This chapter aims to read the aesthetic, economic, and political dimensions of solar finance. Solar power often operates as a synecdoche of sustainability. Its exponential growth provides a techno-optimistic, even utopian, economic narrative, in which a market-led revolution in energy generation transforms fossil-fuelled society. The first section will turn to photography published by Lightsource bp, a solar energy company and subsidiary of bp (formerly British Petroleum), to analyse the pastoral aesthetic of this novel infrastructure. The second section will show how solar’s conceptual abstraction enables narratives of financial accumulation. The third section will look at the discourse deployed by bp when describing their role in the energy transition, and specifically their adoption of a ‘Just Transition’ framework. I offer a contrasting framework, temporal justice, which aims to supersede the limitations of just transitions as proposed by bp.

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Making Light Work: Genres of Solar Finance

  • Harry Pitt Scott

摘要

This chapter aims to read the aesthetic, economic, and political dimensions of solar finance. Solar power often operates as a synecdoche of sustainability. Its exponential growth provides a techno-optimistic, even utopian, economic narrative, in which a market-led revolution in energy generation transforms fossil-fuelled society. The first section will turn to photography published by Lightsource bp, a solar energy company and subsidiary of bp (formerly British Petroleum), to analyse the pastoral aesthetic of this novel infrastructure. The second section will show how solar’s conceptual abstraction enables narratives of financial accumulation. The third section will look at the discourse deployed by bp when describing their role in the energy transition, and specifically their adoption of a ‘Just Transition’ framework. I offer a contrasting framework, temporal justice, which aims to supersede the limitations of just transitions as proposed by bp.