Embodied energy injustice and the political ecology of solar power

Abstract

Solar energy is poised to become a major source of electricity around the world. As deployment rises to terawatts levels, these industries will drive demand for specific materials, natural resources, labor, and lands with solar energy resources reconfiguring socio-ecological relations. Global change from the development of solar power commodity chains includes increased demand for minerals and metals, new places for metallurgy and smelting, shifting workforce flows, occupational safety challenges from extractive industries to semiconductor manufacturing fabs. These new geographies of production could result in increased emissions and effluents from specialty chemical industries, conservation and agricultural land use change, and questions around the safe and responsible disposal at the end-of-life. Drawing on the concept “embodied energy injustice,” this paper identifies critical research areas that need attention in human geography and political ecology along the solar energy commodity chain based on socio-ecological arrangements produced by the global solar energy industries over the past decade.