imaginary inherited from communist times – encapsulated in the slogan ‘Poland stands on coal’ – that fuses infrastructures of coal extraction and combustion with the fate of the nation. This socio-technical imaginary provides support for coal futures, even in the face of contradictory evidence for domestic resource depletion, poor regional air quality, and global climate change. To examine this process, the paper brings research on socio-technical imaginaries into conversation with work on resource materialities. It highlights how certain materialities of coal (abundance, accessibility, energy density, location) were integral to the emergence of a national socio-technical imaginary of modernisation via coal; and how other materialities (declining resource quality, effects of emissions on respiratory health, coal as CO2-in-waiting) now collide with the political strategies of a government determined to reassert ‘black gold’ as a bedrock of national development for years to come. The paper considers how contemporary political efforts to rehabilitate coal and secure its future in Poland draw selectively upon a socio-technical imaginary of coal-fuelled national modernisation. Keywords: Coal; Energy infrastructure; Imaginaries; Nation; Modernisation; Poland Sinan Erensü, Powering neoliberalization: Energy and politics in the making of a new Turkey, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 148-157, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.037. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618304080) Abstract: Turkish energy infrastructures have recently gone through an unprecedented expansion. The country’s energy production capacity more than doubled in a decade; the Turkish energy market became one of the world’s fastest growing by attracting USD 50 billion between 2008–2015. This aggressive growth was met with opposition in the countryside, setting in motion an encounter between capital and society along energy infrastructures and land-use disputes, bestowing state a new role of brokerage along with new legal tools and authorities. In order to better understand this encounter, I first examine the fragmentary neoliberalization of the energy sector over the past three decades and highlight the uneven, variegated, piecemeal and conjunctural nature of its outcomes. Then I discuss, through the notion of energopolitics, the role of energy in enabling an authoritarian mode of power, which can help us to think through the arrival of a post-neoliberal future. Keywords: Neoliberalization; Post-neoliberalism; Authoritarianism; Energopolitics; Turkey Jennifer F. Sklarew, Power fluctuations: How Japan’s nuclear infrastructure priorities influence electric utilities’ clout, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 158-167, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.036. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618304079) Abstract: Analyzing Japan’s situation, this study examines how shifts in national government prioritization of infrastructure for large baseload electricity sources influence the political power of entities responsible for maintaining and expanding this infrastructure. Applying two theoretical frameworks – the theory on co-evolution of technological systems and institutions, and the advocacy coalition framework – the study shows how infrastructure prioritization leads to economic vested interests and political power that combine to shape energy system trajectories in complex ways that can enable both stasis and change after external shocks. Findings generate insights on how shifts in electricity infrastructure priorities and utility empowerment affect economic considerations for energy systems. Findings also provide lessons for policymakers on how linkages between infrastructure prioritization and political power can promote energy system lock-in. The study suggests that energy system adaptability requires framing of energy system goals in ways that enable necessary infrastructure investment while creating flexibility that allows future infrastructure changes. Keywords: Electricity infrastructure; Japan; Electric utilities; Energy system transitions Experiencing Infrastructure On The Frontline: Alternative and Competing Knowledges Heather Plumridge Bedi, ‘Our energy, our rights’: National extraction legacies and contested energy justice futures in Bangladesh, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 168-175, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.009. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303542) Abstract: Energy poverty remains an enduring challenge in Bangladesh, with 41 million people lacking electricity. Foreign states, corporations, and financial institutions have historically shaped the form and terms of the country’s energy system, which is predominantly fossil fuel based. Shifting geographies of energy extraction and processing continue to reflect this past and influence current national energy debates in Bangladesh. The Rampal coal-fired energy project, a joint initiative with India, exemplifies these tensions. Opposition to the Rampal plant, proposed in the ecologically sensitive Sundarbans region, and other controversial energy extraction and processing projects led some activists and impacted stakeholders to promote the idea of “our energy, our rights.” The articulation of an energy rights discourse asserts that Bangladesh should extract and control national energy resources in a manner that respects rights and provides the basis for analyzing the energy justice landscape in the nation and beyond. The rights discourse rejects the nation’s legacy of poor energy decisions, and the associated realities of energy poverty. Contributing to emerging ideas around the geographies of energy justice, this research paper explores the practical application by activists and stakeholders of rights discourses to contested energy projects in Bangladesh. It shows how distributional energy justice activism critiques the historical political economy of economic liberalization and energy exploitation in the country and centers the rights concerns of energy poverty while also considering climate change vulnerabilities. Keywords: Bangladesh; Coal; Energy justice; Activism; Climate change Mary Finley-Brook, Travis L. Williams, Judi Anne Caron-Sheppard, Mary Kathleen Jaromin, Critical energy justice in US natural gas infrastructuring, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 176-190, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.019. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303712) Abstract: We employ infrastructuring as a verb to highlight contested processes of infrastructure expansion to extract, store, transport, and transform natural gas (into liquefied natural gas, LNG). As faculty members and students embedded in mid-Atlantic universities in the United States (US), we conducted participatory action research to record nearby infrastructuring for Dominion Energy’s Cove Point LNG Export Terminal and Atlantic Coast Pipeline. We documented how frontline and impacted populations seized opportunities when infrastructuring was visible to challenge and erode the excessive economic and political power of Dominion, one of the US’s largest energy providers, who sought to maintain regulatory privilege through lobbying, campaign contributions, and delegitimization of public health and environmental risks. Extending Tsing’s concept of frictions (i.e., engagement in difference-based encounters), we highlight (1) coalition-building among unlikely allies (collective encounters), and (2) conflictive interactions between proand anti-gas stakeholders (oppositional encounters). Impacted populations collaborated with proximate and distant allies to publicize and legally challenge distributional, regulatory, racial and other forms of injustice from gas infrastructuring. Our critical energy justice (CEJ) framework helps to identity and defend interconnected components of justice under threat due to profit-oriented global gas infrastructuring based upon reckless disregard for climate science and public health. Keywords: Critical energy justice; Infrastructure; Environmental racism; Participatory action research Austin Dziwornu Ablo, Vincent Kofi Asamoah, Local participation, institutions and land acquisition for energy infrastructure: The case of the Atuabo gas project in Ghana, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 191-198, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.03.022. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303049) Abstract: This paper examines the impacts of land acquisition for a gas processing plant at Atuabo on the livelihood of affected farmers. The paper explores the extent to which affected farmers participated in the determination of compensation paid out to them and whether and how the compensation package adequately caters for the lost livelihoods. Using the livelihood approach as a guiding theoretical tool and data produced through interviews, observation, cases studies, and informal discussions, the study found that farmers' involvement in the compensation process did not go beyond identification and measurement of their farms. With limited participation in the acquisition and compensation process, the farmers felt deprived of their entitlements and viewed the compensation as inadequate for their lost livelihoods and generational inheritance. It is recommended that the government actively engage with community members and traditional authorities to ensure that farmers are allocated new parcels of land for cultivation. Keywords: Local participation; Land acquisition; Livelihood; Oil and gas; Ghana gas Giuseppina Siciliano, Frauke Urban, May Tan-Mullins, Giles Mohan, Large dams, energy justice and the divergence between international, national and local developmental needs and priorities in the global South, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 199-209, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.03.029. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303190) Abstract: This paper investigates from a socio-technical and energy justice perspective the lack of coordination of international, national and local developmental priorities and inclusion of local needs in the decision making process of large dam construction in the global South. The paper argues that the analysis of energy infrastructures as socio-technical systems requires an energy justice approach to capture the true environmental and social nature of energy production and consumption. In doing so, this paper proposes a conceptual framework called “The Energy Justice Framework for Dam Decision-Making” as a tool to inform energy decisions on infrastructure development based on energy justice principles and social impact assessment. The proposed framework is used in this paper to analyse distributional, procedural, restorative justice, and power relations throughout the entire dams’ energy system in the case of four large dams located in Africa and Asia, namely Kamchay dam in Cambodia, Bakun dam in Malaysia, Bui dam in Ghana and the planned Zamfara dam in Nigeria. Keywords: Hydropower; Energy justice; Socio-technical system; Global South Lukas Prinz, Anna Pegels, The role of labour power in sustainability transitions: Insights from comparative political economy on Germany’s electricity transition, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 210-219, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.010. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303554) Abstract: Greenhouse-gas-emission-reductions to prevent dangerous levels of climate change require a global transition away from fossil-fuel energies. Sustainability transitions of such scale present a major redistribution process, and pose severe challenges to national policy-making. While power and politics have recently been addressed by scholars of sustainability transition, the role of labour as a central political actor is still underexplored. This article aims to close this gap by engaging theories from Comparative Political Economy, asking: How does labour power influence energy transitions? Specifically, we introduce power resources theory to Kuzemko et al.’s (2016) “forces for continuity” of fossil-fuel regimes and “forces for sustainable change”. We illustrate the resulting framework with the case of the German electricity transition. Our findings include a) the potential of organised labour to tip the scales in energy transition politics towards continuity or change, b) the relevance of unions’ political access and their internal homogeneity of interests as power resources, c) the aspect of potential changes in unions’ positions over time, and d) avenues for labour in green sectors to gain power resources by organising in small but homogeneous organisations, and/or by prevailing in the internal power struggles of larger but heterogeneous organisations. Keywords: Sustainability transitions; Political economy; Labour power; Transition politics; Germany Sarah Knuth, “Breakthroughs” for a green economy? Financialization and clean energy transition, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 220-229, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.024. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303864) Abstract: Reimagining energy infrastructures for the 21st century increasingly means choosing between competing economic futures, a dilemma that is now provoking conflicts across many places and realms. In the United States, one critical clash is unfolding among tech sector advocates for a clean energy transition, as U.S. cleantech has worked to regroup from Silicon Valley’s failed clean energy manufacturing push of the late 2000s and to navigate an ongoing solar trade war with China: about what that transition might look like, how it might be achieved, and, critically, what economic sectors and rents might emerge from it. One set of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists argues that “breakthrough” clean energy technologies are needed to produce an energy transition and to bolster U.S. economic power into the 21st century. Meanwhile, a competing set prioritizes deploying existing technologies and infrastructures at scale. The latter argues that new kinds of innovation can accomplish this task, and in the process defend embattled U.S. hegemony: notably, so-called financial innovation, and new articulations between finance and high tech. This debate has major implications for the nature and global politics of a green economy. Keywords: Green economy; Financialization; Cleantech; Infrastructure Scalar Tensions Around ‘National’ Infrastructures Sean F. Kennedy, Indonesia’s energy transition and its contradictions: Emerging geographies of energy and finance, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 230-237, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.023. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303852) Abstract: Since 2015, the Indonesian solar electricity sector has witnessed unprecedented attention from international investors and developers, with planned solar photovoltaic (PV) projects announced in 2017 set to increase existing installed capacity from 9 megawatts (MW) to over 240 MW. This article examines the emerging geographies of renewable energy generation resulting from the rapid influx of foreign investment into Indonesia’s solar PV sector. While foreign investment may prove successful in increasing the country’s solar PV capacity, it may also produce several contradictory outcomes for Indonesia’s energy transition. Efforts to reconcile demands of risk-averse, profit-driven investors and developers with the needs of the approximately 25 million Indonesians who currently lack access to electricity has resulted in a geography of renewable energy generation characterized by large-scale centralized generation facilities that constrain opportunities for local ownership and control over the energy system. The result – a major contradiction when viewed through the lens of Indonesia’s energy transition development objectives – is not only a flow of economic benefits out of the country and limited improvement in energy access for much of the country, but a missed opportunity in terms of maximizing the socially and politically transformative potential a broader energy transition may entail. Keywords: Energy transition; Financialization; Indonesia; Development Sam Geall, Wei Shen, Gongbuzeren, Solar energy for poverty alleviation in China: State ambitions, bureaucratic interests, and local realities, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 238-248, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.035. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618304067) Abstract: In 2014, China announced an ambitious plan to help alleviate rural poverty through deploying distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in poor areas. The solar energy for poverty alleviation programme (SEPAP) aims to add over 10 GW capacity and benefit more than 2 million households from around 35,000 villages across the country by 2020. This article investigates the implications of the initiative through discourse analysis of policy documents and a case study of its implementation in the remote and largely pastoralist county of Guinan, in Qinghai province on the Tibetan plateau. The study illustrates the constraints on implementing SEPAP and contested local perspectives on the buildout of ostensibly low carbon infrastructure for electricity generation. In particular, it raises new perspectives on the limits of a state-led push for energy infrastructure in rural and underdeveloped areas, without proper incentive mechanisms for local bureaucrats and non-state actors, or independent oversight of a “top-down” policy implementation process. Keywords: Energy; Infrastructure; Solar PV; Poverty alleviation Rémi de Bercegol, Jochen Monstadt, The Kenya Slum Electrification Program. Local politics of electricity networks in Kibera, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 249-258, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.007. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303529) Abstract: The development of universal electricity networks remains a challenge for public authorities and energy utilities in many African cities characterized by rapid urbanization and high poverty levels. This article looks beyond the technicalities of recent electrification programs to explore the politics of introducing new socio-technical rules and practices in unplanned settlements. Our empirical study investigates the implementation of the Kenya Slum Electrification Project in Kibera, one of the most deprived areas of Nairobi, and the regularization of electricity services promoted under the scheme. Approached through a political perspective at a local micro-scale, attempts to control and regulate electricity supply and use in the slum appear to be highly conflictual and reveal considerable power struggles over this marginalized territory. The analysis confronts the socio-technical strategies of the Kenya Power and Lighting Company with the everyday tactics and resistance of subaltern actors. It allows for an in-depth understanding of electricity networks as political terrains and conflict zones, and as junctions that mediate particular socio-spatial relations. Based on our exploratory study on the negotiations surrounding the project and the circumventions by slum dwellers we suggest perspectives for addressing the local politics of slum electrification and malfunctions in their design. Keywords: Slum upgrading; Urban energy transitions; Political economy; Regularization Jannik Schritt, Contesting the oil zone: Local content issues in Niger’s oil industry, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 259-269, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.016. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303682) Abstract: This article explores the emergence of public controversies around the development of a new technological zone and its associated energy infrastructure. It focuses on the moment when Niger became a new oil producer in 2011, and traces its historical genesis, to show how new oil-related infrastructures were contested in a series of socio-technical disputes. These controversies centered on connecting, counting and knowing oil and were produced, at least in part, by the standardizing effects of the oil industry and its role in the formation of a technological zone. The way the disputes unfolded opens up an epistemic window onto larger questions related to the oil industry in Niger. Going beyond the resource curse and rentier state models’ focus on rentseeking and greed, I argue that disputes over the oil infrastructure in Niger reveal what is at the heart of everyday politics and society at the moment of entering the oil-age, namely local content and participation. I identify three common strategies adopted by host countries to gain a foothold in the oil industry and to achieve national development: resource control, sector links, and indigenization. Analyzing these strategies allows us to gain a nuanced understanding of resource politics and standardization in Africa. Keywords: Oil; Technological zone; Local content; Resource control; Sector links; Petroleum knowledge; Indigenization; Niger Siddharth Sareen, Sunila S. Kale, Solar ‘power’: Socio-political dynamics of infrastructural development in two Western Indian states, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018, Pages 270-278, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.03.023. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303050) Abstract: The growth and development of solar energy, which is so important in the current global context, is determined by political economic factors, and in turn, has varied implications for energy justice. India’s western region presents a complex context within which to examine why these trajectories unfold in particular ways and to what end. This article first situates India’s renewable energy policy within the dynamics of its federal politics. It then focusses on the trajectory of renewable energy development in two Western Indian states, Rajasthan and Gujarat, highlighting how regional particularities and path dependence have shaped the emergence of solar energy, often in ways that run counter to both expected and hoped for results. The idea of energy justice is subsequently introduced as a way to evaluate whether solar energy infrastructural growth in its present form is best serving the multi-pronged needs of climate justice, economic development, and social equity. By combining a political economy of renewable energy that accounts for the political and institutional factors conditioning the growth of solar capacity with the normative arguments embedded in the energy justice literature, this study contributes to a growing understanding of the intersection of solar power and development. Keywords: Solar energy infrastructure; Political economy of low-carbon transitions; Energy justice; Energy federalism -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gep-ed" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to gep-ed+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
