Dustin Mulvaney EESG Invited Lecture, Nov 5th at 9am PT
Anthony Levenda
Hello!
Please join the AAG's Energy and Environment Specialty Group for an exciting lecture and discussion with Prof. Dustin Mulvaney on Friday, November 5th at 12pm ET / 9am Pacific. Registration for the lecture is available at: https://bit.ly/MulvaneyEESG. More information below!
Labor, Land, and Waste and the Political Ecology of Solar Power Commodity Chains
Abstract: Solar
power is fast becoming a major source of electricity around the world.
As deployment rises to terawatts levels, these industries will drive
demand for specific materials, natural resources, labor, and lands with
solar energy resources, reconfiguring socio-ecological relations. Global
change from the development of solar power commodity chains includes
increased demand for minerals and metals such as quartz, copper,
bauxite, cassiterite, and silver, new places for metallurgy and
smelting, shifting workforce flows, occupational safety challenges from
extractive industries to semiconductor manufacturing fabs, increased
emissions and effluents from specialty chemical industries, conservation
and agricultural land use change, and questions around the safe and
responsible disposal at the of end-of-life. This talk identifies
critical research areas that need attention in human geography and
political ecology along solar power commodity chains based on
socio-ecological arrangements produced by the global solar energy
industries over the past decade.
Bio: Dustin Mulvaney is a Professor in the Environmental Studies Department at San José State University (SJSU) and a Fellow with the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines. His research includes work on just transitions, solar energy commodity chains, and natural resource development. Dr. Mulvaney's book Solar Power: Innovation, Sustainability, Environmental Justice was published by the University California Press (2019). He also wrote a textbook Sustainable Energy Transition: Socio-Ecological Dimensions of Decarbonization with Palgave-MacMillan (2020). Dustin has conducted extensive work on photovoltaic sustainability, chemical stewardship, and recycling management including the development of the e-stewards recycling standard for photovoltaics with the Basel Action Network and as a member of the Joint Committee for a sustainability leadership standard for photovoltaics at the National Standards Foundation International. Prior to SJSU, he was a National Science Foundation Science & Technology Studies Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. Dustin received his Ph.D. from the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and obtained an M.S. in Environmental Policy Studies and B.S. in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Applied Physics from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
More info at: http://dustinmulvaney.com/ and https://www.eesg.org/
Please register at: https://bit.ly/MulvaneyEESG