“By and for local people”: assessing the connection between local energy plans and community energy

ABSTRACT

“Community energy” (CE) is argued to be an opportunity to transition to low-carbon energy systems while creating additional benefits for local communities. CE is defined as energy initiatives that place a high degree of emphasis on participation of local community members through ownership and control, where through doing so, benefits are created for the community. The trend has seen considerable growth in many countries over the last decade. Occurring simultaneously is a trend for local communities (e.g. municipalities) to create their own Local Energy Plans (LEPs) – a planning process that articulates energy-related actions (i.e. expected outcomes). While CE and LEPs both address energy activities in a local context, any further connection between these trends remains unclear.

This research develops a framework, based on CE and LEP literature, to assess LEPs for their relevance to CE. The research analyses 77 LEPs from across Canada for the ways in which they address the three components that define CE: community participation, community ownership, and community capacity. The main findings are that LEPs have emerged as a process that is both relevant to CE and capable of strategically addressing its components. Despite this, LEPs do not appear to reveal a radically different approach to the “closed and institutional” models of traditional community involvement practices. The investigation suggests that for CE advocates, LEPs may be considered to be an important avenue to pursue CE ambitions. LEPs could increase their relevance to CE by improving the processes and actions related to all three CE components.     

Networks,protest and regulatory systems: the case of energy from waste

In this paper, we examine the claims that competing networks make over the safety or risk attached to an energy-from-waste (EfW) plant in Crymlyn Burrows in South Wales. The paper draws upon a governmentality perspective and identifies three networks at the heart of decision-making: a dissenter network, a developer network and a regulatory network. The arguments put forward by the networks reveal much about how power relations are realised at a local level. The paper draws upon a longitudinal case study approach to demonstrate that networks have a life beyond a development decision and that key actors can align themselves with competing networks at different points in the development and operation phase of an EfW plant.     

From mute to reflective: changing governmentality in St Petersburg and the priorities of Russian environmental planning

This paper analyses, by using a constructivist methodology, how sustainability is perceived by Russian urban and regional planners and how environmental planning is understood on a discursive level. The planning discourse, which was reconstructed primarily with the help of 14 thematic interviews undertaken in St Petersburg, is positioned on the axes of the triangle of planning contradictions. The analysis shows that the promoted planning paradigm – the interpretations about the priorities of environmental planning – stem from the expert-centred approach of the Soviet era, and poorly suits the changing governmentality of St Petersburg. Due to regime changes, a significant step from a mute to a reflective governmentality was taken in St Petersburg, but the professional planning discourse is in conflict with this context reality and prohibits a more sustainable planning standpoint from developing.     

Governmentality,environmental subjectivity,and urban intensification

This article delineates concepts of eco-modernisation and urban sustainability (including its associated discourses), elucidating Foucault's notion of governmentality and examining select moments of contested urban governance in the neighbourhood of Old Ottawa South, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It shows how intensification – a “compact city approach” to urban sustainability – as both policy and practice, serves to both discipline and regulate by “conducting the conduct” of environmental and entrepreneurial subjects. It reveals that zoning has more explicitly become a political technology (albeit a flexible one) for achieving “highest and best use” of private property, privileging intensification projects proposed by developers, through a hierarchical exercise of state power that privileges market processes, while undermining community values and priorities.     

The International Environmental Expert Panel for Major Dam/Reservoir Projects: The Yellow River, China

The experience of the International Expert Panel on Environment for the Xiaolangdi dam/reservoir project in China (XEP) showed that the Panel meetings resulted in a marked improvement in project environmental performance by all parties participating in project implementation, with no parties exempt from the Panel's evaluations. Unfortunately the Loan Agreement authorizes use of the Panel only through the project stages of final design and construction, hence the 12th Panel meeting, which matched project construction completion, ended this series. The Panel has recommended that some meetings of the Panel be held during the project's operations stage in order to maintain continuing attention to environmental needs. The XEP experience showed that the XEP, in addition to monitoring project environmental performance, was very valuable for (i) training of Chinese staff involved in project implementation, and (ii) serving in the role as expert consultant for guiding the work of the Chinese participants. The XEP experience also showed the need for making a clear separation between evaluation, the overall resettlement program per se, and the environmental effects of the program. The Panel recommended that the Ministry of Water Resources and World Bank cooperate in sponsoring a book on The Environmental History of the Xiaolangdi Project, including both dam construction as well as resettlement problems, which would serve as a very valuable reference for guiding environmental planning for future dam projects in China (Ludwig, H.F. 1994–2000).     

小城镇生活垃圾填埋渗滤液脱氮治理研究

本文以内地驻马店市所辖的新蔡、西平、泌阳、遂平、正阳、平舆等六个县级小城镇生活垃圾填埋渗滤液为研究对象,采用鸟类石化学沉淀法治理渗滤液中的氨氮,效果理想,经济合理,为内地欠发达地区小城镇生活垃圾填埋渗滤液的脱氮研究积累了一定的经验。     

烟台市中心镇选择的战略研究

中心镇是指大都市圈内或全省城镇发展轴上具有明显发展潜力和有一定规模基础的乡镇.有所取舍地建设一批中心镇对社会经济发展具有积极地推动作用.在空间结构理论指导下,合理选择中心镇是这项工作的前提和关键.从自然、社会、经济等方面分析了发展中心镇的影响因素,构建了发展中心镇的评价指标体系,以定性和定量相结合的方法确定了烟台市的20个中心镇,指出了它们今后的发展方向,提出了发展中心镇的具体建议.     

Co-creating an alternative: the moral economy of participating in farmers’ markets

Growing dissatisfaction with the globalised food system, articulated on the behalf of both producers and consumers, has caused a variety of public debates surrounding the ethics of food production and consumption to become increasingly visible in society over the last two decades. Simultaneously, farmers’ markets (FMs) and other forms of direct marketing have experienced a noteworthy increase in participants, indicating an emerging demand for an alternative to conventional food networks, alternatives that are often perceived as providing a more just and moral relationship to food production and consumption. This study examines consumer and producer motivations for participation in FMs and opinions towards conventional and alternative agriculture in order to elucidate what (if any) values and morals are shared among producers and consumers. This study draws upon the theoretical framework of moral economy to understand whether these shared values suggest FM participants are working to co-create an alternative economy based on “moral” principles such as fairness, justice, and reciprocity. This mixed-methods study consists of consumer surveys (N?=?377) and semi-structured interviews with producers (N?=?17) from five FMs in the state of Delaware. The results suggest that producer and consumer motivations to participate in FMs, particularly a shared emphasis on social value, are indicative of a sense of moral economy. However, this moral economy is complicated by tension towards consumers and the alternative food movement more generally expressed on behalf of producers.     

Governmentality within China's South-North Water Transfer Project: tournaments,markets and water pollution

The control of water pollution in China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) is examined through the lens of promotion tournaments as Chinese governmentality to offer a special perspective on China's hydro-politics and Chinese manners of water pollution control. This paper characterizes the existing form of governmentality in the SNWTP, pointing to its problems and potential resolutions. The promotion tournament is a market system with authoritarian control, designed to reconcile the incentives of local officials and the central managers of the SNWTP. This governmentality embodies characteristics of China's authoritarian water management system: centralized personnel control combined with market-oriented promotion competitions. However, a clear conflict between the requirements of ecological modernization and the use of power in China's water management system leads to distorted behaviors among local officials, an important source of problems in China's water management system. Compared to promotion tournaments, payments for ecosystem services or eco-compensation are applications of neoliberal environmentalism that could overcome the shortcomings of tournaments, and become the most critical governmentality for water pollution control in the SNWTP.     

胶州市环境优美乡镇创建工作的思考

本文叙述了创建环境优美乡镇的重要意义及创建条件,进一步结合胶州市环境优美乡镇创建指标的变化,指出诸如化肥施用量大、有机食品绿色食品比重小等问题,因此,政府应采取高度重视,出台扶持政策,创新农村生活垃圾处理模式,推广新能源等措施。