The New Geographies of Energy

Assessment and Analysis of Critical Landscapes

Karl Zimmerer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135742195
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

The New Geographies of Energy: Assessment and Analysis of Critical Landscapes is a pioneering collection of new geographic scholarship. It examines such vitally important research topics as energy dilemmas of the United States, large trends and patterns of energy consumption including China's role, "peak oil", energy poverty, and ethanol and other renewable energy sourcing.

The book offers advances in key emerging areas of energy research, each distinguished in the following sections: (i) geographic approaches to energy modeling and assessment; (ii) fossil fuel landscapes; (iii) the landscapes of renewable energy; (iv) landscapes of energy consumption; and (v) an overview of the new geographies of energy (Karl Zimmerer, Annals Nature-Society and Energy issue editor) and an essay on America's oil dependency (Vaclav Smil, renowned energy geographer). In addition there is a specially commissioned book review.

This book was published as a special issue of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Approaching the New Geographies of Global Energy: Analytics and Assessment of Current Energy Landscapes and Alternatives

Karl Zimmerer
Professor and Head, Department of Geography, Earth and Environmental Systems Institute,
The Pennsylvania State University

Overview: Evolving Geographic Approaches to Rapidly Changing Energy Issues

Energy issues worldwide are leading to major concern and fueling a diverse spectrum of social-ecological impacts and potential transitions. Complex geographical and historical forces drive the current energy dilemmas, the profusion of responses, and the urgent searching for sustainable alternatives. Societies around the world face a firestorm of volatile energy markets and financial risk; scrambles for energy-yielding territories and technological innovation; palpable uncertainties in the provisioning of basic economic goods and services; escalating social justice impacts and vulnerabilities; declining supplies of easy-to-get oil; rising impacts of climate change along with mitigation and adaptation imperatives; issues of geopolitical security and international relations related to energy; political and regulatory failures and limitations, and energy-fueled impacts on varied resource systems (water, ecosystems, agriculture) and their management. Importance and influence of these issues is cascading across local and global scales together with many in-between levels. Indeed energy, in general, is increasingly recognized as central— perhaps the resource-based center per se—within global environmental change and prospects of sustainability (Wilbanks 1994; Zimmerer 2010, 2011).

Energy likewise has become the defining focus of a majority of the largest companies, parastatal firms, broad private-sector consortia and concerns, and national enterprises, as well as governments, non-state institutions, and concerned citizenries worldwide. Public and private initiatives in energy have strengthened, albeit inadequately (e.g., among governments see Smil 2011), in support of multi-prong energy efficiency in potential low-carbon transitions along with conversion to much-needed renewable sources and hydrogen-based futures. Oil, still the world’s principal energy source, reigns supreme as an unparalleled global commodity, mythic in scope and substance (Huber 2011a; Watts 2001). Embedded in the current energy crisis is also a surge of advances in technical knowledge and technological innovation, as well as scholarly and scientific approaches to understanding energy.

Geography is crucial to understanding and addressing the multiple, interconnected dimensions of the current potpourri of global energy dilemmas and opportunities (Solomon et al. 2003; Wilbanks 1983, 2011; Zimmerer 2011). The geographic systems of energy production, technology, distribution, and consumption are thoroughly entwined as social-environmental interactions occurring as networks and in territorial configurations across multiple scales. In the ongoing organization and contestation of most energy systems, global and national levels are principal circuits and often the most visible manifestations of power, both that of energy and human societies. At the same time, many influential policies and much of the political action on energy issues, as well as related climate and environmental concerns, are being framed at levels of sub-national units (the equivalent of state-level governments in the U.S.), cities, and locales. This volume seeks to offer a timely contribution and a general approach referred to here as the new geographies of global energy.” It examines changing energy landscapes by combining the perspective of globalization processes operating among diverse networks at multiple scales–including many national and sub-national—with a focus on environmental change and resource systems.

The multi-scale and combined social-environmental perspective of this volume thus follows generally similar approaches that are being advanced with respect to the “new geographies” of related global environmental issues such as global climate change (Liverman 1999; O’Brien and Leichenko 2000; Leichenko and O’Brien 2008); the globalization of environmental conservation and the sustainability of agriculture and food (Zimmerer 2006a, 2006b); and globalization entwined with the rapid growth of urban environmental issues (Seto et al. 2010). It also builds upon the geographic idea of overarching “landscapes of power” within the study of energy geography (Solomon et al. 2003: 309). Analytically, new geographies of energy emerge through core topics of research such as resources systems, technological change, and broad socio- and political economic processes (Bridge and Wood 2005). The goal of this volume is to advance geography’s contributions to these core areas, both existing and newly expanding.

The new geographies of energy cover and connect a range of dynamic landscapes that, in turn, intermingle across a variety of scales, territories, and networked spatialities. Accordingly the chapters of this volume are organized into a series of heuristically designated sections: (i) this introduction and the following essay (2 chapters); (ii) geographic approaches to energy modeling and assessment (5 chapters); (iii) fossil fuel landscapes (4 chapters); (iv) landscapes of renewable energy (10 chapters); and (v) landscapes of energy consumption (3 chapters). As expected, a number of chapters provide bridge-like connections among multiple sections, rather than belonging solely to a single type of energy landscape. Furthermore, the energy landscapes, as distinguished here, intermingle in dynamic, place-based processes. For example, landscapes of energy production most commonly co-occur together with landscapes of energy consumption. As a consequence, the analysis of this introductory chapter is designed to distinguish the principal area of focus of each of these geographic contributions, as well as key areas of overlap and potential synergies suited to geographic analysis and understandings. Distinguishing the principal themes of the volume’s five sections has thus emerged through systematic analysis and the opportunity to contribute productively to the advance of themes and concept-building within energy geography—an undertaking made possible through the original editorial process of the volume and, in particular, it’s open submission and ample peer review (rather than pre-selected themes or authors).

New Geographic Approaches to Energy Modeling and Assessment

Geographic approaches to energy modeling and assessment are focused on a range of topics involving production and consumption landscapes. Much of the development and application of energy modeling is designed to address the potential of renewable energy sources. In the volume’s first chapter, Li, Stadler, and Ramakumar demonstrate that geographic modeling of the geophysical inputs (solar, wind) for renewable energy generating capacity can contribute to rigorous specification of the regional co-occurrences of these sustainable energy sources (Li, Stadler, and Ramakumar 2011), and thus toward the analytics needed for energy policies and planning aimed at the spatial density of renewable energy sourcing and the sorts of capacity increase expected to be crucial. In a related chapter, also found in this same section, Wang et al. use remote sensing analysis to offer new insights into the phenology-based geospatial categorization of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) (Wang et al. 2011), which is an ecologically versatile perennial grass seen to offer the prospect of a significantly more sustainable scenario of biofuels production than corn-based ethanol (see also van der Horst and Evans 2010).

Energy accounting and spatial inventory assessments, including the use of index and footprint models and techniques, are vital to low-carbon energy transitions (Kammen and Pacca 2004; Brown and Sovacool 2007). In this volume, Zhao, Horner, and Sulik pioneer a geographically framed approach to estimating overall carbon inventories in order to account for both emissions and sequestration in a net balance model of the state of Florida (Zhao, Horner, and Sulik 2011). In the same section Newell and Vos develop and apply GIS-based transportation and energy models to account for globally dispersed networks of carbon (e.g., carbon footprints for the paper industry; Newell and Vos 2011). More generally, GIScience-based approaches are shown to enable advances in carbon estimation and inventorying, infrastructure placement amid the transition to a low-carbon energy economy, and household-level energy consumption (Horner, Zhao, and Chapin 2011; see also Horner 2004). Finally, multi-scalar assessment of energy regulation will need to account for the geographic influence of mounting litigation on cases involving climate change since it is via this avenue, particularly in the U.S., whereby the legal system is expanding its treatment of the emissions from transportation and power plants (Osofsky 2011).

Raging Debate Over Fossil Fuel Landscapes

Critical geopolitics is increasingly central to understanding the changing landscapes of hydrocarbons in particular. In the first paper of this section, Bouzarovski and Bassin elucidate how nationalist discourses of Russia as a “global energy superpower” are politically powerful and implicated as a widespread symbol in the processes of identity formation of the citizens within that country (Bouzarovski and Bassin 2011). Contesting these predominant identities must be seen in the context of the massive political-economic forces currently at play. Substantial geographic work discusses the role of modern-day imperialism, including that of the U.S. and China, which is aimed at oil extraction across extensive regions ranging from the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Asia (Watts 2001, 2008a, 2008b; Harvey 2003). Clashes and contestation are commonplace in the escalating emergence of conflictive energy landscapes in these diverse locales. “Resource curse” impacts, the limits and failure of oil-based development, and dispossession of land and other resources are extensive and intensifying in various places; also common are oil-fueled conflicts, referred to as “petro-violence,” that includes the rise of new forms of armed insurgencies in such countries as Nigeria (Watts 2001, 2008a: 38, 2008b; Harvey 2003: 67, 137; Bradshaw 2010; Orta-Martínez and Finer 2010).

“Energy security” and “energy scarcity,” as well as prospective “energy sustainability,” are shown to denote contested concepts that arise as consequences of both geophysical factors as well as broadly defined social forces and those of multi-scale political economies continually emerging through entwined national contexts and international relations (Goldthau and Witte 2010; Heiman 2002; Sovacool and Brown 2010). For example, energy security is comprised of the interacting conditions influencing availability, affordability, technology development, sustainability, and regulation (Sovacool et al. 2011), while the concept of “energy scarcity” is used to show the roles of many non-market influences, ranging from the broad political economy to violence in and near regions of hydrocarbon deposits (Huber 2009). This volatile mix of factors, which has energized a spate of geographic analysis, contributes to the actual pricing and availability of oil including the powerful construct of “peak oil” (Huber 2009, 2011a, 2011b; see also Kaufman and Cleveland 2001; Cleveland and Kaufmann 2003; Bridge 2010; Bridge and Wood 2010; Harvey 2010: 73, 79–80; Kaufmann 2011; Labban 2010).

At the same time, the changing landscapes of natural gas extraction are undergoing vast transformations. In some circles, gas is increasingly seen as integral to energy-sourcing scenarios needed to propel national economies to potential low-carbon transitions (e.g., the U.S. Natural Gas and Sustainable Energy Initiative of the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C., see Flavin and Kitasei 2010). This interest is intensifying despite concerns over growing shale gas extraction, liquefied natural gas facilities (Harrison 2008), and the social conflicts, territorial disputes, human rights abuses, and environmental degradation in geographic areas of gas production, transport, and processing (e.g., Ecuador and Bolivia; Bebbington 2009; Bridge 2004; Hindery 2004; Perreault 2006; Perreault and Valdivia 2010; Schroeder 2007; Valdivia 2007). In the latter countries (Ecuador and Bolivia) the booming energy economy and the still growing exploitation of fossil fuels are deeply embedded, and in some ironic ways, as principal revenue supplies undergirding the distinctive “postneoliberal” social and political agendas of the national administrations of Rafaél Correa and Evo Morales, respectively.

Coals, which vary widely in chemical composition and quality (both energetic and environmental; on coal characteristics including pollution see Smil 2006: 90–1), were overtaken by hydrocarbons as a source of global energy production only in the mid-1960s. Today coals are still especially important to various countries, including China and the U.S., where dozens of new coal-powered generating plants are under consideration. As Kuby et al. demonstrate, the decline of coal use in residential heating and cooking, agriculture, and transportation in China has been more than offset by the large increase of use for electricity and industrial purposes (Kuby et al. 2011). The extractive techniques utilized for coals involve some of the most dramatic reorganization of energy landscapes. One of these, mountaintop removal (MTR) mining, involves removing the vegetation, soils, and geologic material of surface layers that cover coal deposits. In the U.S., mountaintop removal mining has become increasingly common in Appalachia and has led to major adverse environmental consequences ranging from the destruction of rivers to biodiversity loss. While often justified by claims of contributing a social good in the form of local jobs, Woods and Gordon show through West Virginia case studies that MTR mining has not delivered on the promise of employment benefits to local communities (Woods and Gordon 2011).

Institutional and technological innovation have become central to economic-, governance-, and infrastructure-based approaches designed to guide a shift to more sustainable use of fossil fuels, their landscapes, and a general bridging to sustainable energy. The accounting of carbon, as a molecular-level component, is a building block of these approaches. In particular, the construction of carbon markets is being undertaken to control greenhouse gas em...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Dedication
• 1. Approaching the New Geographies of Global Energy: Analytics and Assessment of Current Energy Landscapes and Alternatives
• 2. America's Oil Imports: A Self-Inflicted Burden
• 3. Modeling and Assessment of Wind and Insolation Resources with a Focus on Their Complementary Nature: A Case Study of Oklahoma
• 4. "Papering" Over Space and Place: Product Carbon Footprint Modeling in the Global Paper Industry
• 5. Phenology-Based Assessment of Perennial Energy Crops in North American Tallgrass Prairie
• 6. A Geographic Approach to Sectoral Carbon Inventory: Examining the Balance Between Consumption-Based Emissions and Land-Use Carbon Sequestration in Florida
• 7. Toward an Integrated GIScience and Energy Research Agenda
• 8. The Role of Climate Change Litigation in Establishing the Scale of Energy Regulation
• 9. Energy and Identity: Imagining Russia as a Hydrocarbon Superpower
• 10. The Changing Structure of Energy Supply, Demand, and CO2 Emissions in China
• 11. Mountaintop Removal and Job Creation: Exploring the Relationship Using Spatial Regression
• 12. Enforcing Scarcity: Oil, Violence, and the Making of the Market
• 13. Constructing Sustainable Biofuels: Governance of the Emerging Biofuel Economy
• 14. Social Perspectives on Wind-Power Development in West Texas
• 15. Farmer Attitudes Toward Production of Perennial Energy Grasses in East Central Illinois: Implications for Community-Based Decision Making
• 16. Renewable Energy and Human Rights Violations: Illustrative Cases from Indigenous Territories in Panama
• 17. Downstream Effects of a Hybrid Forum: The Case of the Site C Hydroelectric Dam in British Columbia, Canada
• 18. A Study of the Emerging Renewable Energy Sector Within Iowa
• 19. A Regional Evaluation of Potential Bioenergy Production Pathways in Eastern Ontario, Canada
• 20. Opposing Wind Energy Landscapes: A Search for Common Cause
• 21. Burning for Sustainability: Biomass Energy, International Migration, and the Move to Cleaner Fuels and Cookstoves in Guatemala
• 22. The Impact of Brazilian Biofuel Production on Amazônia
• 23. Shifting Networks of Power in Nicaragua: Relational Materialisms in the Consumption of Privatized Electricity
• 24. "Because You Got to Have Heat": The Networked Assemblage of Energy Poverty in Eastern North Carolina
• 25. Powering "Progress": Regulation and the Development of Michigan's Electricity Landscape
• Book Review Essay
• Index