Renewable, ethical? Assessing the energy justice potential of renewable electricity

Energy justice is increasingly being used as a framework to conceptualize the impacts of energy decision making in more holistic ways and to consider the social implications in terms of existing ethical values. Similarly, renewable energy technologies are increasingly being promoted for their environmental and social benefits. However, little work has been done to systematically examine the extent to which, in what ways and in what contexts, renewable energy technologies can contribute to achieving energy justice. This paper assesses the potential of renewable electricity technologies to address energy justice in various global contexts via a systematic review of existing studies analyzed in terms of the principles and dimensions of energy justice. Based on publications including peer reviewed academic literature, books, and in some cases reports by government or international organizations, we assess renewable electricity technologies in both grid integrated and off-grid use contexts. We conduct our investigation through the rubric of the affirmative and prohibitive principles of energy justice and in terms of its temporal, geographic, socio-political, economic, and technological dimensions. Renewable electricity technology development has and continue to have different impacts in different social contexts, and by considering the different impacts explicitly across global contexts, including differences between rural and urban contexts, this paper contributes to identifying and understanding how, in what ways, and in what particular conditions and circumstances renewable electricity technologies may correspond with or work to promote energy justice

Expanding ethics justice across borders : the role of global philosophy

Our energy systems are truly international, and yet even now, our energy policies tend to be grounded at the national level and in many instances, remain ill-equipped to tackle transboundary energy issues. Our energy policy systems are also largely detached from the concerns of ethics or justice. It follows that we must find new and innovative ways of not conceptualising these normative issues, but of operationalising response to them. This book stems from the emergent gap: the need for comparative approaches to energy justice, and for those that consider non-Western ethical traditions. Opening the edited volume, this chapter begins by giving context to the concept of “energy justice” itself and outlines our comparative philosophical approach to it, focusing specifically on “global philosophy” for its role in dialectically engaging with philosophies from around the world. We then show how the different chapters of the volume contribute to this purpose in four parts: setting the scene, practice, applying theory to practice and theoretical approaches. The final section of this chapter concludes with reflections on the contribution of global philosophy approaches to energy justice as with a set of future research recommendations. Through these recommendations, and all of those within, we position the book as one that contributes to energy justice scholarship across borders of nations, borders of ways of thinking and borders of disciplines

Alternative Energy Sources and Energy Justice:Nuclear, Hydro and Wind

The imperative of climate change is driving significant investment in low-carbon technologies. Justice scholars need to be cognisant of emerging injustices that are inherent to alternative low-carbon energy sources. This chapter assesses the main justice implications for the three energy sources: nuclear, hydro and wind. It spans the range of low-carbon technologies from the leading large-scale options in the form of nuclear and hydro as well as the more modern micro-solutions in wind energy. It includes an examination of resource availability including production and security concerns, accessibility in relation to consumption patterns and trade flows as well as broader sustainability questions. The energy justice framework is then applied to each low-carbon source in a similar manner to the previous chapte