Building energy democracy to mend ecological and epistemic rifts: An environmental sociological examination of Seoul’s One Less Nuclear Power Plant initiative

Abstract

This paper brings together metabolic rift theory and discussions surrounding energy democracy. Energy democracy is interpreted as a political program and social movement to alter the social order in ways that mend the ecological, knowledge, and epistemic rifts of energy systems. The ecological rifts of conventional energy systems refer to material separations between sites of energy production, refinement, generation, consumption, and disposal that rupture natural cycles, accumulate waste (e.g., nuclear waste, CO2), and cause other ecological and social problems. Spaces between nodes of energy systems are also partly responsible for energy-knowledge rifts among energy users, or, gaps in knowledge about energy issues, as well as a more general rupture in thinking and conceptualization that divorces questions related to energy from everyday concerns and political discourse – an energy-epistemic rift. Seoul, South Korea’s One Less Nuclear Power Plant initiative is as an energy-democratic transition plan that begins to mend the ecological, knowledge, and epistemic rifts of energy systems. Along with programs that close ecological rifts, the initiative begins to mend energy-knowledge and -epistemic rifts via citizens’ recurrent interaction with nearby renewable systems (“proximate praxis”), energy education programs, and civic participation in decision-making and energy production.