Prefiguring energy futures: Hybrid energy initiatives and just transitions in fossil fuel regions

Abstract

Energy transition, as both a material process and a process of reimagining energy futures, offers fertile grounds for broad societal transformation. However, the current state of power and politics in the historical fossil fuel regions of North America presents unique challenges. This paper explores initiatives that leverage former fossil fuels sites, infrastructure, and labor for renewable energy projects, and examines their position in prefiguring alternative energy futures in fossil fuel regions. These initiatives, which we introduce as hybrid energy initiatives (HEIs), can alleviate material, political, and cultural barriers to energy transitions by accounting for present contexts in regions of historical fossil fuel extraction, developing partnerships between renewable energy advocates and traditional fossil fuel stakeholders, and building legitimacy through discourses of equity and justice. However, discourses and technologies do not guarantee the operationalization of the just transition narratives HEIs often draw upon. We illustrate this in two case studies of initiatives, one in Appalachia, USA, and the other in Alberta, Canada, that position themselves as innovative endeavors in the utilization of former fossil fuel sites and infrastructures for new solar energy projects. Contributing to just transition scholarship we demonstrate an approach for considering the prefiguring potential of energy innovations and how elements of energy justice can be rendered acceptable within a political climate unfavorable to climate and just transition policies.