Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Nikkie Wiegink
(Utrecht University)
Angela Kronenburg García (UCLouvain)
Send message to Convenors
- Formats:
- Panels
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 22 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
How is the energy transition restructuring mining realities? This panel explores new horizons by bringing together two sub-fields of anthropology: the anthropology of energy and the anthropology of mining. The papers address the energy transition from the perspective of its minerals and metals.
Long Abstract:
The energy transition from a fossil fuel-based system to a low-carbon future has engendered new technologies and is changing consumer patterns across the world. Less known is that the energy transition is restructuring the extractive sector due to new policies and increasing demand for metals and minerals needed in low-carbon technologies (Addison 2018). This panel explores new horizons by linking two sub-fields of anthropology: the anthropology of energy and the anthropology of mining, and invites papers to address the energy transition from the perspective of its minerals and metals. Where do the minerals come from that power the batteries from electric vehicles and make wind turbines durable? Who are the new global players in the emerging resource chains? And how can we study these global dynamics ethnographically? How do, for example, 'energy ethics' (Smith & High 2017) in Europe relate to 'mining encounters' (Pijpers & Eriksen 2019) in the global south? And what kinds of contestations do these encounters engender? We aim to build further on the discussion of 'energopolitics' (Boyer 2019) to illuminate and politicize the processes that tend to be obscured by the 'good' of the energy transition and the urgency to fight climate change. Our intention is to unravel the tensions, interconnectedness, and ambiguities of extractive encounters at different scales. We welcome submissions based on empirical work or methodological reflections that engage with the technologies, policymaking, mining realities, multi-actor encounters, resource chains and resource booms emerging at the intersections of the energy transition and the extractive industries.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 22 July, 2020, -Marie Forget (Savoie Mont Blan University) Vincent Bos (Université de Savoie Mont Blanc)
Paper short abstract:
Based on geographical methodology this communication will question (1) South American lithium production networks and (2) the evolutions of energy transition politics focusing either on local and autonomous energy supply or reinforcing path-dependency to the constituted energy system
Paper long abstract:
Enacted mostly in the Global North by moving from carbon-based energy techniques to a lower carbon dioxide system, energy transition affects extractive regions, mostly in the Global South, where natural resources exploitation constitute a main economic activity of mountain territories. Indeed, energy transition is greedy in raw materials. Lithium is one of the components of acclaimed lithium-ion batteries for autonomous energy systems storage devices and electric mobility. Spatially concentrated in the "lithium triangle"shared by Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, its extraction induces spatial restructuring of energy territories. Lithium mining operation requires large amount of energy, generally supplied by oil or gas tank trucks (virtual pipelines), that are economically and environmentally expensive. That leads mining companies to invest in the development of their own solar power stations and energy networks. It then favours investments in large solar farms, feeding the national electric networks, traditional energy networks and infrastructures (high voltage lines, pipelines development and the exploitation or exploration of unconventional deposits (shale /tight gas/oil). From another perspective, lithium storage services coupled with local solar energy also leads to including unconnected populations (especially in the high Andean plateau where lithium is extracted). This communication relies on three fieldwork investigations including first hand observations and qualitative interviews. Based on geographical methodology it will then question:(1) South American lithium production networks focusing on its production sites and the stakeholders (2) Evolutions of energy transition politics focusing either on local and autonomous energy supply or reinforcing path-dependency to the constituted energy system
Jonas Köppel (University of Bern) Morgan Scoville-Simonds (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies)
Paper short abstract:
We analyze predominant narratives related to lithium emerging from Europe/US and Bolivia. Despite their differences, these narratives share common universalizing assumptions that we seek to disrupt through attention to the particular relationalities enacted by lithium extraction.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper we present a relational analysis of differently situated narratives about lithium and its role in emerging energy technologies. We understand narratives as cultural-political forms that both reflect and remake material realities, in this case, those of resource extraction accompanying the global shift towards post-fossil energy production and use. In resource studies the predominant narrative about the "mineral foundation" of the global energy transition is a warning not to neglect the vast amounts of raw materials that will be necessary for this transition. While we agree that it is crucial to emphasize the role of natural resources, we take issue with the universalizing tendencies within such narratives. As long as we portray resources as interchangeable objects, producers as placeless raw material providers, and a minority of consumers as humanity writ large, we cannot do justice to the contradictory relations between energy transition and resource extraction, and their political and ethical implications. Thus, in this paper we argue for greater attention to particular relations enacted by lithium to craft different narratives about its futures and relations to energy transition. Based on an analysis of public media, advertising materials, policy documents, and political discourses, we contrast emerging lithium narratives between two particular positions, the 'West' (Europe/US) and a particularly-relevant lithium-extraction context, Bolivia. Analyzing the relations between these positions, we ask, what tensions and frictions arise from differently situated lithium narratives? How do these narratives (re)make particular pasts, presents and futures? What actions and agendas do they inform and legitimize?
Angela Kronenburg García (UCLouvain)
Paper short abstract:
This paper studies the politics of anticipation at the interface of the energy transition and the extractive sector. It examines how EU policies that promote the use of electric vehicles trigger a corporate rush to mine graphite that contributes to the resettlement of local people in Mozambique.
Paper long abstract:
Policymakers have started to introduce plans to decarbonize their energy systems. Yet in the urgency of the global energy transition and the general sense of 'doing the right thing', certain struggles and dynamics go unnoticed, especially in mineral-abundant countries. This paper studies how policies that promote the use of electric vehicles in Europe contribute to displacements and resettlements of local populations in Mozambique, following a corporate rush to mine the little-known graphite - a mineral needed in the lithium-ion batteries of electric cars.
These cross-scale dynamics will be studied through the analytical lens of anticipation (Adams et al. 2009, Appadurai 2013, Weszkalnys 2014, Cross 2015, Bryant & Knight 2019). I will explore how differently-positioned actors anticipate the future in their practices, discourses and relations, and how these anticipations align, clash, change or connect. The focus will be on the narratives of EU climate and energy policies and policymakers - especially those that bear on the global electric vehicle market - and the anticipations that emerge from the interaction of mining companies, local people, and government officials during public consultations for resettlement and compensation in northern Mozambique. This paper will provide an analysis of the politics of anticipation at the interface of the energy transition and the extractive sector as global dynamics meet local realities. It will discuss how abilities to imagine and anticipate certain futures differ and are ambiguous; how power relations are expressed, enacted and productive of unequal anticipations; and what this means for the different (groups of) actors.
Tobias Schwoerer (University of Lucerne)
Paper short abstract:
Mining creates massive energy demands that also attract sustainable energy production. In the Markham Valley of Papua New Guinea, eucalyptus plantations for biomass energy and new power transmission lines shape the emerging energyscapes, wherein new forms of social and political conflicts arise.
Paper long abstract:
As the panel investigates what new energy solutions could mean for mining encounters, this paper focuses on the fact that large-scale mining requires massive amounts of energy, which in today's policy environment also creates new demands for low-carbon options. The proposed Wafi-Golpu Copper/Gold Mine in Papua New Guinea's Morobe province will need 100 MW of power, which is more than double the electricity generation capacity in the Ramu grid currently supplying the industrial centre of Lae and other towns in nine provinces. New power sources are therefore needed, and while it is possible that most of the electricity will come from gas turbines or new hydro-power plants, there is also a different low-carbon project currently taking shape. PNG Biomass is in the process of planting 16'000 hectares of eucalyptus trees to eventually fuel two wood-fired power plants producing 30 MW of electricity.
This paper looks at the emerging energyscapes (Howard et al. 2013) in the Markham Valley. It examines how plans by the state and foreign aid agencies to construct new power transmission lines to guarantee electrification of 70% of the national population until 2030, intersect with the lived reality of the local Wampar population, who while only partly able to access electricity are living next to power pylons and plant hectares of eucalyptus trees. While the energy demands of the mine and plans for rural electrification create new jobs and economic opportunities for some, they also disenfranchise others and generate new conflicts over land and political power.
Antonio Maria Pusceddu (Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia, Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the intertwining of mining, resource making and energy transition. Drawing from ongoing research on the Portuguese 'lithium rush', the paper examines the power entanglements of mining and energy transition in the emergent energopolitics of the European periphery.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the intertwining of mining, resource making and energy transition in the current Portuguese 'lithium rush'. Strongly linked to the 'clean' mobility paradigm of electric vehicles, lithium gained meaningful traction in the socio-technological imaginary of the energy transition. As a strategic resource, lithium also holds a special place in the EU Raw Material Initiative, which has among its pillars the 'sustainable' supply of raw materials from European sources. In Portugal, a strategic plan for mineral resources exploitation started to arise during the economic adjustment program. However, lithium prospecting applications skyrocketed only in the last few years. In 2017, the government launched the national lithium strategy with the aim of assessing the potentials of national resources and the feasibility of industrial development projects. The 'lithium rush' has rapidly become a controversial subject in national debates about the energy politics of transition and sustainable development. The issue of popular participation has also entered the debate, in the face of a strongly centralized decision-making process, which turned a politically sensitive issue into a technocratic matter. The sudden interest for the mineral wealth of remote rural regions unleashed the opposition of local populations, mindful of the socio-environmental legacy of past mining boom and bust cycles (mostly tin and tungsten). Drawing from ongoing research on lithium mining projects in northern Portugal, the paper examines the power entanglements of mining and energy transition in the emergent energopolitics of the European periphery.