Solar Technology and Global Environmental Justice

Description

Building on insights from ecological economics and philosophy of technology, this book offers a novel, interdisciplinary approach to understand the contradictory nature of Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology. Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is rapidly emerging as a cost-effective option in the world economy. However, reports about miserable working conditions, environmentally deleterious mineral extraction and toxic waste dumps corrode the image of a problem-free future based on solar power. Against this backdrop, Andreas Roos explores whether ‘ecologically unequal exchange’ – an asymmetric transfer of labour time and natural resources – is a necessary condition for solar PV development. He demonstrates how the massive increase in solar PV installation over recent years would not have been possible without significant wage/price differences in the world economy - notably between Europe/North America and Asia- and concludes that solar PV development is currently contingent on environmental injustices in the world economy. As a solution, Roos argues that solar technology is best coupled with strategies for degrowth, which allow for a transition away from fossil fuels and towards a socially just and ecologically sustainable future. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of solar power, philosophy of technology, and environmental justice. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Acknowledgments 1 Solar technology at the brink Relating solar visions to reality Ecomodernism vs. ecorealism A note on interdisciplinarity The structure and contents of this book 2 Earthing philosophy of technology Does nature matter? What is technology? Foundations for a critical ecological philosophy of technology The technological continuum Gender, race and ecology in technology 3 The historical context of solar technology What is a metabolic regime? The rise of the industrial regime The acceleration of the industrial regime Solar power in the new metabolic regime 4 Global asymmetries in the rise of solar power The solar boom Immaterial explanations for the boom Ecologically unequal exchange between Germany and China The vision and the reality of the solar boom 5 The inherent politics of global solar technology Questioning solar technology boundaries Power density and global solar visions The political ecology of the technological boundary The vision and the reality of the solar future 6 The world and the solar module The world in the solar module The solar module in the world A critical ecological ontology of solar technology 7 Solutions beyond solar illusions Realistic envisioning Alternative solar technology Alliances for a metabolic counter-regime Appendix A: International trade volumes and embodied resources in the German–Chinese exchange Appendix B: Further considerations for calculating "power density extended" Glossary References Index