Stacked energyscapes: Conceptualizing fossil fuel and renewable energy entanglements in low-carbon transitions

Energy transitions are often characterized as discrete progressions away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, typically in different geographic spaces, which result in “winning” and “losing” communities. Policies have been enacted to encourage renewable energy investment in “losing” fossil fuel extractive communities. Such conceptualizations do not sufficiently consider how fossil fuel extraction and renewable energy intersect with and shape each other in these spaces. We introduce the term “stacked energyscapes” to better characterize these interactions. Rather than replacing a fossil fuel-based energy system, we argue that renewable energy is “stacked” atop it, entangling their sociotechnical “energyscapes” together in ways that can both accelerate and slow the transition. We develop this conceptualization based on a review of 149 journal articles, policy papers, and news articles of energy transition case studies, primarily focused on the U.S. We identify and analyze five key domains where stacked energyscapes manifest: land, labor, infrastructure, finance, and policy and regulation. Conceptualizing energy transitions as stacked energyscapes can sharpen understandings of transitions in extractive communities so as to better enable just transitions and reduce the environmental footprint of the energy sector.