Beneath your feet and in your place: Multi-scalar imaginaries of energy, place, and local geothermal development

Abstract

Research on responses to renewable energy has investigated both sociotechnical imaginaries and place imaginaries; however, interactions between competing visions of energy and place have received limited attention. This study investigates how multi-scalar imaginaries of energy and place interact within local context to shape negotiations of acceptability. In a case study of a campus Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) project, document analysis of media coverage, PR materials, and policy documents are used 1. To identify imaginaries of place and energy present in public discourse across scales; and 2. To determine how multi-scalar imaginaries interact, align, and compete. Rhetoric links the EGS project with a national narrative of geothermal energy as limitless in potential, close at hand, and capable of ensuring national energy security. This geothermal imaginary is reinterpreted at different scales: regional decarbonization of heating in the Northeast, and campus climate leadership through scientific discovery. However, a local counter-narrative draws on place identity as a progressive college town and on local history with energy and extraction. A local vision of an urgent transition using a mix of tested technologies conflicts with the priorities of scientific exploration and intellectual leadership in the campus vision, which motivated the choice of a less mature technology. Multi-scalar imaginaries are embedded throughout public discourse on the EGS project, with misalignment between scales driving local perspectives toward the technology.