Revolutionary Power: An Activist's Guide to the Energy Transition

by Shalanda Baker

In September 2017, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, completely upending the energy grid of the small island. The nearly year-long power outage that followed vividly shows how the new climate reality intersects with race and access to energy. The island is home to brown and black US citizens who lack the political power of those living in the continental US. As the world continues to warm and storms like Maria become more commonplace, it is critical that we rethink our current energy system to enable reliable, locally produced, and locally controlled energy without replicating the current structures of power and control.

In Revolutionary Power , Shalanda Baker arms those made most vulnerable by our current energy system with the tools they need to remake the system in the service of their humanity. She argues that people of color, poor people, and indigenous people must engage in the creation of the new energy system in order to upend the unequal power dynamics of the current system.

Revolutionary Power is a playbook for the energy transformation complete with a step-by-step analysis of the key energy policy areas that are ripe for intervention. Baker tells the stories of those who have been left behind in our current system and those who are working to be architects of a more just system. She draws from her experience as an energy-justice advocate, a lawyer, and a queer woman of color to inspire activists working to build our new energy system.

Climate change will force us to rethink the way we generate and distribute energy and regulate the system. But how much are we willing to change the system? This unique moment in history provides an unprecedented opening for a deeper transformation of the energy system, and thus, an opportunity to transform society. Revolutionary Power shows us how.
 

Genres: Nonfiction, Environment, Climate Change, Sustainability, Social Justice, Nature, Economics

224 pages, Paperback

Published January 14, 2021

Reviews

[Nina Peluso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Critical reading for energy industry folks right now. This is one of those sector-specific books that you *hope* will be outdated soon but fear never will be. I found the chapter on climate change fundamentalism particularly important for people working in the field.

For those not in energy, I imagine this book provides a pretty decent intro to utility regulation, the stakeholders who hold power in shaping the U.S. grid, and some of the emerging approaches to reforming/tearing down the existing system. (But maybe Google the FERC Energy Primer and have it on hand to dive deeper into more technical topics)

"If those best positioned and with the most resources to infuse equity into the debates on climate and energy fail to do so, inequality will be baked into the policies meant to transition our society away from fossil fuels."

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book specifically to get a different perspective on renewable energy project development and deployment... and to that end, Baker delivered. Revolutionary Power is her semi-autobiographical manifesto for why renewable energy development must occur differently to avoid saddling the same people victimized by the fossil fuel-powered economy with disproportionate burden and little benefit. The book is thought-provoking, but as a first non-academic publication for Baker perhaps it's the lack of skillful structure that makes me hesitate to recommend it as a convincing gut-check for the mainstream renewable energy industry.

Excellent expose journalism uses story to illustrate what would otherwise be abstract facts in the interest of enticing the reader into a thriller with shocking conclusions and hidden conspiracy. Baker leads with her own family's experience being abused by the oil & gas industry, seemingly as a way of describing her journey to energy justice... but not necessarily ours? Other anecdotes in the book seem also to underline the idea that knowing someone and their background is what validates their story, perspective, and subsequently their position in a debate. And I'd agree that's persuasive... if you happen to have a similar personal experience or background. If not, it's more common to interweave statistics and anecdotes (typically not your own) as a form of multimodal argument to help readers become personally invested in a problem that's new to them. The first few chapters actually could have been a moving memoir about Baker's personal journey back to her roots as an agent of change. But knowing Baker's backstory didn't ultimately affect how valid I thought the rest of her conclusions were, though I got the impression it was supposed to.

No one could accuse Baker of not knowing her subject. The examples she offers about how energy justice themes influenced or failed to influence clean energy policy in Hawaii, New York, Connecticut, and other geographies are detailed and offer an insider perspective into the sausage-making that is energy regulatory policy. Baker's understanding of these policy processes and the political influences that shape them convincingly supports her conviction that energy justice advocates must be active policymakers to fundamentally shift the status quo. The most interesting parallel I saw between Baker's analysis and my work in energy and energy access in Africa was related to how project companies (and the laws that compel them to do so) compensate people for infrastructure projects in their community. In the U.S. and in rural Tanzania, Nigeria, Zambia cutting cost for people whose fundamental lifestyle constraint is their low incomes is kind of a back-handed favor. Sure your power bills will be 40% lower but given you weren't consuming much in the first place is that really a meaningful "benefit"? Especially in the U.S., where local governments may have greater fiscal and administrative competence, it could make a lot of sense for county and state governments to use taxpayer funds to buy project equity on behalf of local residents, then distribute dividends annually. Projects built locally would then provide additional streams of income and help residents build wealth, rather than cutting cost for people who already spend so little. Baker's invocation of South African BBBEE scheme is her attempt to point as such a wealth-building solution, but I'd argue that's an ill-informed choice of policy model, given that even black South Africans consider BBBEE's most evident achievement to be enriching wealthy black members of the ruling political party.

Baker diligently delivers the energy justice party line on how new energy should center the concerns of "communities" over the self-serving agendas of "investors" or "shareholders." Which is where there seems to be a missed opportunity for true revolutionary thinking. If energy justice is about replacing "communities" on the pedestal we currently reserve for "investors," then as advocates we trap ourselves in a moral face-off with financiers about which of these groups is more "worthy" of benefits. Financiers don't speak this language. To avoid the hassle of learning new grammar and vocabulary, my guess is that they will continue to sideline, patronize, or ignore energy justice concerns presented in this language so long as they can afford to. Can we instead remove the mystique of "communities," "investors," or "shareholders" as holy or demonic entities and have conversations about the concerns of people? The people contributing to an enterprise in one way or another, and what benefits those contributions earn? I believe such framing would open more space for developers to optimize during project financing for the benefits of residents, just like we would investors, rather than breaking off "community issues" into a separate workstream for the ESG specialists to deal with and keep out of everyone else's way.

This book forced me to engage with a new perspective, and ultimately gave me radical new ideas for how renewable energy developers could approach project financing and community engagement as energy justice allies. But this was borne out of the tension I felt between Baker's oversimplification of community-finance industry conflict vs. my experience as a project developer... not Baker's own insights. Performing as a personal theory of change, expose of the centralized energy system's crushing costs, detailed energy policy analysis and commentary, and rallying cry against our capitalist overlords, Revolutionary Power is juggling too many balls for one book. And this hobbles its potential to build what I see as a desperately needed common language, purpose, and objectives for energy justice visionaries and "traditional" renewable energy developers alike. That's my take on what this book could have accomplished, though the author may have had other objectives or a different audience in mind who'd judge its success differently.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it… a little repetitive in spots but will be referring back to it regularly.

[Marc Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Climate change will force us to rethink the way we generate and distribute energy and regulate the system. In the book, Shalanda argues that the transformation of the energy system is a civil rights issue and offers practical steps to upend the energy sector’s unequal power dynamics. I was honored to have Shalanda on my podcast Inside Ideas, just before it was official that she was appointed the Deputy Director for Energy Justice at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), when the DOE announced its new Biden-Harris Administration senior leadership appointees. Fantastic!
You can find episode 63 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5LAt...

Or check out the links below:
https://www.innovatorsmag.com/power-a...
https://www.innovatorsmag.com/inside-...
https://medium.com/inside-ideas/shala...

[Ben Norman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought Baker's perspective and priorities in the transition varied slightly from what I'm used to hearing from academics and technologists via podcasts and other energy books. It felt like she centered people and their energy needs over "optimal" technological or policy solutions. I think this made her a bigger proponent of democratizing ownership of energy resources than other energy pundits.

One of the final chapters in Short Circuiting Policy, Stokes argued democratization was likely not to accelerate clean energy deployment. Research has shown co-ops and munis haven't been any better about adopting renewables. I'm not sure where I land on this. In a perfect world, it'd be great if everyone owned a share of their energy resources and had a say in the governance. I agree with Baker that ensuring people reap all the benefits of renewables will help accelerate deployment.

That being said, converting IOUs into public utilities seems daunting and may not guarantee more democratic outcomes. I think of Maine's recent ballot proposition to buy the two IOUs and convert them into a state-wide public utility. The measure failed 30 - 70. Even if they did win there would have been lawsuits and years of structing the new utility. I can't imagine an ambitious energy transition taking place during this restructuring.

IOUs business model seems directly at odds with the goals of energy efficiency and distributed resources. Maybe we don't have to decide whether or not democratizing utilities is worth it. Maybe the nature of renewables and IOUs resistance to pivot will lead to their demise and distributed governance models like community choice aggregators will win out? Maybe... I have a hard time believing IOUs will go easy.

I was thinking a lot about the Eklutna Dam in Anchorage while reading this book. The dam dried up the river and destroyed a primary food source for the Eklutna people. The feds sold it to Anchorage and two of the electric coops in the 90s. The sale required the owners to develop a river restoration plan. The plan is now being developed, and the utilities aren't being receptive to the requests from the Eklutna people partly because the dam produces the cheapest electricity on the grid. Despite the dam owners being democratic institutions (a muni assembly and two electric coops), the needs of the Eklutna people aren't being met. I guess this negotiation would be 1000x more difficult if the dam was owned by an IOU.

Eklutna feels like a battle that will play out thousands of times around the US and the world over the next few decades. I think this book encourages people to center the equity of the energy system as opposed to the technology, policy and decarb targets.

[Graham Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a proponent of clean energy and while I think the organizations I support or work for have society's best interests in mind, "Revolutionary Power" is a demonstration that not everything about the start of the energy transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewables is fine and dandy. Shalanda Baker illustrates how frontline and at risk minority communities could still suffer if the transition does not prioritize equity and will merely repeat the problems of the current power grid.

Revolutionary Power is a mixture of autobiography, introduction to energy politics/utility regulations, and in the conclusion a work of speculative environmental fiction. If I'm being honest I didn't care so much for the explanation of utility dynamics, it was pretty repetitive and even someone like myself that is involved in renewable energy development was bored so I can only imagine that someone less involved would have trouble getting through these sections. Beyond that I think Baker makes good points about the specific energy challenges that minority communities face if they want to take advantage of renewables. She presents an excellent deconstruction of the notion of "community energy" and how it's changed from its original intentions by policymakers/utilities and I found it frustrating how these same policy makers are throwing up barriers to home rooftop solar systems just as the technology is coming down in cost. While I am still a proponent of big renewable projects like offshore wind as the climate crisis/energy transition will need every tool/project it can, I've been won over by several of Baker's arguments, particularly the need to start breaking up the energy system to be less centralized in order to give communities more power over their power and able to bounce back more quickly should disaster strike.

While a bit messy and maybe not for anyone not already involved in renewable energy development or energy justice, "Revolutionary Power" presents some strong arguments and recommendations for making the energy transition a just transition and making sure our most vulnerable can get the opportunities renewable energy promises

[Joey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some beneficial information here regarding how peripheries are made exploited and reterritorialized and with novel data sets, however I can't say it's an essential work for ecologically minded folks. Perhaps the time it takes to read this work would be better spent divided between slow reading climate reports, a book like Revive the Strike, and/or perhaps a more systemic and direct materialist analysis of the economic forces rather than going halfway by just presenting what corps and NGOs retaliations may be to xyz. Id say Michael Hudson's work would fit here, tho maybe you should do as I'm about to and read Capital (all of it! We can do it!), but if that doesn't strike you Naomi Kleins work may be an even better move. Regardless I cant say this is much more than a reiteration of the terms of engagement so to speak which Indigenous and infringed populations have expressed for at least t a few centuries in writing.
Also you're doing a colonialist perspective on Climate and you avoid the massive importance of a thinker like Fanon?
Perhaps I'm too harsh but a lot of this felt like pandering for sympathy towards the authors choices rather than attempts to justify their mission against some strongly defined foil. In fact the author goes as far as to state clearly multiple times that they reject the rhetoric of impending crisis and the emphasis on timelines and rigidity and that they believe society as it is may not survive but we inevitably will be forced into a revolution by the climate over time. It's a very wishy easy way for an activist to have their accelerationism and be called a conservationist too. This reactionary mindset while a slight but noticable bump in the work has ZERO place in a world that is approaching the climate as a being within it as well.

[Marc Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shalanda Baker is one of the greatest minds of our generation. This book is really exceptional work and I continue to be inspired by her writing and work. It was a Baker article assigned to me in a class my junior year that convinced me I needed to dedicate my life to environmental work, and she has only continued to be a beacon for me in this field. Baker has without a doubt shaped the way I approach my environmental work as I am sure this work will do for many others.

This book in particular I would consider required reading for anyone doing energy work in this country. In particular, all employees of Big Greens should be required to read this book before they begin any actual work. I know so many advocates who could learn a lot by spending a few days digesting these lessons and using this as a guide for our work. If I ran a non-profit, I would send copies of this book to every single one of my clean energy and EJ advocates as part of their onboarding package. I believe the lessons and the sentiment, as well as the pragmatic policy solutions, would transform our sector for the better.

[Katelyn Donaldson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a great book on energy justice and how to center equity rather than ignore it when thinking abt ways to address clean energy systems.

Baker argues that marginalized populations should be the first to receive the benefits of clean energy due to experiencing the worst effects of the fossil fuel industry. She mainly argues for the decentralization of solar and ways that utilities can be community owned and operated and reap the cash benefits.

I most loved her explicit examples of what has worked and what hasn’t worked in regards to revolutionary power.

*though I learned so much, the organization of the book feels messy. Also v repetitive and I think could be 100 pages and get the same message across. Further, I don’t think she explains WHY equity should be conjoined w clean energy—it just seems like any conservative stakeholder would turn these policy recommendations down in a flash !

[Bennet M · Rating 3 out of 5]

A surprisingly readable book for a topic as dry as energy policy. It does seem at times that the author overstates the transformative potential of energy policy, but given her background as a lawyer and professor, it's not unexpected. Some parts were stronger than others, e.g., the discussion of "climate fundamentalism" was quite strong but the critique of the "Big Greens" was complete milquetoast. The author flirts with anti-capitalist ideas but then seems to retreat into squishy liberal concepts like improving equitable outcomes through novel financing options. All in all, a good book for energy and climate activists, that ultimately suffers for attempting to square the circle of revolutionary while not being ideological or political.

[Kyle Garske · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is excellent! Many concepts for utility structures and being extremely clear about how the current energy system harms BIPOC/low socio-economic communities at a much higher rate than others.

The only complaint is that the bulk of the book (chapters 2-5) suffers from number numbness. The author focused on listing an incredible amount of various statistical evidence for their claims, but what this left me with was confusion. I'd recommend a physical copy of the book so you can refer back and forth for the statistical figures since it is incredibly difficult to compare and understand the meaning of the numbers, especially in audio format.

[Dan Seitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview of renewable energy and how it may be able to excise systemic racism and inequality. I have a few minor nitpicks/thoughts for a second edition:

A discussion of energy efficiency and the dropping cost of solar technology would be good to have, as it will open the door to alternative methods of development.

While it is indeed a bad faith argument to say marginalized communities can be victimized by solar development, it is based in fact: Germany's policies placed the burden of cost directly on marginalized communities and on analysis of how US solar policies have worked to avoid this trap would be useful.

I would have liked an analysis of brownfields to brightfields and possible uses in that area for marginalized communities.

The focus is mostly on solar and while much of Prof. Baker's writing can apply, some thoughts there would be useful as well.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderfully accessible book with personal examples. I just learned of Baker this year while researching for a legal paper. I also enjoyed her academic articles, which were highly informative.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the solutions offered. But the book gets repetitive in outlining certain points and listing all of the “bad things.” I did not like the Hawaii in 2035 story .. kind of hokey for a book that should focus on regulatory policy in my opinion.

[Bri Ziegenhagen · Rating 5 out of 5]

!!! read this if you're interested in environmental justice, energy justice, climate change, social justice

[Ola · Rating 4 out of 5]

a very good position for everyone who's interested in environmental protection and/or social justice issues. just wish it focused a bit more on non-usa regions

[Donna H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, informative resource guide for energy equity as well as personal memoir and auto biography. Support this book by a Black queer woman leading climate justice in the Biden administration!

[Tess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book inspires me! Keeping this on my shelf for reference and as a reminder.

[Carys B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good book to talk through chapter by chapter with my work book club.

[Sarah Malott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned some new things but overall less than I was expecting

[Jennifer Yung · Rating 3 out of 5]

repetitive but insightful

[Julia Priu · Rating 4 out of 5]

good book, good message. i’m sure i’ll come back to this book at some point, just discouraging to read rn with everything going on