The transition to renewable sources of energy has been criticised as a strategy enabling the expanded accumulation of capital through the appropriation of nature, the integration of wind and sunlight into circuits of capital constituting a "socio-ecological fix" whose extractivist dimension has been contested and resisted. In contrast, others have criticised the inability of capital to deliver the transformation of energy systems needed, as the low and uncertain profitability prospects of renewable energy production, affected by the natural properties of the resources (sunlight and wind) on whose appropriation it relies, fail to attract sufficient investment (particularly when compared to fossil fuels). These critical assessments of the potential for capital to deliver the energy transition are thus based on the prospects for capital accumulation through renewable energy production, and highlight the particular role of nature in this regard. The reach, however, seemingly opposite conclusions.Therefore, this presentation explores the role of nature in the valorisation for renewable energy capital through a critique of its political economy. It focuses on the ecological indeterminacy inherent to the production of electricity from wind and sunlight, leading to limits to the accumulation of capital which are temporarily resolved (but eventually reproduced at a larger scale) through organisational and technological innovations deepening the capitalist subsumption of nature. From this perspective, contradictions identified by critical analysis of the energy transition are analysed as a concrete expression of the general tendency of the capitalist relations of production to come into conflict with the development of the productive forces.
Date
- May 16, 2025