Maintaining power: Decarbonisation and recentralisation in Cuba’s Energy Revolution

Cederlöf, Gustav

doi:10.1111/tran.12330

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Energopower, by contrast, can be seen to operate within settings, but also organises the settings themselves based on the control over energy. The construction and maintenance of energy infrastructures is key to the exercise of energopower, as it renders some kinds of social behaviour possible while foreclosing others (Cederlöf, 2019). Given the acute need for a low-carbon transition in the global economy at present, we ought to examine energy use from a thermodynamic perspective.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Out of steam: Energy, materiality, and political ecology

Cederlöf

2019

Progress in Human Geography

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Energy is increasingly used as a lens to study wider social processes. For political ecologists, ‘energy’ has usually been seen as a resource or socio-technical system that gives rise to contentious social relations. This article instead thinks of energy as a materiality with thermodynamic properties. At once, energy becomes an analytical concept with physical and political-economic dimensions. Developing this perspective, the article examines the notion of ecologically unequal exchange and unpacks discussions on how energy systems are co-productive of politicised environments. The outcome is an expanded definition of political ecology set out in relation to three modes of social power.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Out of steam: Energy, materiality, and political ecology

Cederlöf

2019

Progress in Human Geography

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“…We cannot decentre technology because it constitutes the interface and helps shape the kind of relationships humans have with their natural environment. Using a different language, technologies are constitutive parties to the collectivities in which we live (Braun and Whatmore, 2010;Cederlöf, 2020). Excluding technology from the frame adopted may render it invisible to the analyst, but its influence on the interactions, feedback, and emergent characteristics remains decisive (Ahlborg et al, 2019).…”

Section: Technological Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Technological power, complex systems, and boundary objects in global energy transitions

Ahlborg

2024

Front. Hum. Dyn.

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This study makes a case for why the field of political ecology (PE) would benefit from deep engagement with technological power, and exemplifies this within the domain of energy studies and the ongoing transformation of the energy sector. Technology is not among the core interests or traditional topics of PE—and is therefore often disregarded or treated as a black box. The argument presented in this study asserts that this omission undermines the analytical power and the relevance of the field. Technology is the central mechanism whereby socionatures evolve and how relationships are negotiated and enacted. The attitude towards technical things is partly based on the idea that technologies are just artefacts of little interest. Cross-field dialogue is also hindered by perceived ontological conflicts. This study draws upon research from the philosophy of technology and sociotechnical systems theory to introduce a dynamic understanding of technological power. Seeing what technology does and has the potential to do requires looking beyond the common emphasis on dominance and control, to the myriad ways in which technologies shape our everyday lives, ontologies, and imagining of the future. Taking on a contentious concept, I advocate for the use of “systems” as a boundary object suitable for cross-field dialogue. As an analytical construct without inherent scale, it works as a framing device for moving power and knowledge claims to the forefront, while also allowing dialogue outside academia.

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“…The Cuban electricity infrastructure, however, was falling into disrepair, not least due to the onslaught of multiple hurricanes. This caused the government to launch a nationwide ''Energy Revolution'' in 2005 to structurally reconfigure the national electricity system (Cederlo¨f, 2019). For a long time, large centralized power plants had metabolized the national grid with electricity.…”

Section: Cuban Energy Policy Since the 1990smentioning

confidence: 99%

Has Cuba exposed the myth of “free” solar power? Energy, space, and justice

Hornborg

Cederlöf

Roos

2019

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

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Given the many problems with fossil energy, the fact that solar energy still only constitutes an insignificant fraction of global energy use requires explanation. The most common explanation is that multinational corporations with vested interests in fossil fuels have been actively preventing the development of solar energy technologies. But this explanation is difficult to apply to the case of Cuba. This article takes Cuban energy policy since the 1990s as a starting point to understand the sociometabolic prerequisites of a renewable energy transition. In 2014, Cuba embarked on a new renewable energy strategy while 95% of the island’s electricity was still generated from petroleum products. To explain Cuba’s halting renewable energy transition, we demonstrate that modern energy technologies are always embedded in global flows of resources and processes of capital accumulation. The requisite investments of capital and labor in energy technology represent substantial, indirect land requirements beyond the space occupied by the technological infrastructure itself. The theoretical argument is that energy technologies should be perceived not simply as local, politically neutral accomplishments of engineering but as sociometabolic displacement strategies, appropriating space from elsewhere. From an interdisciplinary perspective, this means that assessments of a technology’s “power density” also need to consider the spatial demands of the global economic context that makes the technology feasible. The Cuban case illustrates how visions of a renewable energy transition in both mainstream and Marxist thought will need to be based on a radically transformed ontology of technology attentive to global political economy and energy justice. Ultimately, the global anticipation of a transition to renewable energy implicates illusory assumptions about “technology” that have been taken for granted since the Industrial Revolution.

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Maintaining power: Decarbonisation and recentralisation in Cuba’s Energy Revolution

Cited by 4 publications

References 45 publications

Out of steam: Energy, materiality, and political ecology

Out of steam: Energy, materiality, and political ecology

Technological power, complex systems, and boundary objects in global energy transitions

Has Cuba exposed the myth of “free” solar power? Energy, space, and justice

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