Format:
1 Online-Ressource (17 Seiten)
ISSN:
1354-9839
,
1354-9839
Content:
Issues of connectivity between different infrastructure sectors have received surprisingly little attention in recent research. Despite huge interest in issues of sectoral integration surrounding the water–energy nexus, researchers have rarely considered what this might mean for the coupling of infrastructure systems for water/wastewater and energy services. Consequently, the implications of greater connectivity for the governance and socio-spatial constitution of infrastructures are largely unexplored. This paper addresses this research gap with a case study of an attempt to use treated wastewater to produce biomass for energy on degraded land in the Berlin-Brandenburg region of Germany. It takes water reuse for energy crop production as an exemplar of work at the water–energy nexus in order to explore the institutional, spatial and physical dimensions involved in connecting two infrastructure systems to this end. It argues that cross-sectoral integration reaches far beyond issues of technological compatibility, revealing often hidden but crucial differences in the institutional and spatial configuration of energy and wastewater systems. On the basis of a comparative analysis of the institutional arrangements of the region’s wastewater and energy systems together with an empirical study of initiatives to use treated wastewater to grow energy crops the paper draws conclusions, firstly, on the potential and limitations of this particular exemplar and, secondly, on the broader implications of the case for understanding institutional challenges of cross-sectoral connectivity on the one hand and prospects for reconfiguring infrastructural relations between cities and rural areas on the other.
Content:
Peer Reviewed
Note:
Originally published as:
Timothy Moss, Matthias Naumann & Katharina Krause (2017) Turning wastewater into energy: challenges of reconfiguring regional infrastructures in the Berlin–Brandenburg region, Local Environment, 22:3, 269-285, DOI: 10.1080/13549839.2016.1195799
In:
Local environment, London [u.a.] : Taylor & Francis, 2017, 22,2016,3, Seiten 269-285, 1354-9839
Language:
English
URN:
urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-110-18452/22563-1
URL:
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