Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures

351 Pages·2022·13.726 MB·English

by  Majia Nadesan, Martin J. Pasqualetti, Jennifer Keahey

ENERGY DEMOCRACIES FOR
SUSTAINABLE FUTURES
ENERGY
DEMOCRACIES
FOR
SUSTAINABLE
FUTURES
Foreword by
Benjamin Sovacool
Edited by
Majia Nadesan
School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University,
Glendale, AZ, United States
Martin J. Pasqualetti
School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States;
Senior Global Futures Scientist, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Future Laboratory,
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States
Jennifer Keahey
School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University, Glendale, AZ, United States
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List of figures
FIG. 7.1 An interactive framework to depict accelerating, movement-based energy-society
transformation. 62
FIG. 16.1 Top: Karachi overview map for orientation. Bottom left: Energy consumption map.
Bottom right: Energy losses map. 154
FIG. 17.1 Youth and community members participated in small-group workshops, facilitated
by university students. 161
FIG. 17.2 Outcomes of the workshops were discussed with village audiences. 162
FIG. 19.1 A map of power plants in Puerto Rico by fuel type. It should be noted that while there are
numerous solar plants, their overall generation is low compared to petroleum and natural gas.
Map made by author with data from the US Energy Information Administration. 174
FIG. 19.2 Topographical map of the archipelago of Puerto Rico. The eastern side of the island is
wetter than the southwestern side of the island, which has more arid conditions. Map
made by author using ArcGIS Online. 175
FIG. 21.1 Areas identified for the Asa Branca and Jangada offshore wind farms, Ceará state, Brazil. 186
FIG. 21.2 Synthesized and aggregated results of participatory cartography workshops conducted
in fishing colônias (associations or guilds) Z-3, Z-18, and Z-19. 189
FIG. 24.1 Location of lithium projects and Indigenous communities in the Argentine Puna (left).
Location of the two projects selected for the case study: (A) Salar de Olaroz; (B) Fénix (right). 227
FIG. 25.1 Turkey’s energetic metabolism by subsectors, supply and imports (in TJ) coupled with
socio-economic indicators. 236
FIG. 28.1 Map of wind energy in Mexico. 272
FIG. 28.2 Map of wind farms in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. 274
FIG. 32.1 Global renewable supply necessary for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. 302
FIG. 32.2 Percentage change in renewable supply required per generation. 303
FIG. 32.3 IPCC climate projections to 2300 [12]. 304
FIG. 32.4 Total GDP loss per generation due to the electricity and heating sector. 306
FIG. 32.5 Intergenerational trends in energy transition financial burdens, current and delayed action. 307
xi
List of tables
TABLE 9.1 Key political power dynamics in the electricity sector. 85
TABLE 14.1 Overview of ownership type, legal structures, and governance models. 134
TABLE 14.2 Anonymized identifier system for research participants. 141
TABLE 15.1 Cooperative principles. 145
TABLE 15.2 Continuum of participatory governance practices among cooperatives. 147
TABLE 18.1 Justice dimensions of India’s energy transition. 169
TABLE 24.1 Lithium projects currently in operation in Argentina. 228
TABLE 24.2 Codes and types of documents used in this study. 229
TABLE 26.1 Comparison of benefits and hazards of nuclear energy production
when focusing on nuclear power plant explosion in Chernobyl, in 1986. 244
TABLE 28.1 Renewables under the scheme of self-supply (1992–2013). 270
TABLE 28.2 Wind farms in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and main consumers of electricity. 275
TABLE 32.1 Distribution of energy transition costs per generation. 304
TABLE 32.2 Total GDP and GDP losses due to energy transition and global warming per
generation. 305
TABLE 35.1 Examples of citizen/consumer participation in the energy system. 329
xiii
Conclusion: A call to action, toward
an energy research insurrection
Alexander Dunlap
The Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
1 Introduction
Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures has 36 chapters discussing the challenges,
proposals, and hopes for cultivating energy transition and democracy. The book confronts
the realities of “top-down” socio-technical design, but also the possibilities for reconfiguring
these relationships by democratizing energy development. The book’s introduction frames
the present socio-ecological situation within the history of hydrocarbon and nuclear develop-
ment, before discussing the onset of renewable energy. This includes recognizing the expan-
sive concerns related to participation, the possibilities for creating global energy transitions
as well as the limitations of local politics.
The book covers a wide breadth of topics. Part I examines the possibilities created by
imagining energy systems differently. Karen Hudlet-Vazquez and colleagues remind us that
community energy systems “can reproduce neoliberal values in relation to the roles of the
state, the individual and participation,” noting that “utopian” futures “can therefore have
unexpected consequences.” Karen Hudlet-Vazquez and colleagues, however, do not deny
an endless amount of alternative energy system possibilities. Rudy Khsar and Ry Brennan
demonstrate how decentralization is crucial to forming energy democracies. Brennan apply-
ing the bioregional concept to energy infrastructure shows how localizing energy production
and consumption into “technoregions” can decrease dependence on decaying wildfire-prone
high-tension power lines, meanwhile improving energy efficiency and decreasing consump-
tion. This includes authors reimagining energy systems through social movements, expanded
democratic and community governance practices. Part II explores solar transition in India,
community adaptations of micro grids in Puerto Rico, and, as Caroline Wright shows, the dif-
ficult, but important energy justice possibilities held by energy cooperatives. Demonstrating
the transparency, judicial and procedural challenges for offshore wind energy development
in Brazil, Thomas Xavier and colleagues outline comprehensive procedural, participatory,
and monitoring pathways to improve democratic processes and work toward energy justice.
Taking another step toward critical engagement, Part III looks at the “insecurities” and
“constraints” of energy democracy. Bidtah Becker and Dana Powell reveal how resource ex-
tractivism and energy development collide with CoVID-19 in Navajo territory, with the latter
exaggerating existing “disconnection, intergenerational trauma, and infrastructural precar-
ity.” Following this is a look into the Argentinian side of the “lithium triangle,” examining the
impact of lithium mining necessary for the production of lithium-ion batteries instrumental
for facilitating the so-called “green” energy transition. The chapters here turn to examine
339
340 Conclusion: A call to action, toward an energy research insurrection
authoritarian energy governance systems, the politics of nuclear energy, wind energy devel-
opment, and even, as Peta Ashworth and Kathy Witt show, the “psychic numbing” underlin-
ing political apathy, inadequate environmental policy and, consequently, prolongs the onset
of climate catastrophe. More still, energy security framings, high-consumption practices, and
energy democracy are further unpacked. The findings from Ekaterina Tarasova and Harald
Rohracher investigating “smart grids” in Sweden convey a reoccurring message across many
of the chapters: the current “course of sustainability transitions” are intensifying old “in-
equalities and injustice,” meanwhile potentially creating new ones.
Energy Democracies remains an impressive collection of thoughtful contributions that will
prepare readers to confront the organizational, operational, and environmental justice chal-
lenges inherent with the energy transition, decarbonization, and, of course, energy democ-
racy. In the tradition of Energy Democracies critical outlook, this conclusion seeks to widen
further this critical discussion. Highlighting areas for investigation, the conclusion briefly
discusses five areas in need of greater attention and care. This includes challenging further:
(1) The “fossil fuels versus renewable energy dichotomy” and related supply-webs; (2) quan-
titative data collection and energy models; (3) the normative language in energy research;
(4) greater engagement with degrowth literature; and (5), in line with the book, further un-
packing and questioning democracy. By further unraveling these areas, the conclusion seeks
to indicate doorways toward an insurrection of energy research, challenging—if not over-
throwing—existing conceptions, methodologies, terminology, economic and political forms
of organization, and, consequently, research.
2 Toward an energy research insurrection
Democratizing energy systems will make social and, potentially, ecological improvements,
becoming indispensable for creating real energy transitions. On the other hand, taking into
account the assemblage of production and enmeshed socio-political factors, the book demon-
strates well that democratization is “not enough.” The roots of techno-capitalism, its epis-
temology, concepts, forms of organization, and organizational structure have normalized
various types of violence, making the infrastructural harms emanating from them appear in-
visible to people who are not directly and “quickly”—as opposed to “slowly” [1]—impacted
by them. Locating reoccurring gaps in the literature, this conclusion seeks to increase critical
pressure and precision to begin a process of real energy transition. Firstly, an insurrection in
energy research situates itself in recognizing that “energy transition,” as it currently stands,
is a myth or hope and not a historical fact [2,3]. Unfortunately, as the introduction to this
book outlined, the only energy transition in the process—operating on a planetary scale—
started over 200 years ago and it is a transition in the wrong direction: from renewable and
low-energy technologies to industrialized systems dependent on increasing energy and ma-
terial intensive computational technologies.
This conclusion wants to widen the research agenda, pushing readers to go deeper with
their assessment of energy infrastructural development and transition. This necessitates ques-
tioning all the little Latourian “black boxes” that operate within energy research. The themes
discussed below, we can call, in popular parlance, research pathways toward decolonizing
energy transition [4] or, thinking of Foucault’s [5] “insurrection of subjugated knowledges,”
Conclusion: A call to action, toward an energy research insurrection 341
providing projectiles for an “insurrection in energy research.” Thinking of the history of “so-
cial acceptance,” outlined by Susana Batel [6], which traditionally conceptualized “local oppo-
sition as deviant and something to understand only in order to be overcome.” Insurrectionary
energy research responds by privileging dissenting perspectives within research areas—
stakeholders opting to question the ideologies of economic growth, technological progress,
and reject project development entirely—to create space for often under representative re-
calcitrant and so-called “insurgent” voices.a This opens space for experiences, knowledge,
and perspectives about the socio-ecological realities of energy infrastructures to come to the
foreground within public and policy discourses. Aside from privileging dissenting voices,
the remainder of this section will present five areas in need of greater consideration, in hopes
to ferment an insurrection in energy research. This entails widening the focus and taking
more holistic—and embedding a (non-modeling) life cycle-oriented—approaches within the
energy and infrastructural research. Implicitly, this contends that by recognizing the depth of
the “energy problem” people can create stronger foundations for institutional change, mean-
while charting creative pathways for potential solutions—making rebellious and ecologically
sustainable dreams lived realities. While not complete in any way, the following offers five
noticeable blind spots in need of greater uptake, acknowledgment, and research.
2.1 Fossil fuels vs renewables: Participatory inclusion for invisibilizing
supply-webs
The resource extractive reality behind so-called “renewable energy” and “lower-carbon”
supply-webs is underestimated and largely ignored. In the book’s collection, the introduction
references the issues of rare earth mining, meanwhile, Melisa Escosteguy and colleagues re-
veal the realities behind securing lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and other lower-
carbon infrastructures. This also includes Lourdes Alonso-Serna and Edgar Talledos-Sánchez
noting the multi-dimensional extractive reality behind wind turbines. The issue of energy
supply-webs remains largely neglected in the discipline, gaining popularity only recently
in reports and social science research [7–11]. The severity—even calamity—related to min-
ing, processing, and manufacturing for “energy democracy” remains generally under-
acknowledged. The socio-ecological issues relating to the impacts of energy infrastructure
supply-webs makes or break the concepts of “transition,” “clean,” “renewable,” and “green”
energy. This dimension deserves further attention and inclusion within research, remembering
that behind every operational site of energy infrastructure is extensive mining and manufac-
turing supply-webs.
Consider these conservative estimates. The World Bank [10], based on ambitious global
temperatures scenarios, explains: “[D]emand for aluminum, indium, and silver are expected
to increase by more than 300% by 2050 from the [2018] base scenario, while the demand
for copper, iron, lead, neodymium, and zinc is expected to increase by more than 200per-
cent” (emphasis added). The situation, however, is radically underestimated. In the EU alone,
a These voices and concerns are, in fact, normal and reasonable, yet are implicitly understood “deviant,”
“wrong” and, when taking direct action, “insurgent” from statist and capitalist developmentalist
perspectives.
342 Conclusion: A call to action, toward an energy research insurrection
demand for lithium, dysprosium, cobalt, neodymium, and nickel increase by up to 600% in
2030 and up to 1500% in 2050. Batteries for electric vehicles and low-carbon technologies
will drive the 2030 demand for lithium up by 1800% and cobalt by 500%, and in 2050 de-
mand will increase by almost 6000% for lithium and 1500% for cobalt [12]. These approxima-
tions, however, still do not take into account distributional, or “secondary,” infrastructures
(e.g., transformers, power lines), e-bikes, scooters, and “smart grid” technologies. Nor does
this anticipate unexpected increases in electric vehicle demand currently in process in Norway.
The extractive statistics above are limited, having missing data and reductive by meth-
odological nature, which is discussed more below. Yet importantly, these numbers do not
discuss mineral processing (leaching, etc.), smelting, transportation, manufacturing, and
corresponding socio-ecological conditions. A recent study by Andrea Brock and colleagues
[13] is insightful, revealing the complications and problems related to solar manufacturing.
The article reminds us once again that so-called renewables are deeply integrated with and
dependent on the global economy and other toxic industries, which—of course—necessitate
fossil fuels. Supply-webs reveal the harsh reality that fossil fuels and renewable energy are
deeply intertwined and dependent on each other [7,14]. Every machine—electric, digitalized
or not—in mining sites, processing plants, manufacturing facilities, and the transportation
sector relies on hydrocarbons. So-called renewable energy infrastructures are dependent on
hydrocarbons in every single phase of their existence, from their conception to decommis-
sioning into landfills [9]. This is why fossil fuel + is a more accurate term for “renewable
energy,” because every aspect of wind, solar, and hydrological infrastructures are dependent
on extensive—under and unaccounted for—uses of hydrocarbons. Meanwhile, the “+” or
“2.0” (in Spanish and Italian) indicates the energy harnessing, or green extractivist character,
that absorbs wind, solar, and hydrological kinetic energy into the energy grid and capitalist
industries [7,14]. This “plus” or “2.0,” critically, however, does not take into account dis-
rupting solar-landscape cycles or wind “velocity deficits” created by wind turbines that are
empirically proven to have “statistically significant impacts on near-surface air temperatures
and humidity as well as surface sensible and latent heat fluxes” [15]. This results in land dry-
ing, stressing water resources, and climatic temperature increases [15], which resonates with
ethnographic works [16–18]. The marketed claim of “renewable inexhaustibility” requires
sensitivity and greater critical reflection. Furthermore, it should be remembered, as others
have pointed out [4,19,20], raw material extractivism and processing remains an issue for
community-based energy systems, which intersects with the various issues of environmental
justice issues covered within Energy Democracies. This contends, as I have elsewhere [14], that
environmental justice and “social acceptance” needs to take place at every point along with a
supply web, which stresses the importance of Myles Lennon [4] advocacy for “supply chain
solidarity” and other important steps toward trying to make wind, solar, and water infra-
structures actually—and really—renewable.
2.2 Epistemology/ontology of quantitative and modeling studies
The extractive data referenced above from the World Bank and European Commission
(EC) on raw material required for lower-carbon energy infrastructures, like most data of this
type, is quantitative and based on models. This, as most researchers know, means there are
serious limitations, or reductions, in terms of acknowledging ecosystem toxification, political