Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

9-2023

Abstract

Experiences of fires are mediated by energy infrastructures and refracted through social inequality and difference. In California, a state marked by increasingly intense and frequent wildfires, the grid is a source of fire risk, with historically marginalized groups bearing the brunt of exposures to wildfire smoke. Drawing on research conducted by one of the co-authors in collaboration with California’s Karuk Tribe and Blue Lake Rancheria Tribes, this empirically grounded review article expands our understanding of grids. Extant scholarship presents the grid as a networked infrastructure mediating access to energy and one’s relationship to a collective and the state. We extend this analysis by highlighting the diverse and unevenly distributed forms of risk entangled with the electric grid, focusing on those related to fire and smoke. We conclude by considering alternative infrastructural arrangements entailing different relationships to the grid with potential for more just futures in the context of climate change.

Keywords

California, electricity, energy, fi re, grid, infrastructure, risk, smoke

Discipline

Energy Policy | Environmental Policy | Place and Environment

Publication

Environment and Society: Adavances in Research

Volume

14

Issue

1

First Page

1228

Last Page

141

ISSN

2150-6779

Identifier

10.3167/ares.2023.140108

Publisher

Berghahn

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.3167/ares.2023.140108

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