Book Description

To gain insight into how the futures of energy are being imagined, contested, and embedded in material and social relations, this project investigates the public disputes and policy discourses surrounding two energy-related proposals: the Millennium Bulk Terminal (a coal export facility in the Northwest), and the Grain Belt Express (wind farm power transmission lines in the Midwest). Energy has become increasingly moralized, contested, and politicized as issues of climate change, competition, and scarcity have made it visible in new ways, pushing issues of energy-its sources, methods of extraction, access to it, and impacts-into the forefront of the national psyche. The development of alternative sources of energy coupled with the dramatic decline in their costs is increasingly challenging the mineral energy regime's dominance. Our society is currently undergoing a transition that is much more than a simple technological shift, but one that represents a broader change to the social order. Energy transport infrastructures play a key role in the design and re-design of energy systems by making it possible to scale up and "lock-in" energy regimes. Therefore, by uncovering the process of how "energy imaginaries"-contemporary social constructions regarding how future energy will be generated, distributed, and consumed- are produced, negotiated, and acted on, this project will provide policymakers and interests groups a more comprehensive understanding of the social changes necessary to decarbonize society and mitigate the effects of climate change. The tools to design specific policies and framings to increase support and overcome barriers to intentionally steer investments towards more sustainable and equitable energy pathways and their conception of the ideal energy future. This dissertation relies on a multi-method approach combining 24 semi-structured in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, content analysis of over 630 news articles from local and national newspapers, and key policy and archival materials from regulatory agencies, industry partners, and social movement organizations. Through this comparative case study of controversial energy infrastructure projects, this study seeks to construct the emerging discourses around and evaluations of the different energy regimes vying for domination in our nation's construction of an ideal energy future, to uncover the larger shifts in meanings that are occurring around energy, and to understand how these values and visions of the future can become materially embedded through the decisions made around which infrastructures are built. The results of this comparative case study point to three competing imaginaries currently vying for domination. The first is based on the "Make Fossil Fuels Great Again" imaginary which argues that our future lays in the continued domination and investment in fossil fuels. That with the influx of fracked gas, the US has the opportunity to be a net exporter of energy for the first time since the 1950s. It also seeks to maintain the status quo and downplays the threat of climate change. The second is based on a centralized renewable energy system similar to the "Close the Gap" imaginary. In this view, we would rapidly transition to cleaner energy sources through the utilization of utility-scale wind and solar production, and a nationwide network of transmission lines to connect load centers with geographic concentrations of renewables. Due to the scale of the projects, large scale organizations such as investor-owned utilities would be the key decision-makers. This view also calls for more control by regional or federal regulatory authorities to decrease the ability of anyone state to derail a project deemed in the public interest. The third is based on a distributed/decentralized renewable energy system, similar to the "In Your Backyard" imaginary. In this view, we would still transition rapidly to an all or nearly carbon-free energy system, but control over the system would reside with local communities, households, and organizations through the expansion of rooftop solar, offshore wind, energy storage, modular nuclear reactors, etc. A greater degree of regulatory authority would be vested in states and local governments rather than in the federal government. It is most likely that a hybrid system will emerge where distributed renewable production is supported by a national network of transmission line to smooth the variability and intermittency of a nearly 100% renewable energy future. Additionally, these energy imaginaries also provide clues into how the larger economy, political and civil society should be/will be organized in the future, and are therefore worthy of more sociological investigation.