Student Publications

How to build a powerline: Fast policies for decarbonization, the slow work of public participation, and the profitability of energy capital.

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Community opposition to new low-carbon energy infrastructure – and resulting project delays and cancellations – is increasingly taken by some climate activists, policymakers, and scholars as evidence of the incompatibility between urgent decarbonization and expanded public participation. This paper argues that too narrow a focus on this duality risks overlooking an additional mandate: the profitability of energy capital. This paper intervenes in the ‘rapid vs. just transitions’ debate by arguing that building low-carbon energy infrastructure requires a balancing of trade-offs between speed, local support, and profit for private developers. Using a case study of a controversial transmission project in the northeastern United States, I argue that project delays are attributable not (just) to uncooperative publics, but to energy capital’s drive for profit, which discourages compromises with host communities that would increase project costs but cultivate local support. By treating the social legitimacy of low-carbon energy infrastructure as contingent on its ability to meet criteria for public acceptability, this paper argues that the slow work of public participation can in fact be the route to ‘fast policies’ for decarbonization when it fosters developer norms in line with community expectations for projects.

Publication Title

Energy Research & Social Science

Publication Date

2024

Volume

117

First Page

103730

ISSN

2214-6326

DOI

10.1016/j.erss.2024.103730

Keywords

energy transitions, participation, energy democracy, energy capital, NIMBYism, transmission, infrastructure

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