Tracing institutional surprises in the water–energy nexus: Stalled projects of Chile’s small hydropower boom

Abstract

In this paper, we examine small hydropower trends in Chile through institutional and ethnographic research and we reflect on what lessons this case provides for scholarship on the water–energy nexus. Contrary to the tendency in water–energy nexus scholarship to advocate for further integration of water and energy management, this paper explains an approach to investigation that answers recent calls to politicize the nexus by examining inequity and inefficiency. Methodologically, we trace institutional surprises in water–energy nexus interactions. Internationally, small hydropower growth is part of a boom in renewable energy, yet in Chile the reality is more complicated. We examine the paradoxical trend of hundreds of stalled small hydropower projects that remain incomplete throughout central to southern Chile. These stalled projects indicate unexpected behavior in how water, energy, and environmental institutions interact, in Mapuche Indigenous territory specifically where projects are highly conflictive. A fantastical materialism is also visible. Government and private sector ambitions of organized, massive, and lucrative small hydropower development are resulting in unruly material realities, yet over time capital finds an unforeseen way to produce value. In this case, water rights are being sold with approved environmental impact studies on the water market. Overall, our findings challenge the assumptions that commodifying water can be done equitably and efficiently for all parties involved, in particular for the Mapuche people. Findings also question hydropower’s future viability as a sustainable renewable energy endeavor in a market-driven system.

Introduction: Uneven geographies of electricity capital

“…In the 1980s, international agencies began to push for electric utility restructuring to support market-based liberalization including corporatization, independent regulation, and private sector involvement in electricity generation, transmission, and distribution (Beder 2003; Sen 2014; Furnaro 2020; Gore et al 2019; Kelly and Valdés Negroni 2021). Liberalization is intended to create the conditions for profitable investment for electricity capital (Chandrashekeran, 2022; Harrison, 2020; van den Bold, 2021).…”

“…In some cases, these standards contradictorily define carbon-intensive or polluting “waste” fuels as “renewable” or allow companies to profit from energy savings (Behrsin, 2019; Levenda et al, 2021; Stokes, 2020; Thoyre, 2020). State-run auctions and competitive bidding processes (L Baker, 2021; van den Bold, 2021) to win public subsidy through feed-in tariffs or land, water, or shoreline concessions can enclose certain resources to allow for profitable extraction (Chien, 2020; Jacobs et al, 2013; Kelly and Valdés Negroni 2021; Knuth, 2016; Rignall, 2016; Sellwood and Valdivia, 2018; Spivey, 2020). Tax breaks and rebates for residential and commercial energy production represent another manifestation of state support (Knuth 2021; Luke and Heynen, 2020; Mulvaney, 2019; Kennedy and Stock, 2021).…”

“…The “electrify everything” strategy has become a slogan guiding climate justice activism and climate policy (Mingle, 2020). Geographers have taken on questions of energy transition to investigate how decarbonized electricity portends a change in the spatiality of existing energy systems (Bridge et al, 2013) without necessarily challenging underlying colonial and racial capitalist social relations (Chatterjee, 2020; Curley, 2018; Kelly and Valdés Negroni 2021; Lennon, 2017; Luke and Heynen, 2020; McCarthy, 2015). However, electricity remains under-theorized in these debates.…”

Injustices at the air–energy nexus

“…Seeking to overcome the ‘elemental prejudices’ that characterize human geography (Jackson and Fannin, 2011: 435) as well as wider energy justice scholarship, we explore the entanglements of air and energy beyond the relatively instrumentalized explanations that dominate existing scholarship, focusing principally on energy use and air pollution as they relate to technology or health. We are inspired by approaches that seek to politicize the nexus through an emphasis on ‘unruly material realities’ (Kelly and Negroni, 2020: 1), inequity and injustice.…”

¿Escasez de agua o transición a energías renovables? Mercado de derechos de aprovechamiento no consuntivo de aguas bajo el Nexo Agua y Energía en la geografía del sur de Chile

“…Desde el año 2005, en Chile, actores privados comenzaron a desarrollar más de 130 minicentrales hidroeléctricas, usuarias principalmente de Derechos de Aprovechamiento de Aguas No Consuntivos (DAANC) 1 , complementando la gran cantidad de proyectos ligados a fuentes de Energías Renovables No Convencionales (ERNC) (Olivares et al, 2016). Este escenario, además, responde a la realidad mundial de proliferación de minicentrales hidroeléctricas (Couto y Olden, 2018;Kelly y Valdés-Negroni, 2021;Kelly-Richards et al, 2017).…”