Rundale

This month’s issue of Rundale is a themed issue on energy: something so central to our modern lives, yet often taken for granted. As the need to reduce emissions in the context of an intensifying climate crisis becomes more urgent, and with the rising cost of energy dragging people into energy poverty, energy demands more and more of our attention. This issue draws together analysis of different energy transitions and energy justice struggles in Ireland to help us think about who the winners and losers are in our current trajectory, where power lies, and how we can shape an alternative energy future. 

Tying together many of the themes of this issue, Rory Rowan and Patrick Bresnihan argue that we need a ‘political’ ecology that understands different power relations, histories of uneven development, and different relationship to land and technology.

Niamh Donnelly writes about Ireland’s emerging ‘biogas boom’, which promises renewable gas for heating, additional income for farmers, and ‘green’ energy security. However, the scale and speed envisioned entail significant burdens for rural communities, risking the entrenchment of gas infrastructure and the reproduction of spatial injustice. In response, she argues for a waste-first, community-led model governed by ecological limits. 

Conchúr Ó Maonaigh illustrates how Ireland’s efforts to develop an electric vehicle (EV) market have fallen far short of its legally binding climate targets, exposing a major mismatch between national climate commitments and the realities of the global automobile industry. This article argues that who is to blame cannot be seperated from where power over the technological pathways that shape EVs is located.

Recent news headlines about delays to the construction of transport infrastructure in Dublin have many of us questioning why can’t we seem to build infrastructure anymore. Was it always like this? Does it have to be this way forever? Adam Stoneman reminds us of the extraordinary story of Ardnacrusha, which suggests we can and must deliver public works for the common good.

Ireland is once again a test bed for capitalist innovation as the country’s energy transition is moulded to the interests of monopoly tech. Patrick Bresnihan and Patrick Brodie write about how this tech-driven energy future also marks the deepening of Ireland’s dependency on US capital, a model of development that has generated a certain degree of (unequally distributed) wealth but at the cost of a widening democratic deficit.

If you are interested in being part of this conversation on Ireland’s energy transition or just hearing more about it, join us on Wednesday the 3rd of December at 7pm in Clarke’s City Arms, D7 for a discussion with some of the authors from this issue.