Green Hydrogen and Local Energy Generation: energy futures, modes of valuation and the material affordances of two clean technologies. (2023-2027)

Description

The development and adoption of low-emission technologies have been defined as one of the main courses of action to confront the climate crisis. Reports from the IPCC (2022, p12) and other international organizations (UNEP, 2021) emphasize the need to advance the massive incorporation of mitigation technologies, whether through the expansion of Unconventional Renewable Energies (URE), the adoption of new clean fuels, or the creation of carbon sequestration and capture technologies, among others (IPCC 2022). In recent years, Chile has consistently advanced in energy decarbonization through the widespread adoption of URE, especially large-scale solar and wind generation projects. This energy transition has been associated with both state-level strategies (Ministry of Energy, 2022) and the adoption of international decarbonization commitments under the Paris Agreement (2020).

This ongoing research project (2023-2027) focuses on studying two opposing modalities of clean energy generation technologies.

On one hand, we will study the development of a Green H2 Industry in Magallanes (Chilean Patagonia). Green H2 has recently emerged globally and nationally associated with the promise of a new green fuel that would accelerate energy transition in its most challenging aspects. Green H2 epitomizes the ecomodernist visions of a climate future where technological development and global markets are intertwined in a new form of “green capitalism” that will accelerate a new planetary low carbon economy. Likewise, like other climate technologies such as carbon capture and sequestration— its offers the promise of accelerating the energy transition, addressing the causes of the climate crisis while developing new sources of profit and economic growth. In the case of Chile and Magallanes, Green H2 has been associated with the promise of a national and territorial economic growth, (van Renssen, 2020). Similar to lithium (Barandiarán, 2019), Green H2 mobilizes a sociotechnical imaginary of reconciling economic growth, national development, and the transition to decarbonization.

On the other hand, we will study the development of new community and local biogas generation projects through cooperative and local artifacts and practices. Distributed territorially and with less visibility, various forms of community energy generation, such as biogas generation, emerge as a form of technological intervention that seek to advance socio environmental transformation from the bottom up. seeking to reconcile and articulate low carbon transformation at a local and territorial level.

Approach

By drawing on recent debates in STS, economic sociology, and energy sociology, we will interrogate three aspects of the development of Green H2 and Local Generation Technologies: a) the energy futures and sociotechnical imaginaries—ideas of desirable future and well-being—that they mobilize; b) the different modes of valuation that come into play during their development and implementation of these technologies; and c) the dynamics and frictions that result from the materialization of specific projects of this kind. We will do so, taking into account—on the one hand—the normative assumptions and visions of the future mobilized in the development of technological systems (Jasanoff & Kim, 2015), and on the other hand, the situated and contextual nature of the sociomaterial realization of technological developments (Labussière & Nadaï, 2018). Thus, the project seeks to study how frictions (Tsing, 2011), resistances (Akrich et al., 2002), and accommodations arise in the processes of infrastructure development for new technologies, where different normative possibilities and horizons are at play to advance the energy transition. Against this backdrop, we will focus on examining how these different entanglements between technological development and climate action relate to the prospect and possibilities of a just energy transition.

Questions

Our two cases, the development of Green Hydrogen generation in Magallanes (Chile) and the development of local technologies for biogas generation in Ñuble (Chile) differ greatly in scale and magnitude and posit different ways of problematizing the relationship between technological intervention and climate mitigation. Thus, through the comparison between these two cases, we seek to contribute to unpacking the social and political aspects associated with the development and implementation of emerging technologies for climate action (Vaughan, 2014). This project aligns too, with other works in the sociology of energy and energy transitions, where different technological developments are compared as a heuristic mechanism to critically address some aspect of the transition (Labussière & Nadaï, 2018; Ryghaug & Skjølsvold, 2021).

The overarching question that will guide this research is as follows: What are the energy futures and sociotechnical imaginaries, modes of valuation, and implementation processes of Green Hydrogen generation technologies and community generation in Chile?

The project aims to develop this broad question through ethnographic and theoretical work in three related themes, namely:

(1) Contending Energy Futures of Green Hydrogen and local technologies for generation.

First, we will focus on describing and problematizing the different energy futures that are enacted along the implementation of Green Hydrogen Generation in Magallanes and the development of Local technologies for generation .We will examine the sociotechnical imaginaries, anticipatory practices and future visiones at play during the development and implementation of Green Hydrogen (H2 Verde) and Community Generation Technologies (GEC). 

(2) Modes of valuation and value struggles in Green Hydrogen Generation. 

Second, we will seek to describe and understand the different modes of valuation at play during the development and implementation of Green Hydrogen Generation in Magallanes and Local technologies for generation. We take a pragmatic stance on studying value which we will explore as the empirical result or effect of socio-material practices through which value is conferred or assigned to technological arrangements (Muniesa, 2011). We will study the different modalities in which value is defined and mobilized during the development and implementation of Green Hydrogen and local technologies of energy generation.  

(3) Socio Technical assemblage and material politics of Green Hydrogen and Local Energy projects

 We will address the process of implementing specific projects involving these technologies. In this context, we will address the various socio-material practices and relationships through which these technologies materialize in projects situated in specific territories.