Pub Date : 2026-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104534
Veronica Jacome , Pius Siakwah , Eric Tamatey Lawer , Isha Ray
This paper analyzes the contested accounts of protesting and indebted electricity users in Kroboland, Ghana (2014–2022), during periods of heightened utility debt burdens. Utility debts have many causes beyond consumer nonpayment, but these debts have become normalized as economic-legal necessities, leaving the policy-oriented literature focused on residential bills as the main source for cost-recovery. Bill protests are then presented as consumer unwillingness to pay or entitlement to services; this discourse is often supported by elite media and academic literature. Through examining Krobo's electricity bill protests, we find that protests are driven by inconsistent billing practices, aggressive disconnection tactics, the transition to prepaid meters, and historical grievances. We argue that the policy-discourse of debt, whereby the Big Debts of utilities are kept in the shadow of the small debts of ordinary consumers, and the media-discourse of protests, whereby legitimate grievances are interpreted as cultures of nonpayment, can be understood as instances of Bourdieu's symbolic violence. Our research shows that such discourse suppression has led to a way of seeing both debt and protests in an anti-poor manner. We conclude that simple accounts of complex contestations are unlikely to produce politically acceptable or economically viable energy policies.
{"title":"The symbolic violence of debt discourse: Protesting electricity bills in Kroboland, Ghana","authors":"Veronica Jacome , Pius Siakwah , Eric Tamatey Lawer , Isha Ray","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2026.104534","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2026.104534","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper analyzes the contested accounts of protesting and indebted electricity users in Kroboland, Ghana (2014–2022), during periods of heightened utility debt burdens. Utility debts have many causes beyond consumer nonpayment, but these debts have become normalized as economic-legal necessities, leaving the policy-oriented literature focused on residential bills as the main source for cost-recovery. Bill protests are then presented as consumer unwillingness to pay or entitlement to services; this discourse is often supported by elite media and academic literature. Through examining Krobo's electricity bill protests, we find that protests are driven by inconsistent billing practices, aggressive disconnection tactics, the transition to prepaid meters, and historical grievances. We argue that the policy-discourse of debt, whereby the Big Debts of utilities are kept in the shadow of the small debts of ordinary consumers, and the media-discourse of protests, whereby legitimate grievances are interpreted as cultures of nonpayment, can be understood as instances of Bourdieu's symbolic violence. Our research shows that such discourse suppression has led to a way of seeing both debt and protests in an anti-poor manner. We conclude that simple accounts of complex contestations are unlikely to produce politically acceptable or economically viable energy policies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 104534"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145925178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104525
Monica Maduekwe
Africa remains the final frontier for universal energy access, with most of the 750 million people lacking access to electricity residing on the continent. While there is little resistance to the idea that development assistance is pivotal to Africa's energy transition, the forty-year precedent of aid for development in Africa raises the question of why aid for the energy transition should perform any better. This paper argues that the problem lies not in aid itself but in the bargaining process that accompanies it, which undermines learning-by-doing and weakens institutional capacity. Using an empirically tested Donor-Bargain Model, the study examines how financial stress conditions donor-government bargaining outcomes. The analysis shows that these bargaining dynamics reinforce dependence by constraining institutions' ability to sustain implementation without external support. Accounting for this dependence reveals how donor scaffolding inflates reported institutional capacity. The paper extends elite theory by conceptualising donor-elites, actors who wield ideological, political, and economic power to downplay the long-term economic costs of building internal capability. This process reinforces weak institutional quality and limits Africa's ability to drive its own energy transition. These findings suggest that aid reform efforts should focus less on resource volumes and more on reshaping bargaining dynamics to strengthen institutional learning. Finally, the model also serves as a diagnostic tool for assessing whether donor-government bargaining outcomes are compatible with long-term institutional capacity development. Conceptually, the paper draws on institutional economics, development studies, sociology, and political science.
{"title":"Energy transition in the global south: Donor bargains and the future of the aid machine","authors":"Monica Maduekwe","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104525","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104525","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Africa remains the final frontier for universal energy access, with most of the 750 million people lacking access to electricity residing on the continent. While there is little resistance to the idea that development assistance is pivotal to Africa's energy transition, the forty-year precedent of aid for development in Africa raises the question of why aid for the energy transition should perform any better. This paper argues that the problem lies not in aid itself but in the bargaining process that accompanies it, which undermines learning-by-doing and weakens institutional capacity. Using an empirically tested Donor-Bargain Model, the study examines how financial stress conditions donor-government bargaining outcomes. The analysis shows that these bargaining dynamics reinforce dependence by constraining institutions' ability to sustain implementation without external support. Accounting for this dependence reveals how donor scaffolding inflates reported institutional capacity. The paper extends elite theory by conceptualising donor-elites, actors who wield ideological, political, and economic power to downplay the long-term economic costs of building internal capability. This process reinforces weak institutional quality and limits Africa's ability to drive its own energy transition. These findings suggest that aid reform efforts should focus less on resource volumes and more on reshaping bargaining dynamics to strengthen institutional learning. Finally, the model also serves as a diagnostic tool for assessing whether donor-government bargaining outcomes are compatible with long-term institutional capacity development. Conceptually, the paper draws on institutional economics, development studies, sociology, and political science.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 104525"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145884199","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104482
Elisabeth Wendlinger , Michael Hinterstocker , Aaron Praktiknjo
Low-voltage grids are confronting significant challenges due transformations instigated by energy transition initiatives. In this context, the utilization of flexible consumption units is widely discussed as a potential measure to mitigate congestions in low-voltage grids and to delay or even prevent grid expansion. A key question is to what extent flexibility can be leveraged for grid-supportive purposes. This study investigates 18 present representative low-voltage grids to determine their flexibility potential. The focus is on controllable consumption units such as charging points and heat pumps. To assess the realistically available flexibility potential, we identify and analyze socioeconomic parameters influencing flexibility. A nationwide clustering approach identifies five socioeconomic groups based on income levels, age distribution, and education status. We use these parameters to map grid regions to specific population groups and to quantify their influence on flexibility potential. In addition, technical flexibility potential is evaluated by introducing a simultaneity factor that accounts for short-term conditions. This method extends the reference grid definition by integrating flexibility potential based on socioeconomic and structural factors. The results reveal significant variations in flexibility potential, depending on socioeconomic group classifications and the structural characteristics of representative grids.
{"title":"The flexibility divide—How socioeconomic conditions shape grid-based flexibility in Germany","authors":"Elisabeth Wendlinger , Michael Hinterstocker , Aaron Praktiknjo","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104482","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104482","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Low-voltage grids are confronting significant challenges due transformations instigated by energy transition initiatives. In this context, the utilization of flexible consumption units is widely discussed as a potential measure to mitigate congestions in low-voltage grids and to delay or even prevent grid expansion. A key question is to what extent flexibility can be leveraged for grid-supportive purposes. This study investigates 18 present representative low-voltage grids to determine their flexibility potential. The focus is on controllable consumption units such as charging points and heat pumps. To assess the realistically available flexibility potential, we identify and analyze socioeconomic parameters influencing flexibility. A nationwide clustering approach identifies five socioeconomic groups based on income levels, age distribution, and education status. We use these parameters to map grid regions to specific population groups and to quantify their influence on flexibility potential. In addition, technical flexibility potential is evaluated by introducing a simultaneity factor that accounts for short-term conditions. This method extends the reference grid definition by integrating flexibility potential based on socioeconomic and structural factors. The results reveal significant variations in flexibility potential, depending on socioeconomic group classifications and the structural characteristics of representative grids.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 104482"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145884201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-26DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104507
Prajakti Kalra , Boram Shin , Siddharth S. Saxena
Global powers have increasingly become aware of Central Asia's resource wealth, having come to recognise the economic and geopolitical importance of securing access to critical minerals. The region's geological and strategic importance is amplified as the global economy transitions into the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This paper sets out to engage the literature on critical minerals which has only recently included Central Asia. The key questions here are “critical for what” and “critical for whom.” The very notion of criticality of minerals is anything but universally applicable and/or frozen across time. Disruptive technologies and the pace of scientific advancement challenge any static and fixed categorisation of critical minerals. Within this context the case of Central Asia is unique. Although Central Asia is a latecomer to the global CRM story, this is not the first time the region has been at the centre of mineral resource driven scientific and technological revolutions. This paper presents evidence from three key historical periods (the Bronze Age, the period of the Mongol Empire and the Soviet era) to showcase the breadth of engagement Central Asian communities have had with critical minerals as suppliers and drivers of technological change. Taken together these represent repositories of actions that can inform national natural resource management strategies and steer state actors in the region away from being reduced to raw materials suppliers. This regional context is brought into focus precisely because of the looming spectre of China in the neighbourhood. Finally, the paper engages with the latest scientific technologies to highlight Central Asia's unique position and potential as supplier and innovator simultaneously.
{"title":"Critical minerals and the shaping of Central Asian economies through the ages","authors":"Prajakti Kalra , Boram Shin , Siddharth S. Saxena","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104507","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104507","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Global powers have increasingly become aware of Central Asia's resource wealth, having come to recognise the economic and geopolitical importance of securing access to critical minerals. The region's geological and strategic importance is amplified as the global economy transitions into the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This paper sets out to engage the literature on critical minerals which has only recently included Central Asia. The key questions here are “<em>critical for what</em>” and “<em>critical for whom</em>.” The very notion of criticality of minerals is anything but universally applicable and/or frozen across time. Disruptive technologies and the pace of scientific advancement challenge any static and fixed categorisation of critical minerals. Within this context the case of Central Asia is unique. Although Central Asia is a latecomer to the global CRM story, this is not the first time the region has been at the centre of mineral resource driven scientific and technological revolutions. This paper presents evidence from three key historical periods (the Bronze Age, the period of the Mongol Empire and the Soviet era) to showcase the breadth of engagement Central Asian communities have had with critical minerals as suppliers and drivers of technological change. Taken together these represent repositories of actions that can inform national natural resource management strategies and steer state actors in the region away from being reduced to raw materials suppliers. This regional context is brought into focus precisely because of the looming spectre of China in the neighbourhood. Finally, the paper engages with the latest scientific technologies to highlight Central Asia's unique position and potential as supplier and innovator simultaneously.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 104507"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145840073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-26DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104521
Garima Gupta , Shubham Pawar , Chris Littleboy , Nils Bunnefeld , Jennifer Dickie , Isabel L. Jones
Hydropower is increasingly promoted as a cornerstone of global low-carbon energy transitions, yet the long-term social consequences of large dams remain inadequately understood. Existing assessments often focus on short-term displacement and overlook evolving socio-spatial harms that persist well beyond construction. This study addresses this gap by applying an interdisciplinary energy justice framework to the Tehri Dam in the Indian Himalaya nearly two decades after its commissioning. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and Earth Observation analysis, we examine how affected communities experience distributional, procedural, recognition, capabilities, and restorative injustices across space and time. The findings reveal that injustices extend far beyond physical relocation. Communities continue to face sustained livelihood loss, reduced access to health and education services, long-term isolation caused by disrupted connectivity, and heightened environmental risks such as land subsidence. These indirect and cumulative harms remain largely invisible in conventional impact assessments. By integrating spatial evidence with lived experiences, the study demonstrates how Earth Observation can uncover hidden and emerging inequalities associated with large-scale energy infrastructure. This research advances energy justice scholarship by foregrounding the spatial and temporal dimensions of hydropower impacts and by illustrating the value of mixed-methods approaches for sustainability research. The findings underscore the need for policy frameworks that recognize both material and non-material losses and support more equitable, community-centred energy transitions in vulnerable regions.
{"title":"Integrating energy justice and earth observation to examine the social dimensions of hydroelectric dams","authors":"Garima Gupta , Shubham Pawar , Chris Littleboy , Nils Bunnefeld , Jennifer Dickie , Isabel L. Jones","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104521","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104521","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Hydropower is increasingly promoted as a cornerstone of global low-carbon energy transitions, yet the long-term social consequences of large dams remain inadequately understood. Existing assessments often focus on short-term displacement and overlook evolving socio-spatial harms that persist well beyond construction. This study addresses this gap by applying an interdisciplinary energy justice framework to the Tehri Dam in the Indian Himalaya nearly two decades after its commissioning. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and Earth Observation analysis, we examine how affected communities experience distributional, procedural, recognition, capabilities, and restorative injustices across space and time. The findings reveal that injustices extend far beyond physical relocation. Communities continue to face sustained livelihood loss, reduced access to health and education services, long-term isolation caused by disrupted connectivity, and heightened environmental risks such as land subsidence. These indirect and cumulative harms remain largely invisible in conventional impact assessments. By integrating spatial evidence with lived experiences, the study demonstrates how Earth Observation can uncover hidden and emerging inequalities associated with large-scale energy infrastructure. This research advances energy justice scholarship by foregrounding the spatial and temporal dimensions of hydropower impacts and by illustrating the value of mixed-methods approaches for sustainability research. The findings underscore the need for policy frameworks that recognize both material and non-material losses and support more equitable, community-centred energy transitions in vulnerable regions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 104521"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145840074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-24DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104505
Fabian Schipfer , Michael Harasek , Shubham Tiwari , Florian Kraxner , Johannes Schmidt , Sebastian Wehrle , Neda Asasian Kolur , Daniela Thrän , Danial Esmaeili Aliabadi , Hanna Breunig
Integrated solutions across processes, sectors, and systems can deliver value that exceeds the sum of their parts. Sector coupling, for example, is increasingly recognized as a key enabler for balancing intermittent renewable electricity, while creating new interdependencies and systemic risks. Yet, the capacity of energy system models to anticipate such synergies and trade-offs remains uneven. This article presents a structured review of Austria's energy system modelling landscape, mapping over 800 publications from 54 research groups. We classify modelling capacities across technical, temporal, and spatial integration dimensions and identify significant gaps in areas such as bioenergy, circularity, and extreme event modelling, alongside promising advances in heating networks, electricity sector coupling, and energy communities. The growing attention to operational flexibility in long-term models offers a window of opportunity to better anticipate shocks, structural breaks, and resilience considerations. The openly shared integration fitness tables derived from this review aim to foster collaboration and capacity-building across modelling silos. We argue that advancing System Integration Impact Assessment requires uncertainty-aware modelling frameworks capable of capturing synergies, trade-offs, and systemic risks. Embracing uncertainty rather than reducing it can help design transformation pathways that are not only sustainable but also robust and flexible. Ultimately, this shift could bring together environmental and economic efficiency, safety, and security into a shared paradigm, elevating sustainable development toward reliable development.
{"title":"Are we ready to plan for synergies? System Integration Impact Assessment in the Austrian energy system modelling community","authors":"Fabian Schipfer , Michael Harasek , Shubham Tiwari , Florian Kraxner , Johannes Schmidt , Sebastian Wehrle , Neda Asasian Kolur , Daniela Thrän , Danial Esmaeili Aliabadi , Hanna Breunig","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104505","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104505","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Integrated solutions across processes, sectors, and systems can deliver value that exceeds the sum of their parts. Sector coupling, for example, is increasingly recognized as a key enabler for balancing intermittent renewable electricity, while creating new interdependencies and systemic risks. Yet, the capacity of energy system models to anticipate such synergies and trade-offs remains uneven. This article presents a structured review of Austria's energy system modelling landscape, mapping over 800 publications from 54 research groups. We classify modelling capacities across technical, temporal, and spatial integration dimensions and identify significant gaps in areas such as bioenergy, circularity, and extreme event modelling, alongside promising advances in heating networks, electricity sector coupling, and energy communities. The growing attention to operational flexibility in long-term models offers a window of opportunity to better anticipate shocks, structural breaks, and resilience considerations. The openly shared integration fitness tables derived from this review aim to foster collaboration and capacity-building across modelling silos. We argue that advancing System Integration Impact Assessment requires uncertainty-aware modelling frameworks capable of capturing synergies, trade-offs, and systemic risks. Embracing uncertainty rather than reducing it can help design transformation pathways that are not only sustainable but also robust and flexible. Ultimately, this shift could bring together environmental and economic efficiency, safety, and security into a shared paradigm, elevating sustainable development toward reliable development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 104505"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145839997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-24DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104520
Richard Hoggett, Jess Britton
As electricity systems accelerate towards net zero, demand-side flexibility (DSF) is increasingly critical for ensuring operability, affordability, and equity. This paper analyses how DSF from smaller-scale consumers can be unlocked amid rapid system change, drawing insights from Great Britain (GB), a leader in flexibility market development now undertaking a mission-led transition to a clean power system by 2030.
This perspective goes beyond existing studies to integrate governance analysis with technical, institutional, and social barriers to consumer DSF. GB's strategy for decarbonising power and enabling flexibility is ambitious, but the dispersed nature of DSF across policies, institutions and actors means fundamental challenges remain. Our analysis reveals how strategic planning, large-scale infrastructure prioritisation, and evolving governance arrangements risk marginalising smaller-scale, consumer-led flexibility at a critical juncture. We identify four emerging governance challenges: 1) ensuring DSF receives equal policy priority alongside large-scale infrastructure investments; 2) managing emerging path dependencies associated with technologies, networks, and strategic energy planning; 3) building a fair system around the needs of people; and, 4) improving coordination across a fragmented governance landscape.
These governance insights offer learning for other parts of the world seeking to accelerate consumer flexibility. Recent GB policy is seeking to address numerous challenges, but governance needs to move beyond incrementalism to adopt coordinated policy approaches that address centralised energy system thinking, ensure equity, and embed DSF into integrated whole-system planning. Failure to address these challenges risks marginalising DSF, and consumers participation, out of the energy system.
{"title":"People, priorities, and path dependencies: Governance lessons for demand-side flexibility in Great Britain's decarbonising electricity system","authors":"Richard Hoggett, Jess Britton","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104520","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104520","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As electricity systems accelerate towards net zero, demand-side flexibility (DSF) is increasingly critical for ensuring operability, affordability, and equity. This paper analyses how DSF from smaller-scale consumers can be unlocked amid rapid system change, drawing insights from Great Britain (GB), a leader in flexibility market development now undertaking a mission-led transition to a clean power system by 2030.</div><div>This perspective goes beyond existing studies to integrate governance analysis with technical, institutional, and social barriers to consumer DSF. GB's strategy for decarbonising power and enabling flexibility is ambitious, but the dispersed nature of DSF across policies, institutions and actors means fundamental challenges remain. Our analysis reveals how strategic planning, large-scale infrastructure prioritisation, and evolving governance arrangements risk marginalising smaller-scale, consumer-led flexibility at a critical juncture. We identify four emerging governance challenges: 1) ensuring DSF receives equal policy priority alongside large-scale infrastructure investments; 2) managing emerging path dependencies associated with technologies, networks, and strategic energy planning; 3) building a fair system around the needs of people; and, 4) improving coordination across a fragmented governance landscape.</div><div>These governance insights offer learning for other parts of the world seeking to accelerate consumer flexibility. Recent GB policy is seeking to address numerous challenges, but governance needs to move beyond incrementalism to adopt coordinated policy approaches that address centralised energy system thinking, ensure equity, and embed DSF into integrated whole-system planning. Failure to address these challenges risks marginalising DSF, and consumers participation, out of the energy system.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 104520"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145840071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-24DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104522
Hazem Almassry
European Union green hydrogen standards promise climate leadership through technical rigor. But what happens when these standards operate in occupied territories where one party controls another's access to water, land, and economic development? This paper examines how European Union renewable fuel regulations function in occupied Palestine. We analyze two proposed Palestinian hydrogen projects—one abandoned, one financed—alongside nine projects in Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt. We show that projects become financially viable in Palestine by designing around occupation rather than confronting it. Success requires treating Israeli military control over Palestinian water, movement, and infrastructure as permanent technical constraints rather than violations demanding remedy.
The mechanisms enabling this success are European verifiers measuring Palestinian resource use, offshore arbitration bypassing Palestinian courts, and international trustees controlling payment flows. These arrangements work because Palestinian institutions cannot provide enforcement—not due to institutional weakness, but because Israeli military occupation prevents Palestinian authorities from functioning. The same mechanisms that enable legitimate development financing in Morocco and Jordan serve a different function in Palestine: converting political domination into bankable risk.
Our findings reveal that European Union climate policy provides the technical architecture through which projects proceed within occupation as if it were ordinary business environment rather than ongoing crime under international law. Technical standards that appear neutral carry political content by determining whose institutions are legitimate and whose sovereignty matters. When climate mitigation requires arrangements that deny people control over their own resources, decarbonization reproduces rather than transcends extraction and domination. This matters beyond Palestine: it demonstrates how market-based climate policy can entrench rather than challenge the political conditions producing global inequality.
{"title":"Making occupation and energy apartheid bankable: How European Union green hydrogen standards reproduce sovereignty theft in Palestine","authors":"Hazem Almassry","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104522","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104522","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>European Union green hydrogen standards promise climate leadership through technical rigor. But what happens when these standards operate in occupied territories where one party controls another's access to water, land, and economic development? This paper examines how European Union renewable fuel regulations function in occupied Palestine. We analyze two proposed Palestinian hydrogen projects—one abandoned, one financed—alongside nine projects in Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt. We show that projects become financially viable in Palestine by designing around occupation rather than confronting it. Success requires treating Israeli military control over Palestinian water, movement, and infrastructure as permanent technical constraints rather than violations demanding remedy.</div><div>The mechanisms enabling this success are European verifiers measuring Palestinian resource use, offshore arbitration bypassing Palestinian courts, and international trustees controlling payment flows. These arrangements work because Palestinian institutions cannot provide enforcement—not due to institutional weakness, but because Israeli military occupation prevents Palestinian authorities from functioning. The same mechanisms that enable legitimate development financing in Morocco and Jordan serve a different function in Palestine: converting political domination into bankable risk.</div><div>Our findings reveal that European Union climate policy provides the technical architecture through which projects proceed within occupation as if it were ordinary business environment rather than ongoing crime under international law. Technical standards that appear neutral carry political content by determining whose institutions are legitimate and whose sovereignty matters. When climate mitigation requires arrangements that deny people control over their own resources, decarbonization reproduces rather than transcends extraction and domination. This matters beyond Palestine: it demonstrates how market-based climate policy can entrench rather than challenge the political conditions producing global inequality.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 104522"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145840070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-23DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104518
Valenttina Cardozo Useche , Francesca Poggi
The full decarbonization of Europe's energy matrix presents a contradiction: achieving it demands vast metal extraction, raising serious environmental and geopolitical concerns. This study critically evaluates the feasibility of a Just Energy Transition (JET) by analyzing the quantities and geographic locations of 19 key metals required for Europe's decarbonization across a set of defined scenarios. The methods applied were the generation of a database on the material intensity of renewable energy technologies, the cross-referencing of this database with the existing global mining capacities database of S&P Global, and their subsequent analysis through pluriversality design and redesign principles. The latter is used in this work as an epistemological framework that allows reading the results beyond the technocratic approach. The results reveal four major obstacles that hinder a JET: the preponderance of onshore wind and solar technologies, limited reserves for 10 of the 19 analyzed metals, persistent Global North-South asymmetries, and the concentration of critical deposits in specific vulnerable regions, as well as in commercial terms. These factors risk reinforcing neocolonial extractive patterns. The study concludes that it is necessary to consider the geopolitical and social, cultural and environmental implications of mining required by energy transition technologies to define scenarios aligned with a Just Energy Transition.
{"title":"The contradiction of green extractivism: Analyzing the metals demands for a just energy transition in Europe","authors":"Valenttina Cardozo Useche , Francesca Poggi","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104518","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104518","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The full decarbonization of Europe's energy matrix presents a contradiction: achieving it demands vast metal extraction, raising serious environmental and geopolitical concerns. This study critically evaluates the feasibility of a Just Energy Transition (JET) by analyzing the quantities and geographic locations of 19 key metals required for Europe's decarbonization across a set of defined scenarios. The methods applied were the generation of a database on the material intensity of renewable energy technologies, the cross-referencing of this database with the existing global mining capacities database of S&P Global, and their subsequent analysis through pluriversality design and redesign principles. The latter is used in this work as an epistemological framework that allows reading the results beyond the technocratic approach. The results reveal four major obstacles that hinder a JET: the preponderance of onshore wind and solar technologies, limited reserves for 10 of the 19 analyzed metals, persistent Global North-South asymmetries, and the concentration of critical deposits in specific vulnerable regions, as well as in commercial terms. These factors risk reinforcing neocolonial extractive patterns. The study concludes that it is necessary to consider the geopolitical and social, cultural and environmental implications of mining required by energy transition technologies to define scenarios aligned with a Just Energy Transition.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 104518"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145840072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-19DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104508
Joshua Matanzima , Katharina Schramm , Hannah Uhrmann , Florian Heberle , Asta Vonderau , Timothy Weber , Christoph Helbig , Tim Werner
The demand for low-carbon energy to tackle the climate crisis requires large swathes of land to develop renewable energy infrastructure, such as wind, solar, geothermal, hydrogen, or pumped hydro. Claiming to avoid encroaching on already occupied landscapes where different forms of tenure exist, the energy industry is increasingly targeting closed and abandoned mine areas. This transformation not only promises to mitigate or address the ecological impact of mining but is also promoted as a means of local socio-economic development through employment creation, redressing energy poverty, and community benefit sharing within the renewable energy sector. However, these developments can have grave social and environmental impacts and thus may exacerbate transitional and intersectional inequalities and injustices. Hence, careful planning and stakeholder engagement are vital to ensuring that repurposing projects reflect the needs and values of impacted communities and the historical and political contexts of mining areas. Shedding light on the situation in Australia and Germany, two countries at the forefront of these new energy initiatives, this article presents perspectives from engineering and anthropology to discuss some of the social and environmental risks involved in the repurposing of mines. From these interdisciplinary conversations, we develop policy recommendations for a just energy transition and sketch some directions for future research.
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