Modernist dreams and green sagas: The neoliberal politics of Iceland's renewable energy economy
Transitioning to renewable energy is an imperative to help mitigate climate change, but such transitions are inevitably embedded in broader socio-ecological and political dynamics. Recent scholarship has focused on these more-than-technological dimensions of energy transitions to help understand the...
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crsagepubl:10.1177/2514848618796829 2024-09-15T18:13:29+00:00 Modernist dreams and green sagas: The neoliberal politics of Iceland's renewable energy economy Guðmundsdóttir, Hrönn Carton, Wim Busch, Henner Ramasar, Vasna 2018 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2514848618796829 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2514848618796829 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/2514848618796829 en eng SAGE Publications http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space volume 1, issue 4, page 579-601 ISSN 2514-8486 2514-8494 journal-article 2018 crsagepubl https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848618796829 2024-07-29T04:24:55Z Transitioning to renewable energy is an imperative to help mitigate climate change, but such transitions are inevitably embedded in broader socio-ecological and political dynamics. Recent scholarship has focused on these more-than-technological dimensions of energy transitions to help understand their promises and drawbacks. This article contributes to this research agenda by highlighting the importance of considering not only who benefits from renewable energy development, but also what renewable energy is for. We analyse two cases in Iceland, the Kárahnjúkar hydropower project and Hellisheiði geothermal energy plant, in which renewable energy was used to attract heavy industry investments in the form of aluminium smelters. Attractive regulatory conditions in the form of ‘minimal red tape’, low electricity prices and an industry-friendly tax regime led to significant profits for the aluminium industry but questionable benefits for the state and the people of Iceland. Renewable energy development in this way put Iceland's nature to use for private gain, while marginalizing alternative ideas of what that nature is for. Our analysis underlines the need to pursue perspectives that recognize the complex political and socio-ecological nature of energy systems, which includes attention to the political economy of industrial energy consumption. Article in Journal/Newspaper Iceland SAGE Publications Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 1 4 579 601 |
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Transitioning to renewable energy is an imperative to help mitigate climate change, but such transitions are inevitably embedded in broader socio-ecological and political dynamics. Recent scholarship has focused on these more-than-technological dimensions of energy transitions to help understand their promises and drawbacks. This article contributes to this research agenda by highlighting the importance of considering not only who benefits from renewable energy development, but also what renewable energy is for. We analyse two cases in Iceland, the Kárahnjúkar hydropower project and Hellisheiði geothermal energy plant, in which renewable energy was used to attract heavy industry investments in the form of aluminium smelters. Attractive regulatory conditions in the form of ‘minimal red tape’, low electricity prices and an industry-friendly tax regime led to significant profits for the aluminium industry but questionable benefits for the state and the people of Iceland. Renewable energy development in this way put Iceland's nature to use for private gain, while marginalizing alternative ideas of what that nature is for. Our analysis underlines the need to pursue perspectives that recognize the complex political and socio-ecological nature of energy systems, which includes attention to the political economy of industrial energy consumption. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Guðmundsdóttir, Hrönn Carton, Wim Busch, Henner Ramasar, Vasna |
spellingShingle |
Guðmundsdóttir, Hrönn Carton, Wim Busch, Henner Ramasar, Vasna Modernist dreams and green sagas: The neoliberal politics of Iceland's renewable energy economy |
author_facet |
Guðmundsdóttir, Hrönn Carton, Wim Busch, Henner Ramasar, Vasna |
author_sort |
Guðmundsdóttir, Hrönn |
title |
Modernist dreams and green sagas: The neoliberal politics of Iceland's renewable energy economy |
title_short |
Modernist dreams and green sagas: The neoliberal politics of Iceland's renewable energy economy |
title_full |
Modernist dreams and green sagas: The neoliberal politics of Iceland's renewable energy economy |
title_fullStr |
Modernist dreams and green sagas: The neoliberal politics of Iceland's renewable energy economy |
title_full_unstemmed |
Modernist dreams and green sagas: The neoliberal politics of Iceland's renewable energy economy |
title_sort |
modernist dreams and green sagas: the neoliberal politics of iceland's renewable energy economy |
publisher |
SAGE Publications |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2514848618796829 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2514848618796829 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/2514848618796829 |
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Iceland |
genre_facet |
Iceland |
op_source |
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space volume 1, issue 4, page 579-601 ISSN 2514-8486 2514-8494 |
op_rights |
http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848618796829 |
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Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space |
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4 |
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579 |
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601 |
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1810451245527203840 |