The Role of Moral Devaluation in Phasing Out Fossil Fuels: Limits for a Socioecological Fix

Furnaro, Andrea

doi:10.1111/anti.12733

Cited by 9 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 53 publications

(94 reference statements)

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“…48 This strategy may prove attractive to other asset owners in the future, and thus deserves reflection by grassroots organizations, unions, and other actors advocating for just transition trajectories. It remains to be seen what Diablo's shifting prospects may mean for future negotiated transitions at PG&E. This history highlights devaluation as a politically contested process, not a "mere result of technological replacement" (Furnaro, 2021(Furnaro, : 1457. Devaluation-driven transition processes like the Joint Proposal may be especially useful for managing devaluation in contexts where incumbent actors are able to use state protections like cost recovery to avoid shouldering losses.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In March 2023, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) took the unprecedented step of allowing PG&E to continue operating DCNP beyond the expiration of its current licences, while PG&E prepares its application for license renewal. 1 Devaluation results from, as Furnaro (2021Furnaro ( : 1443 writes, "the interaction of economic, political, and socioecological dimensions." Writing toward the end of 2022 and into 2023, we can see how the plant's economic viability is a continued site of struggle among diverse environmental and energy agendas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Managing decline: Devaluation and just transition at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant

Nelson

Ramana

2023

Environ Plan A

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This paper examines the shifting fortunes of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in California to better understand how asset owners are dealing with an increasingly-significant problem in changing energy landscapes: the devaluation of large fixed capital assets. In 2016, Pacific Gas and Electric Company announced a Joint Proposal to retire the Diablo Canyon plant by 2025, the result of a negotiated compromise with labor unions, environmental and community groups. Heralded by many commentators as a model for “just transitions” in the energy sector, this agreement has lately been called into question as new subsidies and political coalitions have emerged to support for the plant's continued operation. This paper investigates the political and economic conditions for the Joint Proposal as an example of “negotiated devaluation,” aiming to understand why and how this strategy took shape, and what lessons it offers for other transition processes. Linking literatures on just transitions and devaluation in the energy sector, we show how negotiated devaluation may offer an emerging strategy for owners of energy assets to manage decline in a changing energy landscape. The case also demonstrates the political contingency of these coalitions and the transitions they subtend, and the limited dimensions of justice that might be affirmed in them.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing decline: Devaluation and just transition at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant

Nelson

Ramana

2023

Environ Plan A

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“…According to Smith (2017), common types of devaluation in capitalist economies are "progressive" (i.e., the ceaseless process of devaluation because of market and technological competition) and "periodic" (i.e., devaluation taking place during economic crises). To better account for the social dynamics and moral claims that shape the devaluation of fixed capital in fossil fuel industries, the concept of moral devaluation accentuates the socially embedded character of energy markets as well as the relationality between economic and extra-economic practices to promote, resist, and regulate how fixed capital loses value (Furnaro, 2021). The notion of "moral devaluation" expands the term "moral wear and tear," used by Marx (1992) to differentiate fixed capital devaluation brought about by social causes, especially economic competition, from devaluation caused by material depletion.…”

Section: Spatialities Of Devaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This article examines the geographies of the German coal exit from the perspective of moral devaluation, which emphasizes the embeddedness of political-economic forces and forms of regulating the devaluation of fixed capital in fossil fuel industries (Furnaro, 2021(Furnaro, , 2022. These geographies are analyzed by looking at the interaction of spatial dimensions as well as conditions and practices associated with the shutdown of fossil fuel infrastructure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographies of devaluation: Spatialities of the German coal exit

Furnaro

2023

Environ Plan A

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This article analyzes the geographies of the German coal exit by looking at the spatial dimensions of coal devaluation. It argues that while the Energiewende has been described as having a national origin, central triggers of the national coal exit agreement have to do with devaluation pressures created by the combination of global relations in the fuel markets, the territorial bordering of electricity and carbon markets at the European Union level, and place-based and multiscalar anticoal networks. The role of place-based resistance to the past, relational, expected, and imaginary concomitant forms of devaluation in lignite regions is also described as a key spatial barrier to the German coal phase-out. It will be shown that the emergence of a coal exit agreement, which represents a national fix to address not only existing market devaluation forces, but also a double legitimacy crisis for the government, was based on spatially uneven relations. The German case is relevant for the geographies of energy transitions for showing how multispatial strategies, the spatial organization of energy markets, and the territorial regulation of energy systems shape the possibilities for the devaluation needed to accelerate the pace of the fossil fuels phase-out.

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“…We therefore examine the "switching" part of capital switching closely. The ecological imperative of climate change requires not only green investments, but also moving capital out of polluting practices (Furnaro 2021). More substantially, an enduring fix will depend on the materiality of the social and physical infrastructure that is to be developed, and the financial mechanisms through which they are funded.…”

Section: Capital Switchingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Financing Reparative Climate Infrastructures: Capital Switching, Repair, and Decommodification

et al. 2022

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Despite geographical critiques of the financialisation of climate governance, the realities of deteriorating environmental conditions, entrenched market logics, and the concentration of capital in the hands of financiers demand new strategies to contend with climate finance. We envision routes to better futures by surveying “financialised” responses to climate catastrophe that might be harnessed towards more reparative and decommodified ends. We combine ideas of “repair” and “capital switching” to evaluate financial tools for “reparative climate infrastructures” in five cases centred on energy, land, and water in the United States, Australia, Indonesia, and Brazil. Through these cases, we identify three key themes—governance, scale, and the state—that illuminate the socioecological, material, and political dimensions of reparative capital switching. The cases are each hopeful and cautionary. Together they offer a window into the contested terrain of climate finance in the present and highlight the need for critical attention to its strategic possibilities.

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The Role of Moral Devaluation in Phasing Out Fossil Fuels: Limits for a Socioecological Fix

Cited by 9 publications

References 53 publications

Managing decline: Devaluation and just transition at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant

Managing decline: Devaluation and just transition at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant

Geographies of devaluation: Spatialities of the German coal exit

Financing Reparative Climate Infrastructures: Capital Switching, Repair, and Decommodification

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