Turning Point

“This is the turning point,” said the guide as we toured the Welzow Süd mine, pointing to a specific spot on the map. From 2012 onwards, the mine’s expansion changed direction, and a new section was brought into production. The “turning point” is therefore both a very precise point on the map and in space, associated with a particular temporality : a new area will be mined over the following years, according to a well-defined schedule. It’s a point of reference in space and at the same time a point of reference in time. The mine is a spatio-temporal object in its own right, with its own constraints and stages of exploitation, its own history and geography. It swallows the earth and drinks its water at its own relentless pace, spiraling outwards like a boa, which absorbs masses of soil into its swollen stomach, then spits them out and turns in another direction to continue its trajectory.

The expression “turning point” caught my attention because it resonates with an expression commonly used to talk about the energy transition. As the energy transition is a process, it too involves successive stages, and breaks. In its broadest sense, it involves making changes to energy sources and consumption, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It implies profound changes in the political, technical, economic and social spheres. However, the turning point associated with mining, as referred to by the guide, is not so much a new inflection as a cyclical continuation of the same process. In the image of the snake, the mine slithers a little further into the earth, and reproduces its sand consumption and discharges.

Just after leaving the lignite mine, we visited Welzow III solar park. The contrast between these two energy production sites is striking! With its photovoltaic panels spread out in tidy rows, the space communicates uniformity, immobility and technological coolness, far from the image of the ground-eating beast of the mine. Here, there’s no bustling machinery, no flow of sand and coal, nothing is moving. While the mine’s machinery produces the occasional clatter and creak, the constant crackle of the inverter mingles with birdsong. The solar panels spread out and cover the land, but don‘t interact with the ground. Their materiality is totally foreign to the immediate environment. There is no relationship with the surrounding. The photovoltaic field may expand, but at its scale, it has no center of gravity, no turning point. The materials it needs are from the bowels of another beast, on the other side of the world.

The spatial and temporal nature of the turning point doesn’t just apply to mining. The energy transition brings with it deadlines and benchmarks, objectives to be achieved over the next few years. These temporal deadlines are closely associated with spatial evolutions: the territories of an energy system based on renewables are not the same as those of fossil fuels. Thinking in terms of the energy transition means thinking about these territories in the making and the new spaces that will be consumed into the belly of the snake. A different snake than the one from the the mine, with a different, perhaps more complex shape.