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- Hunt, Oliver, et al.
(författare)
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“Risk on steroids” : The Political Economy of Power-to-X
- 2024
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The global energy transition requires alternatives to fossil fuels in the energy-intensive industries and transport sectors, which are particularly reliant on the unique material properties of fossil fuels as fuel and as feedstock. The build-up of non-fossil infrastructure therefore demands large-scale investments in power-to-x. In the context of European climate governance, a political consensus has emerged to support the establishment of power-to-x production networks to lower emissions and create synthetic fuels and feedstock to substitute hydrocarbons. Yet, despite a seemingly strong momentum, investment decisions are lacking behind global scenarios. Through interviews with key actors, participant observation, and document analysis, we explore the political economy of investments in power-to-x production capacity, focusing on the challenges associated with financing such investments. We argue that uncertainties around profitability threaten to undermine investments. It makes investors await public derisking, and fossil fuel incumbents maintain favorable financing conditions vis-à-vis renewable energy developers. These findings suggest limits to derisking and highlight the relevance of compelling fossil fuel incumbents to scale up power-to-x.
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- Palm, Ellen, et al.
(författare)
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Imagining circular carbon : A mitigation (deterrence) strategy for the petrochemical industry
- 2024
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Ingår i: Environmental Science and Policy. - 1462-9011. ; 151
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Petrochemical producers both rely upon and generate some of the most problematic substances in the current age of socioecological crisis: fossil fuels and plastics. With mounting calls to cap fossil fuel extraction as well as plastics production, the industry appears to be caught between a rock and a hard place. Nonetheless, betting on continuously increasing global plastic demand, petrochemical production is expanding significantly. This predicament raises the question of how the industry attempts to square increasing petrochemical production with the need to address environmental issues. In recent years, leading actors in and around the industry have promoted notions of carbon circularity as a desirable mitigation strategy. In this paper, we examine this strategy, using discourse analysis to uncover what we refer to as the imaginary of circular carbon. We highlight how the circular carbon imaginary risks delaying climate mitigation by rendering alternative mitigation pathways undesirable. It does so by reconciling increased production, carbon neutrality, and circular economy in a vision of a circular carbon economy, framing the climate crisis as an issue of carbon management. In the circular carbon economy, carbon dioxide, petrochemicals, and plastics all fit as mere flows of carbon. The circular carbon imaginary thereby helps future-proof the petrochemical industry in legitimizing its carbon-intensive practises essential to the fossil world order and the plastic crisis.
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- Tilsted, Joachim Peter, et al.
(författare)
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Connected we stand: Lead firm ownership ties in the global petrochemical industry
- 2024
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Ingår i: Ecological Economics. - 0921-8009. ; 224
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Using oil, gas, and coal to produce platform chemicals on an enormous scale, the petrochemical industry constitutes a core part of the global energy order. Given demand growth for petrochemicals, the sector is set to become increasingly important to fossil fuel interests. Arguing that internationalised networks help structure the social metabolism and are important for transformative change, this paper sets out to analyse economic ties in the global petrochemical industry. In this paper, we conceptualise such relations and explore how they foster alignment on a global scale. We emphasise the role of internationalised networks in global socio-technical regimes, arguing for the importance of economic ties that establish a financial and juridical relation. On this basis, we theorise that extensive lead firm ties strengthen global regimes and shape socio-technical reconfigurations to align the interests of incumbent actors. Applying this framework, we analyse ownership relations amongst lead firms in the global petrochemical sector. We find a polycentric but global network aligning interests across major producers which we argue helps maintain and reproduce commitments to fossil fuels. The findings illustrate the relevance of pursuing parallel transitions along the petrochemical value chain, including energy, chemicals, and plastics, to break from fossil fuel dependency.
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- Tilsted, Joachim Peter
(författare)
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Transforming a Synthetic World : The Political Economy of Petrochemical Transitions
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Operating enormous, integrated refineries and clusters, the petrochemical industry runs processes in which hydrocarbons are turned into the fundamental components for plastics and other synthetic materials. Continuing a historical trend of consistent output growth, petrochemicals are the largest current driver of oil demand growth. At the same time, the industry is under increasing pressure to transform because of its contribution to what earth system scientists and ecotoxicologists refer to as the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity decline. In short, the petrochemical producers find themselves at a critical juncture. In this vein, this thesis explores the political economy of petrochemical transitions and the features that define the contestation over the future of fossil-based industry growth. Reframing energy transitions as a matter of not only decarbonisation but of defossilisation, the thesis investigates the linkages between fossil fuels, chemicals and synthetic materials, and the material, institutional, and discursive power of petrochemical incumbents. Drawing on social network, document, and narrative analysis, as well as field observations at industry conferences and global databases, the thesis consists of five interlinked papers and a cover essay. Each paper takes up distinct research questions relating to the political economy of petrochemicals, looking at the past, present, and future of fossil-based synthetics. In the cover essay, I build on the findings of these five papers to argue that the proclaimed forthcoming energy revolution faces intricate difficulties given the structural role of fossil fuels as feedstock, which confers material power upon the actors occupying the petroleum-chemical-synthetics nexus. This power enables incumbent actors to navigate growing transition pressures and pursue production growth. This insight underlines the substantial implications that arise for the political economy ofenergy transitions from understanding fossil fuels not only as energy carriers but as feedstock.On this basis, I argue that transformative industrial change demands an expanded supply-side focus that goes beyond fossil fuels as energy carriers and insists on an ethics that takes human needs as its point of departure.
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