EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The coal story: Generational coal mining communities and strategies of energy transition in Australia

Hannah Della Bosca and Josephine Gillespie

Energy Policy, 2018, vol. 120, issue C, 734-740

Abstract: The implications of place attachment and loss in generational coal mining communities are currently under-examined in energy transition discourse in Australia. By examining public submissions regarding a coal mining development in Lithgow, New South Wales, this paper identifies a relationship between coal mining and generational identity in this community. Acknowledging this relationship adds a useful perspective to energy transition discourse by highlighting the way in which hidden dimensions of loss can act to reinforce local support of extractive industry. We combine recent scholarship on the emotionality of the minescape (Ey & Sherval, 2016; Ey et al., 2017) with work on the ways in which place attachment can translate to feelings of loss in response to material change (Adger et al., 2013; Barnett et al., 2016; Tschakert et al., 2017) to suggest that factors of time and place can make community-level actors within the energy landscape either receptive, or resistant, to change. Applying this understanding to decarbonisation strategies can inform a more effective, and more just, energy transition in Australia.

Keywords: Coal; Transition; Energy; Place attachment; Community (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421518302489
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:120:y:2018:i:c:p:734-740

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2018.04.032

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:120:y:2018:i:c:p:734-740