Abstract
This paper makes a case for examining energy transition as a geographical process, involving the reconfiguration of current patterns and scales of economic and social activity. The paper draws on a seminar series on the ‘Geographies of Energy Transition: security, climate, governance' hosted by the authors between 2009 and 2011, which initiated a dialogue between energy studies and the discipline of human geography. Focussing on the UK Government's policy for a low carbon transition, the paper provides a conceptual language with which to describe and assess the geographical implications of a transition towards low carbon energy. Six concepts are introduced and explained: location, landscape, territoriality, spatial differentiation, scaling, and spatial embeddedness. Examples illustrate how the geographies of a future low-carbon economy are not yet determined and that a range of divergent – and contending – potential geographical futures are in play. More attention to the spaces and places that transition to a low-carbon economy will produce can help better understand what living in a low-carbon economy will be like. It also provides a way to help evaluate the choices and pathways available.
Highlights
The ways in which societies secure energy and transform it to do useful work exert a powerful influence on their economic prosperity, geographical structure and international relations
The energy challenge in the twenty-first century is to bring about a new transition, towards a more sustainable energy system characterised by universal access to energy services, and security and reliability of supply from efficient, low-carbon sources
This paper has two general aims: (1) to illustrate how the lowcarbon energy transition is fundamentally a geographical process that involves reconfiguring current spatial patterns of economic and social activity; and (2) to provide a set of basic concepts with which to map the geographies of a low-carbon energy system and
Summary
The ways in which societies secure energy and transform it to do useful work exert a powerful influence on their economic prosperity, geographical structure and international relations. This paper has two general aims: (1) to illustrate how the lowcarbon energy transition is fundamentally a geographical process that involves reconfiguring current spatial patterns of economic and social activity; and (2) to provide a set of basic concepts with which to map the geographies of a low-carbon energy system and. At the global scale, numerous studies demonstrate how ‘global energy challenges’ are constituted through their particular, and often distinctive, geographies: the 2008 World Energy Outlook, for example, traces a looming world ‘oil crunch’ to the rapid growth of demand outside OECD countries, depletion in traditional basins serving OECD markets, and a new regionalisation in oil and gas markets (International Energy Agency, 2008) Notwithstanding this acknowledgement within energy studies of some of the geographical dimensions of the new energy paradigm, the way in which spatial processes shape energy systems and influence their capacity for transformation has not been a focal point for analyses. We draw upon the experience of a seminar series we coconvened between 2009 and 2011, as well as our involvement in various other energy research initiatives.
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