Reading 4

• Energy issues are driven by historically and geographically diverse forces, and have far reaching implications. Energy is the most significant resource, and is also a key factor in social justice, climate change, geopolitics, and the provisioning of basic goods and services (Zimmerer, 2011)
• Energy production, distribution and consumption are entwined as social-environmental actions which occur across multiple scales (Zimmerer, 2011)
• Much of the development and application of energy modelling is focused on renewables. For example, modelling geophysical impacts for wind and solar energy, which allows knowledge of the optimum places to put resources to allow for an increased capacity (Zimmerer, 2011)
• Remote sensing can be used in energy modelling to categorise certain landscapes, e.g. for least disturbances when placing a wind turbine, or for certain plants which are optimum for biofuel use (Zimmerer, 2011)
• GIS can be used in energy modelling to index footprint models, and estimate for emissions and sequestrations in an area with different energy sources to allow for the most sustainable energy balance while still maintaining the ecosystem and meeting demand (Zimmerer, 2011)
• Modern day imperialism, mostly the United States, is primarily focused on oil extraction in regions like the Middle East, Western Amazon, West Africa, Caspian Basin and more. Clashes and conflicts over energy investment, governance and infrastructure are common (Zimmerer, 2011)
• Energy security and energy scarcity are contested concepts that are consequences of geophysical factors and social factors defined in national and international contexts (Zimmerer, 2011)
• Globally installed capacity of wind and solar energy generating capacity is increasing 30-50% per year, however wind has scaling challenges. Local opposition is often notable in wind projects due to the impact which wind turbines have on the landscape (Zimmerer, 2011)
• Hydropower is often seen as constrained in development scope due to social and environmental limitations of the resource, however new hydropower projects are still being developed (Zimmerer, 2011)
• Energy consumption ranges from distribution networks for industrial use to the household level, and are important landscapes of production (Zimmerer, 2011)
• Energy issues are also important when considering industry, transportation, and buildings. All of these areas hold opportunities for policy interventions and efficiency improvements which can benefit from the role of Geography (Zimmerer, 2011)
• Escalation of energy issues is bringing in geographies of peace, conflict, and climate. Water resources development, urbanization, food and agriculture, and many other topics involved in geographical study are also important to energy issues (Zimmerer, 2011)