Hello again friends, and welcome to the third and final module of the course. In the first part of this module, we will look closely at four active examples of energy infrastructure and policy where justice issues have surfaced. Each of these examples focuses on an area that is really significant as we work to navigate transitions to lower carbon energy systems; energy efficiency, renewable energy, electricity grids, and market mechanisms. The first example is in the context of energy efficiency. A basic principle in reducing carbon emissions is to apply all energy efficiency measures first, before figuring out how big your furnace or power plant needs to be. So that you know, you are only using as much fuel as is absolutely necessary. Efficiency has been called the first fuel. By applying it first, we can avoid both the environmental and social impacts that come along with our energy infrastructure. Importantly, we can reduce costs. Energy that is not used is energy that we don't have to pay for. Professor Tony Reames from the University of Michigan and the Department of Energy has studied energy efficiency levels in homes in Kansas City and Detroit. His findings expose race and income-based disparities. The second example hones in on renewable energy, in particular, small hydropower. Hydropower is generated by capturing the energy of falling or flowing water. Large hydropower facilities require dams, that flood river ways to create reservoirs. Hydroelectric facilities are considered renewable energy because they are powered by the natural and renewable resource of the water cycle. Large facilities have been critiqued for several reasons, including the displacement of communities, environmental impact on fisheries, methane emissions, and water loss due to evaporation. Small hydro facilities are often run off river installations, where water flows through a turbine and is immediately returned to the flowing river. This technology is intriguing because of its smaller footprint and because it can provide power in otherwise hard to reach areas. Installations of small hydro facilities have grown significantly in this century and continue to grow, but not without cause for concern. We will hear about some of the conflicts that have arisen with efforts to deploy small hydro in Chile. From Dr. Sarah Kelly, a cultural anthropologist, who has collaborated with indigenous populations there in her work as a water energy scholar. Our third case shines a spotlight on electricity grids, the essential fabric of generating plants, transmission and distribution wires, and substations spread across most regions of the world that provide power to millions. Our power grids are also comprised of a web of regulatory policies governing prices and energy sharing arrangements with adjacent grids and the institutional structure of centralized utilities that has evolved since electricity was first introduced. We rely heavily on these grids, more so all the time. They represent infrastructure that is particularly critical for our increasingly digital and interconnected world. Yet that infrastructure is decades old in places; vulnerable to security threats, wildfires, and extreme weather events, and operated by organizations that are understandably deeply risk averse since their job is to be as stable and predictable as possible. In early 2021, those vulnerabilities were laid bare in Texas when a deep freeze overwhelmed the regions electrical system, causing power outages, severe disruption, and loss of life. Professor Dominic Boyer of Rice University in Houston, will describe and reflect on this event and it's justice implications. With our fourth and final example, we turn our attention to policy. Among the strategies available to policymakers and the energy and climate space, our market mechanisms are ways to incentivize or disincentivize certain activities with economic and financial tools. One approach to this type of policy is cap and trade. Where a governing entity creates an overall limit for a pollutant within a certain industry, puts a price tag on that pollutant and then requires organizations within that industry to buy and sell allowances or credits for their emissions. The overall cap on emissions declines over time. So companies are incentivized to reduce their emissions as they can, then sell their allowances to other more polluting companies. Individual companies decide how to meet the policy with the least cost. The promise of cap and trade is achieving pollution reduction at the lowest overall cost. This policy emerged in the climate context around 2005 with the establishment of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, in the Northeastern United States and the European Union Emissions Trading System. Cap and trade policies are largely viewed as environmentally successful and according to one recent study, the EU system alone may have prevented more than a billion tons of carbon dioxide from escaping to the atmosphere between 2008 and 2016. There are concerns about cap and trade, including the possibility that free market trading of pollution credits could concentrate pollution in some areas, creating pollution hotspots. California's cap and trade policy was established in 2013, and applies to electric power plants, industrial plants, and fuel distributors emitting at least 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year. It is the fourth largest such program in the world, and the revenue it generates is directed by law to activities that reduce air pollution, promote low carbon transportation, support climate and clean energy research and the like. Professor Danae Hernandez-Cortes of Arizona State University, has used a model of how air pollutants disperse spatially to study the effects of California's cap and trade policy on pollution, that has more localized impacts to assess the degree to which the policy has disproportionate effects on low-income communities and communities of color. As you watch excerpts from video conversations and read background materials for each of these cases, listen for the injustices embedded in each case, and reflect on how you would diagnose them according to the framework we built in the last module. Where do you see instances of distributive or procedural justice? Where could recognition or restorative justice help to remedy the situation? Can you identify or suggest strategies for centering the voices of marginalized communities? Do you see elements of climate change fundamentalism in accounts of these cases? What connections can you make between these cases and energy issues or challenges in your life as a professional or citizen? Use these cases to begin to build your muscles for recognizing and naming energy injustice and for discerning possible avenues to address or avert it. These cases are all drawn from current and still evolving events. You may be inspired to read and learn more about them. There's a wealth of resources identify for each case, in the resources and references section for this module. No one case does a perfect job of illustrating the problem and solution. But hopefully as a set, they expand your landscape view of the embeddedness of justice throughout energy systems, and start to point to where action by individuals and organizations can tip the balance toward greater equity, and where advocacy for systematic change is needed. I'll see you after you've worked through all four cases to draw out some themes and overarching observations. Enjoy learning from this diverse group of scholars. They share your dedication to learning and to confronting energy injustice.
