Second chances for infrastructure and reliability in the energy transition

Attempting to enact political and economic transformation without infrastructure support – without a way of pumping water, growing food, or delivering healthcare – is like doing origami with smoke. No matter how ambitious your scheme, how virtuosic your technique, the folds vanish as soon as you make them. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8414030/

You needn’t be clairvoyant to realize that the energy transition–whether in its reformist or radical versions–means a host of second chances for critical infrastructures and their provision of reliable services.

With or without Stop-Oil, infrastructures will remain central to energy provision and interconnectivity; with or without Sustainability, reliability will be demanded across that interconnected provision. Yes, of course, technologies and system configurations will change, but even the keywords of the radical versions–transformative, emancipatory–are redolent with the promise of second chances along the way. So too then for the concepts and practices of infrastructure and reliability.

So what? For one thing the Climate Emergency portends all manner of illiquidity, not least of which are today’s critical infrastructures being tomorrow’s stranded assets. But “stranded” underscores the place-based character of the assets. Stranded also implies the possibility of other uses for the infrastructure. Stranded, in other words, means taking the places for second chances very seriously.

Will the energy transition(s) be granular enough to do so?