Short Abstract

This panel explores the tensions between upscaling visions and alternative, localized pathways in the ‘green gas’ sector (e.g., hydrogen, biomethane). It invites contributions on infrastructure, knowledge, and territorial energy justice, questioning visions for expanding ‘green gas’ development.

Description

‘Green gases’—hydrogen, anaerobic digestion, and emerging sectors— have become a crucial component of numerous energy transition strategies, where their expansion is often justified by cost-efficiency and connectivity. From the REPowerEU Plan to national roadmaps, policy frameworks present large-scale infrastructures and production sites as unavoidable steps towards decarbonizing energy systems. Yet, these visions frequently replicate fossil fuel logics, marginalize alternative knowledge systems, and reinforce territorial inequalities.

This panel invites contributions that critically examine the politics of scale in ‘green gas’ transitions. Drawing on STS literature on sociotechnical futures (Konrad et al. 2017), scalability (Tsing, 2012), co-production (Jasanoff, 2004), and infrastructural dependencies (Star, 1999), we seek to explore the plurality of transition pathways, between traditional economies of scale, scalar biases (Sareen, 2021) or processes of “deep scaling” (Laurent & Violle, 2025). It emphasizes how various actors envision, contest, enact, and materialize the futures of ‘green gases’ at multiple scales.

We welcome contributions that trace these dynamics across different domains, including policy, technological innovation, media, and broader societal discourses, addressing (but not limited to) the following themes:

• Knowledge and expertise: How do dominant epistemic communities shape ‘green gas’ futures? What forms of knowledge are excluded or rendered invisible?

• Materialities and infrastructures: What alternative configurations challenge the fossil-based ‘green gas’ infrastructures? How do material dependencies constrain or enable different futures?

• Territorialization and justice: How do ‘green gas’ infrastructures reconfigure space and reproduce inequalities? Which territories are prioritized or marginalized, and what forms of resistance emerge?

• Visions and imaginaries: How do upscaling visions relate to sociotechnical imaginaries? What alternative visions are being articulated?

By intersecting perspectives on different ‘green gases’ across national, regional, and local scales, this panel aims to foster dialogue on the contested futures of ‘green gases’ in transitions and the role of STS in imagining defossilized, just, and plural energy transitions.

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