Energy, space, and society: a reassessment of the changing landscape of energy production, distribution, and use

While geography has always mattered for the energy sector, the relative effects of location and distance on the economics of energy regimes are increasing as we begin to deploy more renewable energy technologies. This re-introduction of the friction of distance is leading to an energy landscape that is far different from fossil-based regimes. The new energy paradigm, based as it is upon the physics and the economics of renewable energy, is being reflected in the landscape as distributed, decentralized, and diversified patterns of energy generation. Because the increased use of renewable energy technologies is beginning to change the spatial patterns of political and socio-economic activities, a thorough understanding of these patterns is crucial to increasing the socio-political acceptability of new technologies and to avoiding the socially costly unintended consequences of policy and investment decisions. This paper proposes a theoretical foundation upon which economists and economic geographers could scaffold their analyses of the spatial characteristics of the economics of energy use. To this end, we bring together two complementary conceptualizations of economic geography: firstly, as the study of the effects of location and distance on energy economics, and secondly, as the study of the ways in which political, economic, and technological energy-related practices give rise to particular spatial patterns of socio-economic welfare. We end the paper by developing the concept of energy rationality and showing how it relates to discussions of metarationality, common sense, and wisdom.