HCIAS Colloquium Solar Capitalism: Land, Minerals and Labor in the Global Energy Transition

Sofía Ávila will introduce the concept of Solar Capitalism to discuss to the emerging political economies and ecologies of the global energy transition. Solar Capitalism is here defined as the diverse set of accumulation strategies responding to the combined challenge of climate change and the progressive decline of fossil fuels globally: a process that implies shifts in the reliance of stock to flows forms of energy; from high to low energy capacities; and from abundant to relatively scarce natural resources and services. What differentiates Solar Capitalism from other solar economies (either historical forms or potential future forms) is the attempt to reproduce and expand circuits of capital accumulation under contemporary biophysical conditions, forcing the spatiotemporal profile of flow and common resources to work in terms of stock and enclosable energy resources. The aim of the lecture is to discuss how solar capitalist frontiers raise urgent questions for just transitions and alternative solar futures.