From Renewable to Alternative: Waste Coal, the Pennsylvania Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard, and Public Legitimacy

Thirty states of renewability: Controversial energies and the politics of incumbent industry

“…This decline has lessened US coal’s potential for actual effective resistance to renewables, notwithstanding the experience’s traction in politics of racialized grievance (Rhys and Garner, 2020). Echoing Glenna and Thomas (2010), it is nonetheless significant that the incumbent industry flexed its former muscle by attempting to rework definitions in its favor rather than pursue deeper intransigence. Today, that waste-based strategy offers lingering value-capture opportunities for Pennsylvania coal that are distinct from other politicized tail-end exactions like stranded cost payments extracted from taxpayers or utility ratepayers (Stokes, 2020).…”

“…The authors make clear that Pennsylvania’s resource dependency on the coal industry informed the state’s decision. Specifically, according to a representative who served in the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection at the time the RPS was being debated and who the authors interviewed for their study, policymakers decided to include waste coal in the RPS policy in order to mitigate the “coal lobby’s opposition” to the policy (Glenna and Thomas, 2010: 861).…”

“…For their part, coal waste energy producers’ argument for inclusion in the RPS rested on their assertion that while burning coal waste for electricity production provided broad economic and environmental benefits, waste coal’s low energy efficiency made the industry uncompetitive without additional incentives. Including coal waste in the RPS, therefore, would bolster this fuel source by creating demand for energy generated from waste coal (Glenna and Thomas, 2010). As explained by Skinner and Brown (2011: 238), the alternative energy credits awarded to coal waste facilities through the RPS “provide a source of additional revenue that can help provide long term financing for qualifying facilities.” In sum, including waste coal as an eligible energy source in the state’s RPS reflects the coal industry’s influence on Pennsylvania renewable energy policy development, and the enduring tail of that influence in a changing energy system.…”

(Bio)fueling farm policy: the biofuels boom and the 2008 farm bill

“…Wright and Reid (2007) studied the framing of biofuels debates in media channels between April 2006 and April 2007. As in related studies on cellulosic ethanol by Meyer and Hinrichs (2007) and on waste coal and renewable energy by Glenna and Thomas (2007), they found that the three frames of national security, environmental protection, and economic development were those most often used to make the case for renewable energy policies. Wright and Reid (2007) in particular found that the ''twin frames'' of national security and environmental protection were a powerful combination for defending the biofuels economy, while the economic development frame was used more as a secondary argument to bring farmers into the fold of the biofuels economy (p. 18).…”

Die Aneignungsungleichheiten in Hinsicht auf die regionale Energieerzeugung im Zeitalter der ökologischen Wende

“…So gesehen besteht die Bürgerbeteiligung aus einem Instrumentarium industrieller Ökologie (74) , dessen Ziel es ist, die "grünen Technologien" sozial und lokal zu verankern, das heißt, die Auswirkungen der Industrie auf die Umwelt zu begrenzen, ohne dabei jedoch die Grundlagen des bestehenden Wirtschatssystems infrage zu stellen. Der Übergang vom "Erneuerbaren" zum "Alternativen" ist kein Selbstläufer (75) , und dies geht weit über die Experten-oder Entscheiderdebatten über Nachhaltigkeitskriterien hinaus (76) ; die Gestaltung und Anfechtung dieser Realitätswahrnehmungsmuster hängen in der Tat mit Wissensformen zusammen, die nicht von allen geteilt werden. Dies ist auch eine Einladung, die Nachhaltigkeit aus der Perspektive einer gewissen "Enttechnisierung" zu betrachten (77) , und in der Technologie nicht unbedingt "die" Antwort des menschlichen und sozialen Fortschritts auf die aktuelle Umweltkrise zu sehen.…”