My new article published in Energy Research & Social Science, co-authored with Teresa Kramarz and Craig Johnson, is available to read and access free until April 21 2021.
Kramarz, Teresa, Susan Park, and Craig Johnson. “Governing the Dark Side of Renewable Energy: A Typology of Global Displacements.” Energy Research & Social Science 74 (2021): 101902.
Abstract
Renewable energy (RE) is critical for curbing global greenhouse gas emissions to achieve 2 to 4 degrees of global warming by 2100. While this is an imperative technical response to the climate crisis, the shift to renewables is also driving a surge in demand for metals and minerals used in RE. Calls are being made for “smarter” and more “responsible” forms of mining, but questions remain about the socio-economic and environmental impacts of extraction, processing, application, and disposal at multiple scales. The literature has been limited to the technical and cost-benefit dimensions of managing RE global supply chains. This article seeks to expand this focus by developing a typology of displacement that may be used to understand the socio-economic and environmental effects of onshore wind, solar photovoltaics (PV), and lithium-ion batteries. It encourages a critical analysis of how the global surge in demand for renewable energy is affecting development pathways and displacement patterns.
Keywords
Renewable energy; Global supply chains; Solar; Wind; Lithium batteries; Displacement; Transition; International political economy; Climate change; Contamination; Dispossession; Dependence