Rendering Renewable: Technoscience and the Political Economy of Waste-to-Energy Regulation in the European Union

Drawing on insights at the intersection of political ecology and studies that examine neoliberalism as an approach to scientific governance, this article interrogates the scientific rationales that underpin (1) waste incineration’s categorization as a type of renewable energy technology in the European Union (EU) and (2) the market expansions that enable the financial viability of the region’s waste-to-energy (WTE) industry. This investigation builds on the emerging literature on renewable energy infrastructure as socioecological fix and is driven by the question, “How has WTE come to serve as a renewable energy source and socioecological fix in the European Union?” I demonstrate how specific scientific methods and formulas in EU waste and energy policy serve to prop up WTE production as a type of renewable energy and support the construction and subsequent expansion of a regional market in municipal solid waste trade. In sum, this article provides a contemporary empirical example of the connected scientific and political economic processes through which an energy source is classified as renewable and the ensuing capital accumulation opportunities that this designation produces. In doing so, it contributes to dialogues about the political ecology of renewable energy transitions, especially those that articulate a critique of the scientific logics and uneven social power relations related to those transitions. Its normative objective is to illuminate the political economic logics embedded in the technoscience of renewable energy policy and thus open up spaces for alternate discourses and knowledge claims around the renewability of controversial energy technologies to emerge and take hold. Key Words: renewable energy transitions, socioecological fix, technoscience, waste-to-energy.