Martin Pasqualetti

• Ph.D. - University of California, Riverside
• Professor at Arizona State University

Landscape legacies of conventional energy development are vast. Mines, well fields, power plants, sub-stations, refineries, and disposal sites have been accumulating for more than a century. We know these energy landscapes exist, but we are uncertain what to do with them once their initial function is completed. Can they be used for any future purp...

As our crowded and warming world continues moving away from fossil fuels such as coal, we are increasingly attempting to transform the landscapes damaged by mining into beneficial, appealing and valuable new uses. The post-mining transformation involves many dilemmas, often arouses land use conflicts and can reproduce environmental injustices. In t...

This article examines how energy landscapes can be transformed and how we can apply the niche effect of diffusion and adoption of innovation in recycling such energy landscapes into more sustainable reuse. As such, recycling our energy landscapes helps meet the needs of the present while incorporating prudence, intergenerational equity, precaution,...

This article examines how energy landscapes can be transformed and how we can apply the niche effect of diffusion and adoption of innovation in recycling such energy landscapes into more sustainable reuse. As such, recycling our energy landscapes helps meet the needs of the present while incorporating prudence, intergenerational equity, precaution,...

As environmental worries rise with the growing demand for electricity, we are searching for a way to address both problems simultaneously. Although solar energy development can satisfy both challenges at the same time, its vast potential remains largely untapped. Why is that? We address this question by examining solar development in two places tha...

Here is the first of a planned series of articles I have in the works on the topic of recycling of energy landscapes. The basic idea is that we must abandon the linear approach to the landscapes we create when developing the energy we need. Currently the approach to energy landscapes is: create, exploit, abandon. We must change that to: create, exp...

On Sunday, August 13, 2023, Stanislav Martinát – a respected Czech geographer and member of the Editorial Board of Moravian Geographical Reports journal – died after a short serious illness at the age of 47. Despite his relatively young age, Stanislav Martinát was one of the most productive and the most cited Czech geographers. He is the author or...

Coal energy landscapes have changed dramatically over the last decades, including geographic shifts in production and consumption, technological changes that have reduced labour demand and led to relatively new mining practices (e.g. invasive mountain-top approaches), changed economic footprints, a shutdown of capacities or a complete end of mining...

Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures explores how our dominant carbon and nuclear energy assemblages shape conceptions of participation, risk, and in/securities, and how they might be reengineered to deliver justice and democratic participation in transitioning energy systems.

Chapter 7 considers the role of energy policies in supporting one resource over another and the effect each choice can make on everyone’s future health. It emphasizes the relative positions of energy policy and energy technology, explaining why policy decisions can have significant and long-lasting repercussions. It inspects the shortcomings of rap...

Chapter 12 points out that handling energy can be a dangerous business, whether producing it, consuming it, or living near any energy activity. It illustrates the risks and hazards that accompany the energy we use and ranks the dangers associated with various fossil fuels, nuclear fuels, and alternative fuels such as solar and wind. It simplifies t...

Chapter 13 distinguishes between “energy in business” and the “business of energy,” classifying energy businesses by stages in the fuel chain. It emphasizes millions of jobs in the business of energy (e.g., utility companies) and millions of dollars spent to support the broadest range of business, from high-end users such as the manufacturers of al...

Chapter 5 presents an overview of the environmental costs that accrue from satisfying our need for energy in all its forms. It explains the types and intensity of environmental impacts from fossil fuels, nuclear power, and renewable energy. It addresses the environmental costs of energy on air, land, and water. At the same time, it explores whether...

Chapter 14 looks to the future, explores the pros and cons of present and future energy sources, and defends the deliberative approach used in democratic societies in adjusting to global environmental threats to humanity. It identifies the impediments to the rapid growth of renewable energy in the United States and explains the role renewable energ...

Chapter 9 emphasizes that because cities are where most people live, their form, function, operation, and development play a dominant role in energy demand. The increasing demand for energy in urban areas results from their swelling population and also their form; horizontal cities are inherently less energy efficient than vertical cities. Will fut...

Chapter 4 argues that energy in all its forms and phases finds expression in the wide spectrum of media, traditional to electronic, because energy is woven into everything we do. It aims to increase the appreciation of how artistic expression reflects the vital roles of energy in human lives. It evaluates the changing forms of artistic expression o...

Chapter 1 illustrates the myriad influences energy has on our lives. It guides us to understand where we encounter the influences of energy, even those we do not usually recognize. It simplifies the world’s complexity by identifying energy as the single most influential driver of human actions and decisions. It outlines how intricately energy moves...

The purpose of Chapter 10 is to stretch our understanding of the role energy plays in matters fundamental to how we live our lives and interact with others. It identifies the relationships between access to energy and human well-being, recognizing that energy access is a leading determinant influencing the life we will lead. It stresses the importa...

Chapter 3 assesses how humans use energy to fuel their bodies and provide the comforts of daily life. It compares the energy used to bring various foods to the dinner table, arguing that commercial meat production holds unacceptably high energy and environmental costs. It identifies the principles of “smart cars” and “smart grids,” as it stresses t...

Chapter 6 considers climate change as an existential threat. It summarizes the impacts of climate change on people now living as it evaluates arguments for and against its human-caused origins. It differentiates between the likely environmental and human costs of global climate change, and it identifies the multiple sources of greenhouse gases by s...

Chapter 2 compares the changes in lifestyle that accompanied each energy transition, from early hunting and gathering to present uses such as rockets and robots. It explains how human control of fire affected the rise of civilization and compares energy sources in terms of their increasing energy density. It describes the differences in personal en...

The Thread of Energy simplifies the world’s complexity by recognizing energy as the single most important influence on human behavior. It exposes how fundamental is energy on our lives, our security, and our relationships with others in an ever-shrinking and complicated world. It examines the typical inspiration energy has on all activities, ways o...

Chapter 11 compares the quality of lifestyles at different positions on the energy ladder, beginning with low-density non-commercial fuels such as dung, and rising to the pure energy form of electricity. How you live depends on where you are on the energy ladder. The chapter seeks to identify how energy availability and consumption tie to personal...

Energy weaves the tapestry of our lives, and it does so in more ways than we usually recognize. While it is clear that it powers our homes, airplanes, and factories, its overwhelming influence often goes without notice in other areas, from the heartbreak of poverty to the motivation for war. While maintaining its availability has the potential to c...

Energy from a social perspective

Abstract Everywhere in the world, and in every period of human history, it has been common for energy decisions to be made in an ethically haphazard manner. With growing population pressure and increasing demand for energy, this approach is no longer viable. We believe that decision makers must include ethical considerations in energy decisions mor...

Considerations pertinent to the discussion of a possible nuclear renaissance in the USA

Objectives and Targets In 2017, total system electric generation for California consumption was 292,039 gigawatt-hours (GWh), up 0.5 percent from 2016's total generation of 290,567 GWh. For in-state generation California's non-CO 2 emitting electric generation categories (nuclear, large hydroelectric, wind and solar) accounted for more than 56 perc...

Solar photovoltaic (PV) can help meet the growing demand for clean electricity in Arizona. This paper answers where solar PV development has taken place in Arizona, how much suitable land is available for utility-scale PV development, and how future land cover changes can affect the availability of this suitable land. PV development suitability sco...

Central Europe is replete with legacy contaminated sites, commonly called “brownfields”. The question is what can be done to remediate them and make them again safe and useful to society. This question is addressed in post-socialistic city of Brno, the Czech Republic. Our research assesses public perceptions of such sites that are currently utilize...

This paper proposes 'agrivoltaic' system development within Phoenix Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) with the objective to generate clean energy in the agricultural lands using solar PV (Photovoltaics) systems thus reducing land commitment and also preserving the agricultural land in the process. Phoenix MSA comprises of two of the fastest growi...

One of the main drivers of landscape transformation has been our demand for energy. We refer to the results of such transformations as "energy landscapes". This paper examines the definition of energy landscapes within a conceptual framework, proposes a classification of energy landscapes, and describes the key characteristics of energy landscapes...

Doom Towns chronicles, in the “graphic” genre increasingly popular nowadays, the ominous activities that took place over several decades at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). Hundreds of nuclear bombs were detonated there, including 800 underground. Setting the land aside, isolating it from outside intrusion, and testing weapons there created a landscape...

Solar energy is not only valuable for the electricity it can generated. There are many other value propositions as well, including shade, environmental improvements to open space, product placement.

Energy has become a central concern of many strands of geographical inquiry, from global climate change to the effects of energy decisions on our lives. However, many aspects of the 'black box' of relationships at the energy-society interface remain unopened, especially in terms of the spatial underpinnings of energy production and consumption with...

Agricultural anaerobic digestion plants have recently become a typical part of rural landscape in the Czech Republic due to massive governmental subvention programmes. Yet, their potential as an effective tool how to response to global climate changes at a local level is rather underused (maize used as a primary input mainly, usage of waste heat is...

A wide ranging, comprehensive and innovate mapping of the geographies of the energy-society interface.

The Renewable Energy Landscape is a definitive guide to understanding, assessing, avoiding, and minimizing scenic impacts as we transition to a more renewable energy future. It focuses attention, for the first time, on the unique challenges solar, wind, and geothermal energy will create for landscape protection, planning, design, and management. Se...

A persistent paradox in the global boom of renewable energy revolves around how little of its vast potential has been developed on Native American lands. For economic and environmental reasons, attempts to reverse this pattern are on the rise. Such plans will encounter many unique conditions, particularly those related to tribal norms, customs, and...

The World Health Organization’s ‘energy ladder’ illustrates the forms of energy found across the globe today, ranging from scavenged animal dung to electricity as fueled primarily by coal, hydropower, and nuclear energy. In this chapter, we argue that this ladder positions catastrophic risks at every rung, including ecological destruction and human...

The connections between climate, energy and water have become so profound, important and expensive that we cannot avoid recognizing their impacts all around us. There are many links between energy and water, but one of the most important - albeit ‘hidden’ - is the thirst thermoelectric power plants have for water. Currently, this need accounts for...

The American southwest has among the best solar resources in the world. For this reason, the solar industry monitors the progress of solar energy development there closely. Yet, meaningful adoption has been slow, particularly in the state with the richest resource, Arizona. This article reports on the results of internet surveys and personal interv...

There may be no more conspicuous example of a conflict between society and technology than a wind energy landscape. The fastest growing renewable energy resource in the world, wind energy has evoked a cool public response. Through the use of interviews, the published literature, governing legislation, and personal experience, this article examines...

Our move through the history of energy use has produced imprints we at first did not see or chose by circumstance to ignore. Awareness of such imprints was at the outset stunted by the eagerness of our need and the vastness of our planet. The changes we now deem obvious, ubiquitous and increasingly troubling accumulated over many years from numerou...

Exchanging irrigated agriculture with renewable energy development in the Imperial Valley of California will increase land values and save water for other purposes.

In 1961, the Canadian geographer John D. Chapman recognized the rapid growth in demand for inanimate energy and the role geographers could be playing in explaining its patterns and importance in the growing world economy (Chapman, 1961). Fifty years later, Karl Zimmerer (2011) introduced a Special Issue of the Annals of the Association of American...

Since the field of geography encompasses broad study of interactions between humans and the environment, the concept of energy has been operationalized and studied in several ways. These approaches have included energy balance studies in geographical climatology, energy resource availability and conservation in applied climatic research, cultural g...

The Colorado River Basin (CRB) supplies much of the resource underpinning the mushrooming cities of the American Southwest— water. Water managers diligently track its distribution and usage to the seven states served by the CRB, but this accounting ignores water embodied in the goods it helps produce. Electricity is a valuable export from the CRB,...

This paper presents a view of the energy landscapes of the present and the future, with a discussion as well of the turning point that is now presenting us with a critical choice. In the future, we will embrace either business as usual or a transition to a more sustainable energy future.

Energy security, once solely a local matter, has evolved into several scales of consideration – household, workplace, nation-state, and global systems. In result, energy policies addressing energy security must evolve as well. Based on discussions at a two-day workshop in Singapore, this paper summarizes four of the most important. First, in order...

Wind energy is one of the fastest growing sources of power generation in the world. While general public and political support for wind energy is often high, siting wind farms frequently raises concerns in local communities, and individual projects often fail because of effective public opposition. This paper presents the results of a postal and on...

The American southwest has among the best solar resources in the world. For this reason, the solar industry monitors the progress of solar energy development there closely. Yet, meaningful adoption has been slow, particularly in the state with the richest resource, Arizona. This article reports on the results of internet surveys and personal interv...

Our way of life mirrors the energy we use and the impacts we create. Examining this reflection, we see a high living standard that depends on a portfolio of energy resources of which each carries its own burden. Our use of fossil fuels pollutes the skies, stains the seas and tortures the land; nuclear power poses insidious risks to people now livin...

The next generation of energy megaprojects can follow two paths. One path will be lead toward increasing our supply of oil. It will include oil shale and oil sands. The other path will lead toward increasing our supply of electricity, which will include wind and solar power. We are just beginning our journey down both of these paths, but they will...

Energy and water are interlinked. The development, use, and waste generated by demand for both resources drive global change. Managing them in tandem offers potential for global-change adaptation but presents institutional challenges. This paper advances understanding of the water–energy nexus by demonstrating how these resources are coupled at mul...

Although wind power is local, sustainable, affordable, and carbon free, mounting public opposition to the landscape changes it produces threatens its expansion. In an era when many countries are looking to renewable energy as an answer to questions about national security and the risks of climate change, it is important to explain the sources of th...

After many years of slow progress, we find that worldwide environmental, political, and economic pressures are providing greater purchase for the accelerated development of renewable energy. Although many people would consider this quickening pace good news, the transition from conventional resources has encountered public resistance. In this artic...

Like many other sub-tropical deserts in the world, the southwestern U.S. has high rates of solar insolation. However, meaningful development there, especially in solar-rich Arizona, has been slow. This article addresses why this is so by concentrating on one critical contributor to success--workforce development. To identify shortcomings and needed...