Supply Chain Justice and the Rural Geographies of the Just Transition

Critical Ecologies

The Irish government plans to produce 70% of its electricity from domestic renewable energy by 2030. Onshore wind production is the cornerstone of these targets, with projects developing across the country that seeks to reassemble the energy system. New pressures and tensions are emerging at different scales between private networks, the state, and the communities enrolled in these new renewable energy regimes. In this podcast, Conchúr Ó Mhaonaigh describes developments within the Finn Valley region of Donegal, Ireland, paying particular attention to the Meenbog wind farm. Using secondary analysis of state documents, newspaper articles, and social media posts, Conchúr explores the relationship between Meenbog Wind Farm’s political-economic configurations and the agency and knowledge expressed through the anti-wind politics found in the Finn Valley region. We discuss the politics of scale that is playing out in Meenbog and Finn Valley’s onshore wind developments, opening up useful questions for future scholarship and activism on renewable energy and decarbonization.