Why is ‘clean’ energy opposed? the resistances to geothermal energy projects in Turkey

Abstract

This study focuses on the resistance to geothermal energy projects in the Aegean region in Turkey. It explores, drawing on the analysis of documents and the fieldwork conducted in four Aegean cities, why there is a widespread local resistance to geothermal energy, which is widely promoted as environmentally benign and renewable and, as such, critical for the low-carbon energy transition. Examining the resistance from a political ecology perspective, I show how the power/resistance nexus in the field of renewable energy is shaped in those contexts where authoritarianism, populism, and geographically specific forms of capital accumulation operate in and through each other. Specifically, I demonstrate that the formulation of geothermal policy and practices to perpetuate and consolidate the power of the authoritarian populist AKP government laid the groundwork for the generation of widespread resistances by threatening to create new environmental injustices and to deepen existing class, and gender inequalities. The study also shows that geothermal energy may be as destructive as fossil fuel-based energy when not planned, regulated, or monitored effectively. It is concluded therefore that the practice of grouping renewable energy sources in a single ‘clean energy’ category should be reconsidered.

Keywords

Resistance geothermal energy renewable energy authoritarian populism Turkey

Introduction

In parallel with many other countries, Turkey has dramatically expanded its renewable energy resources within the last two decades. Yet, as is also the case in some other countries, the development of renewables in Turkey increasingly instigates local resistance. Examining such resistance is necessary to grasp deeply the social and environmental impact of renewable energy, and, in relation to this, to ensure a just transition to low-carbon energy (McCarthy and Thatcher, 2019; Sovacool, 2021; Avila et al., 2022; Knuth et al., 2022). This study contributes to this effort by scrutinizing the widespread resistance to geothermal energy projects in four provinces in the Aegean region of Turkey.

There is a growing body of critical research on resistances to renewable energy projects in countries ranging from Mexico to Spain, and Greece to China (see Zografos and Martinez-Alier, 2009; Rignall, 2016; Avila-Calero, 2017; Brannstrom et al., 2017; Avila, 2018; Siamanta and Dunlap, 2019; Dunlap, 2018a, 2021; Temper et al., 2020; Sovacool, 2021; Dunlap and Arce, 2022; Santoso and Kusumasari, 2022). Focusing predominantly on wind and solar power, these studies show how the development of these renewable energies in ways that pose new environmental threats and deepen existing inequalities pave the way for building resistance. This study contributes to this body of research in two ways. First, it shows how the power/resistance nexus in the renewable energy field takes shape in those contexts where authoritarianism, populism, and geographically specific modes of capital accumulation are working in and through one another. Second, it examines mobilizations against geothermal energy, a form of renewable energy that has barely received any scholarly focus in social sciences (Vargas-Payera et al., 2020; Sovacool, 2021; Spijkerboer et al., 2022).

I examine the Aegean case from a political ecology perspective, which envisages environmental injustices and related conflicts as embedded in the hegemonic political economic structure and related power relations (McCarthy and Thatcher, 2019). Within that framework, I also draw on the concept of authoritarian populism formulated by Stuart Hall (1988) using Gramscian insights. I show that geothermal policy and practices were formulated in a way to perpetuate and consolidate the current authoritarian populist regime in Turkey represented by the AKP (Justice and Development Party), and that this substantially increased environmental and related social costs of geothermal energy development, thus laying the groundwork for the generation of widespread resistance. Unlike some other right-wing populist parties, who either deny climate change or oppose to policies and practices developed to cope with this change (Fraune and Knodt, 2018; Atkins, 2022; Lockwood and Lockwood, 2022), the AKP government has taken advantage of the worldwide promotion of renewable energy to provide new capital accumulation opportunities for crony capitalists, who play critical roles in financially and politically supporting its dominance. Articulating a renewable energy discourse which portrayed renewable energy as ‘essentially green’ and ‘domestic and national’ energy vital for the economic welfare and security of ‘the people’, it opened the most fertile agricultural lands to geothermal energy production in an unplanned, unregulated, and uncontrolled manner. This has resulted in the emergence of a strong wave of protests in dozens of villages of four provinces (Aydın, Manisa, Denizli, and Izmir) in the Aegean region, due to the creation of new environmental injustices and exacerbating existing socio-spatial inequalities. Thus, this study shows that renewable energy development may serve the aims and agenda of authoritarian populist powers, playing, as such, a regime sustaining role. In a close relation to this, it also shows that understanding popular resistances to the transition to renewable energy in contexts like Turkey necessitates a careful engagement with the capitalist dynamics of authoritarian populism. By examining the resistance to geothermal energy, this study also reveals that this source of energy, as a subterranean source, has different spatial and environmental implications than wind and solar energy, based on the extensive use of surface (Scheidel and Sorman, 2012; Huber and McCarthy, 2017). Thus, the Aegean case also calls for rethinking the practice of grouping different renewable energy sources into a single category and thus ignoring their significant differences.

My analysis draws on the fieldwork that includes in-depth interviews conducted in the four Aegean provinces, namely Aydın, Manisa, Denizli, and İzmir. In total, 26 individual and 6 focus group interviews were conducted with the protesters in the second half of 2021 and the first half of 2022. The data also include various reports on geothermal energy production in the Aegean region, the AKP's energy policy and programs, and news stories on the geothermal projects and the resistance to these from two opposition newspapers (Birgün and Evrensel) and two pro-AKP newspapers (Yeni Şafak and Sabah) between 2010 and 2022.

The paper is structured as follows. In the next section, I briefly engage with the concepts and discussions that inform my analysis of the Aegean case. The section thereafter focuses on the authoritarian populism in Turkey along with its capitalist dynamics. Section four elucidates the AKP government's renewable energy policy and practices, and the geothermal projects in the Aegean region. Following the examination of the reasons behind the resistances to geothermal projects in section five, the study is concluded.

Renewable energy, capital accumulation, and authoritarian populism

The idea of using renewable energy sources has made much progress since first suggested by environmentalists in the 1970s. It was originally promoted as a measure to prevent environmental destruction and related injustices and inequalities created by fossil fuel-based regimes (Knuth et al., 2022). However, as the ‘green’ ideas were increasingly incorporated into the capitalist framework over the last two decades in response to capitalist as well as environmental crises (McCarthy and Prudham 2004; Fairhead et al., 2012; Corson et al., 2015; Cavanagh and Benjaminsen, 2017; Wanner, 2015), international governance bodies, governments, and NGOs have strongly promoted the transition to renewable energy by representing it as critical not only in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, but also in the creation of new opportunities for capital accumulation (Tienhaara, 2014; McCarthy, 2015; Curran, 2019; Knuth, 2021). The consequent construction of market mechanisms and mechanisms of financial support has resulted in a worldwide renewables boom, leading to the implementation of many projects, even if costly and risky (see Vaishnava and Baka, 2022).

Since capital accumulation has become one of the most significant motives behind the acceleration of the transition to renewable energy, the processes of this transition are associated with and reproduce uneven power relations (Sovacool, 2021; Bedi, 2022; Knuth et al., 2022). Despite allowing capital accumulation to take ‘green’ or ‘environment friendly’ forms, as planned and promoted by the above-mentioned mainstream actors, the transition to renewable energy also creates new environmental costs and injustices by paving the way for the expansion of capitalist activities into new areas, even formerly protected ones, and by leading to new forms of the enclosure of nature, the appropriation of natural resources, and the destruction of environment (McCarthy, 2015; McCarthy and Thatcher, 2019; Mulvaney, 2019; Bedi, 2022). As such, it posed new threats of dispossession and displacement particularly for the local people in rural areas (McCarthy, 2015; Dunlap, 2018a, 2018b; Siamanta and Dunlap, 2019; Sovacool, 2021). All these risks and threats paved the way for the generation of different types of resistances to the development of renewables in various geographies (Avila-Calero, 2017; Brannstrom et al., 2017; Sovacool, 2021; Avila, 2018; Del Bene et al., 2018; Dunlap, 2018a, 2018b; Siamanta and Dunlap, 2019; Temper et al., 2020; Avila et al., 2022; Frantal et al., 2023).

Despite all its importance, the mechanism of capital accumulation per se is not the only force that shapes the power relations involved in renewable energy production. For a nuanced picture of the variegated forms that the transition to renewable energy and the associated power relations may take in different geographies, we also need to consider the forms that capitalism and, in relation, the processes of capital accumulation may take in specific historical and geographical conjunctures, depending on their articulation with various spatially-based contradictions (Harvey, 2014). Although such contradictions, as Harvey underlines (2014: 79), ‘have nothing in particular to do directly with capital accumulation’, they impact the dynamics of capitalism because they both are influential on and influenced by the methods of capital circulation and accumulation. Therefore, we need to consider the intersections and interactions of the two in accounting for the spatially based logics to capital accumulation (Cavanagh and Benjaminsen, 2017).

In this regard, understanding distinct forms and consequences of the transition to renewable energy in geographies dominated by authoritarian regimes requires considering different forms that authoritarianism takes depending on state systems (Lema and Ruby, 2007; Lo, 2021) as well as the entanglement of authoritarianism with various other forms of politics including neo-colonialism (Alkhalili et al., 2023; Hamouchene and Sandwell, 2023), neoliberalism (Bruff, 2014; Tansel, 2018; Piletic, 2023), and populism (Hall, 1988). Concerning specifically authoritarian populist regimes, it is clear that authoritarianism, populism, and historically and geographically specific modes of capital accumulation work within and through one another in generating the processes of green transition and shaping related power relations. The capitalist dynamics of authoritarian populism, as recently pointed out by political ecology scholars, have been largely neglected (Bernstein, 2020; McKay et al., 2020; Jakobsen and Nielsen, 2023). As ‘an exceptional form of capitalist state’ (Hall, 1988: 42), authoritarian populism serves class interests (Bernstein, 2020) by establishing specific political and ideological relations between the state, capitalist class, and the dominated classes (Borras, 2020). In order to understand these relations, we need to focus both on ‘specific constellations of state-capital alliances’ (McKay et al., 2020: 350) along with related accumulation dynamics (Jakobsen and Nielsen, 2023), and on the ways through which dominated classes are positioned ‘with, not against, the power bloc’ in authoritarian populism (Hall, 1988: 49). More precisely, we need to scrutinize how authoritarian populism involves an attack on interests of dominated classes by positioning ‘the people’, as stated by Hall, ‘in a particular relation to capital: behind it, dominated by its imperatives (profitability, accumulation); yet at the same time yoked to it, identified with it’ (1988: 49).

Another important yet understudied aspect of authoritarian populist regimes (but see Waeterloos, 2020) is that authoritarianism in tandem with populism may facilitate creeping cronyism. The centralization of the power and its discretionary use in authoritarian contexts may open spaces for the political authority to favor its crony capitalists, who, in turn, strongly support authoritarian populist powers. Populist discourses become functional in constructing the consent of the popular classes for this favorable treatment as they align dominated with dominant classes by interpellating both as ‘the people’ against an ‘other’. Hence, an important consideration in understanding the relations between the state, capitalist class, and the dominated classes in authoritarian populist regimes should be the intricate dynamics and connections between class interests and political interests or, more precisely, the imbrication of these interests. Gaining an understanding of the resistances to renewable energy that integrates these aspects of authoritarian populism, the aim of this study, may allow for a more nuanced analysis of both the different manifestations of the transition to renewable energy in different geographies, and the resistances ignited by the transition.

Authoritarian populism and accumulation dynamics in the Turkish context

Turkey's political economy and related patterns of capital accumulation, critical in understanding renewable policy and practices, have been shaped over the course of two decades of rule of the authoritarian populist AKP government. The neoliberal model of economic development has been one of the main pillars of the AKP's politics since coming to power in 2002. Related to this is the unprecedented expansion of the power of the capitalist class in the AKP era (Akçay, 2021; Boratav, 2023). Nevertheless, the AKP also managed to construct the consent of the dominated classes to its neoliberal rule by articulating a populist discourse that, although revised in line with national and global conjunctural changes, always strongly appeals to conservative/ religious segments.

The overall aim of the neoliberal model of economic development adopted by the AKP, as elsewhere, was to intensify ‘marketization and commodification’ (Peck et al., 2012: 270) to create/re-create ‘the conditions for capital accumulation’ (Harvey, 2005: 19). Yet, as to the implementation of neoliberal policies and, relatedly, the patterns of capital accumulation, there are significant differences between the early and late periods of the AKP's rule. In the first decade of its rule, the AKP implemented the neoliberal program developed under the guidance of the IMF (Boratav, 2023). This included measures such as trade liberalization, privatizations, marketization of agriculture, flexibilization of labor market, and commodification of the urban and natural environment (Harris and Işlar, 2014; Madra and Yılmaz, 2019; Akçay, 2021). The accumulation regime in this period was heavily dependent on substantial foreign capital inflows (Yeldan and Ünüvar, 2016), then driven by the ‘expansionary monetary policies in the United States and Europe’ (Akçay, 2021: 84). The average growth rate of the Turkish economy, mainly driven by construction, energy, and transportation sectors, reached 4.5% in this period, increasing the party's popular appeal and power (Boratav, 2023). This accumulation regime was seriously threatened with the decrease in the foreign capital inflows in 2014 and 2015, due in part to the changes in the international financial regime and in part to the increasing political uncertainty in the country (Madra and Yılmaz, 2019; Akçay, 2021). The governmental response to this ‘crisis’ was to increase its intervention into the economy, blending neoliberalism with statism (Öniş, 2019; Tuğal, 2023). This new economy model involved greater exploitation of domestic resources and the commodification of nature, leading to an almost unmitigated assault on the environment.

The transition to the new model was legitimized by the heavy use of nationalism. Accompanied by a growing authoritarianism, nationalism was also the AKP's strategic response to its political challenges. Worth mentioning in this regard are the outbreak of the Gezi protests in 2013 and its spread across the country against the injustices and inequalities of the AKP's neoliberal policies and Islamic conservative agenda, the rift between the AKP and one of its close allies—a religious group called Gülen movement—, and the party's dwindling votes in the general elections in 2015 (Taş 2018; Öniş, 2019; Yılmaz and Turner, 2019). With the heavy deployment of nationalism, the main signifier of the AKP's populist discourse has become what it calls ‘domestic and national’. Specifically, ‘the people’ category of the AKP's populism, which consists of religious, conservatist, and nationalist social sectors, became equated with ‘domestic and national’¹, whereas those seen not as such, that is, westernized secular social sectors, were simultaneously externalized. As is the case in all populist discourses (Hall, 1988, 1989; Laclau, 2005), in this discourse, the latter is portrayed as the source of all of the former's frustrations. In doing so, the AKP's populism broadly appealed both to the historically shaped resentment of religious conservatives against pro-Western secular sections, and to the anti-Western sentiments of Islamists and nationalists (Ozen, 2020, 2022). This is also precisely how the AKP's populism brought together disparate classes and groups: by coalescing conservative, religious, and nationalist sectors against those defined as the common adversary, this discourse obscured class differences and related contradictions among these social groups². Those segments excluded by this discourse and related policy and practices, on the other hand, were subjected to varying doses of coercion through the use of repressive state apparatuses³.

Regarding the capital accumulation patterns shaped during the AKP's rule, an important point to be considered is the spread of ‘cronyism’. An integral component of the AKP's politics from the very outset has been the creation of a pro-AKP business class (Buğra and Savaşkan, 2012), which would in turn serve to establish the dominance, if not hegemony, of its conservative/religious and neoliberal project⁴. The energy sector along with construction, mining, health, and transportation sectors have become fertile areas in which resources were used to this end (Buğra and Savaşkan, 2012; Özcan andGündüz, 2015; Erensü, 2018; Ocaklı, 2018). By using various instruments, including privatization, distributing lucrative public contracts, providing generous tax incentives and public guarantees, and opening urban and natural environment to almost unconditional exploitation, the AKP created fortunes for business actors with close relations with the party (Ercan and Oğuz, 2006; Nar, 2015). The AKP's increasing authoritarianism deserves particular attention in this regard: the erosion of the check and control mechanisms increased the government's discretionary power and, in relation, its capacity to redistribute state resources to serve its own agenda and interests. While a small number of businesses connected with the leading cadre of the party took the lion's share⁵, thousands of small and medium-sized businesses also benefitted from this favorable treatment through their informal relations with the AKP's local organizations or with the AKP-controlled municipal governments, or through subcontracting and outsourcing relations with the benefiting larger businesses⁶ (Buğra and Savaşkan, 2012; Esen and Gümüşçü, 2017; Bekmen and Özden, 2022). The common characteristic of all these business actors is their conservative/religious outlook. Yet, the efforts to create an AKP-friendly business class was not limited only to the conservatives; by deploying various financial reward and punishment mechanisms, the AKP government also aimed to convert the Western-oriented big bourgeoisie into its faithful allies (Bekmen and Özden, 2022).

In turn, the AKP-friendly capitalists, especially the big ones, assumed significant roles in harnessing popular support to the AKP's conservative and neoliberal politics, and in legitimizing its ever-increasing authoritarianism. The media outlets that these actors were able to purchase and run with generous governmental support proved the most potent instrument in this regard. While working as the party propaganda machine, these outlets also launched attacks, often in aggressive and defamatory ways, against opposition politicians, civil society actors, academics, and journalists, and stigmatized and criminalized any form of protest or dissent. Another way through which the pro-AKP capitalist class displayed its loyalty to the AKP cause was the generous donations to the AKP-related or other faith-based, i.e., Islamic, NGOs (Apaydın, 2015), whose mission is to establish the hegemony of religious conservatism by spreading religious education, and by distributing aid to the urban poor (Yıldırım, 2020). Needless to say, the perpetuation of these multifaceted and intricate relations between the AKP, Islamic capitalists, and NGOs have been dependent on the continual creation of the new opportunities for capital accumulation. In what follows, I show how the renewable energy policy and practices were shaped to serve to this end.

Renewable energy in Turkey

Renewable energy arrived on the state agenda in the 1980s as an alternative and domestic source of energy (see for instance the 5^th and the 6^th Development Plans). Yet, the policies concerning renewable energy production were not shaped until 2000s, when the discourse of green economy began to be accentuated at the global level, and when the AKP government came into power. Overall, the AKP government has pursued an aggressive energy program by opening domestic sources to extraction and exploitation, by enacting a series of laws and regulations to further liberalize the energy sector, and by initiating processes of extensive privatization. As mentioned, in the AKP's second decade of rule, foreign capital inflows decreased, and the exploitation of the domestic sources for energy production and, in relation, the assault on natural environment, gained further momentum. This was justified by capitalizing on the increased nationalist overtone in the populist discourse of the party. For instance, the so-called ‘National Energy and Mining Policy’, launched in 2017, used the slogan ‘Independent Energy, Strong Turkey’, implying that the foreign dependency in energy would be reduced by using domestic sources. This also set the stage for transferring public resources to pro-AKP businesses. Privatizations of electricity generation and distribution and the purchase guarantees given to energy companies became the most common mechanisms in this regard (Buğra and Savaşkan, 2012; Türkyılmaz, 2014). As a result, the energy sector emerged as a stronghold of the AKP-linked business groups operating in the fields of electricity distribution, and production (Buğra and Savaşkan, 2012; Ocaklı, 2018; Kimya, 2019).

The use of renewable energy sources was one of the strategies promoted in the new policy. This was accompanied by a renewable discourse shaped within the framework of the AKP's revised populism (see Kalkınma Bakanlığı, 2015; Karagöl et al., 2017). Using the AKP's populist ‘domestic and national’ themes, this discourse depicted renewable energy sources as ‘domestic’ resources that were critical to the nation's energy security and economic growth. As President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated: ‘The aim of our works, which we carry out with the principle of more domestic, more renewable, is to meet our energy needs through domestic and national means with reasonable prices in a continuous and qualified manner’ (Anadolu Agency, 9 November 2021, italics are added). This discourse, propagated by pro-AKP media, not only linked ‘domestic’ and ‘renewable’, but also portrayed geothermal energy as inherently clean and renewable (Yeni Şafak, 27 June 2017, 30 August 2019, 16 January 2021; Sabah, 11 October 2019, 14 April 2021). Despite the use of ‘clean and renewable’ rhetoric, however, the renewable energy scenario in the AKP's energy policy mainly focused on the economic prospects, underlining the significance of the diversification of ‘domestic’ sources through the use of renewable resources, along with coal, as evidenced in the development plans and government programs (see for instance the 9^th development plan (TR Prime Ministry- State Planning Organization, 2006), the 64^th government program (TC Başbakanlık, 2015), and Presidential annual program for 2022 (TC Cumhurbaşkanlığı Strateji ve Bütçe Başkanlığı, 2021). This orientation is also clearly seen in the public statements of government authorities. The Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, for instance, emphasized in a public speech that the AKP government's most prominent motive in the promotion of renewables is to increase the share of domestic resources in energy production (Yeni Asır, 13 May 2020). The translation of the renewables discourse into practice involved the introduction of new support mechanisms, namely, the Renewable Energy Resources Support Mechanism (YEKDEM), implemented towards the end of 2013, which guaranteed a 10-year period during which the price of renewable energy would remain fixed. Such efforts went hand in hand with the changes made in the regulation of environmental protection, land use rights, and water use rights. The Environmental Impact Assessment regulation was totally changed in 2013 to loosen regulatory limitations (Cangı, 2014). All these resulted in a rapid increase in the number of companies in the renewable energy sector: the number of power plants benefitting from the supporting mechanism rose to 1036 in 2020 from 65 in 2013 (Bayrak, 2022)⁷. The following describes the increase in geothermal energy production.

Geothermal energy production

Geothermal resources in Turkey, like other renewable energy resources worldwide (Naumann and Rudolph, 2020; Calvert et al., 2022), are in rural areas. A great part of these is in the east-west extending grabens in the Aegean region which are the large areas dropped along fault lines (Satman, 2019). The river basins formed by these grabens, namely Büyük Menderes, Gediz, and Küçük Menderes, are very rich in terms of biodiversity and host some of the most fertile farmlands in Turkey, producing figs, grapes, cotton, olive, and various vegetables and fruits. They are also significant in terms of water resources, most of which is used in agriculture. There are both low and high temperature geothermal springs in the area. The former is used for tourism, residential heating, and greenhouse heating, whereas the latter is used for energy production (CSB-EBRD Report, 2020).

The construction of financial support mechanisms towards the end of 2013 resulted in energy companies’ increased interest in geothermal resources in the Aegean region. The number of geothermal power plants, which was 6 in 2013, increased by about 50% every year to reach 63 in 2022 (Bayrak, 2022). As a result, Turkey has become one of the leading countries in geothermal power generation: as of the end 2021, it ranked fourth in the world behind Philippines, Indonesia, and the United States (REN21, 2022; UNESCO, 2022). In the period from 2016 to 2021, Turkey achieved the world's highest capacity increase in the geothermal energy through installations of new plants (REN21, 2022). This dramatic increase was strictly related to the state purchase guarantee which benefited almost all companies involved (TMMOB, 2021; Bayrak, 2022; Yener, 2022).

The rapid increase in the number of geothermal plants was also related to the loosening of regulations and measures. The necessary permits for the construction of dozens of plants, and hundreds of wells for each plant were quickly and easily granted by the state agencies (TMMOB, 2021), without due consideration to their environmental and social impact. The government totally ignored the fact that neither the renewability nor the cleanliness of geothermal energy is unconditional. Unlike some other renewable sources, for instance, wind and solar, geothermal resources are renewable only if used correctly (Shortall et al., 2015; Rabet et al., 2017; Pan et al., 2019; Spijkerboer et al., 2022). The replenishment capacity of geothermal reservoirs, that is, the replenishment of the earth heat and fluids in geothermal reservoirs, is critical in this regard (Shortall et al., 2015; Spijkerboer et al., 2022). Practices such as ‘high withdrawal rates or failure to reinject the geothermal fluids’ may easily erode that capacity (Shortall et al., 2015: 403). Based on the potential for inappropriate practices to cause depletion of geothermal resources, some scholars do not even classify such resources as renewable (see Kunze and Hertel, 2017). Also, in contrast to its presentation by the AKP government, geothermal energy may not be environmentally benign. Its environmental performance depends on the characteristics of the location of projects, the reservoir conditions, and plant design (Shortall et al., 2015; Pan et al., 2019). The extraction and production process may negatively affect air quality, soil, and water resources (Pan et al., 2019). While carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission rates from geothermal plants are generally small compared to fossil fuel plants (Shortall et al., 2015; Pan et al., 2019: O'Sullivan et al., 2021), in some instances they can be significant, and even exceed those of coal-fired power plants, as mentioned in a World Bank document (Fridriksson et al., 2017). Concerning specifically the Aegean region's geothermal resources, this document and a World Bank report (ESMAP, 2016) both state that, these, like the ones in the Tuscany region of Italy, are located in carbonate bearing rocks that release large amounts of CO₂ to the geothermal fluids, leading to CO₂ emissions from Turkish geothermal fields that are nearly double those of nation's coal burning plants (Aksoy et al., 2014, 2015). The emissions also involve hydrogen sulfide, which is ‘usually considered to be an odor nuisance but is also toxic to humans at concentrations above a certain level’ (Shortall et al., 2015: 395). The geothermal sources in the Aegean region also contain high amounts of hydrogen sulfide (Yener, 2022). As to the impact of geothermal energy development on water and soil, it is underlined that both may be polluted by the release of hot water by the geothermal power plants during construction and operation, and the release of effluent containing chemicals and metals (Shortall et al., 2015). ‘Most high temperature geothermal water’, according to Shortall et al. (2015: 394), ‘may contain high concentrations of at least one of the following toxic chemicals: aluminum, boron, arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, and sometimes fluoride’. This makes the proper re-injection of geothermal fluids critically important to prevent the pollution of soil, surface water, and groundwater. Yet, proper re-injection, which requires constructing deep re-injection wells and maintaining a moderate reservoir pressure, is costly. In addition to the risks of pollution, geothermal projects are also associated with certain hazards depending on the characteristics of their location which includes induced seismic activity, subsidence, and hydrothermal eruptions (Shortall et al., 2015; Kunze and Hertel, 2017).

Given these environmental risks, the utilization of geothermal energy needs to be carefully planned, designed, operated, and monitored (Pan et al., 2019; TMMOB, 2021). ‘Careful surveys and assessments should be made prior to well drilling activities’ state Rabet et al. (2017: 48) ‘particularly in agricultural areas that also depend on local groundwater reserves and in areas where groundwater is utilized for drinking purposes’. However, as mentioned earlier, the AKP government deliberately overlooked all the risks of geothermal energy development. The reports on environmental impact of geothermal energy projects prepared by different actors, including the main opposition party (The Republican People's Party, CHP), the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB), and the specialists for the Ministry of Environment and Urbanism and for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (CSB-EBRD), all underscored the lack of effective planning. Accordingly, many plants were built on agricultural areas (CSB-EBRD Report, 2020). Moreover, there was no formulation of environmental rules and regulations concerning specifically geothermal resources (Yener, 2022). For instance, no measures were taken either to prevent over-exploitation of a single resource, or to ensure the re-injection of geothermal fluids (Aksoy, 2014). Nor were effective and comprehensive supervision mechanisms constructed (CHP Report, 2022). Geothermal Law and related regulation have both ambiguities and deficiencies (TMMOB Report, 2021), for example, they do not require companies to incorporate an environmental management plan in their projects (TMMOB Report, 2021). What is more, projects involving the production of a thermal power below 5 MW are exempted from the Environmental Impact Assessment regulation. More importantly, although it was clear that geothermal projects would lead not only to environmental change, but also to rural transformation, the locals were not included in the process, nor were the injustices created by the process of transition taken into consideration (Yener, 2022).

The governmental neglect of the natural environment and the local people need to be seen as part of the AKP's efforts to create new capital accumulation opportunities. The dominance of the AKP's cronies in the field of geothermal energy should also be considered in this respect. The companies that operate the highest number of geothermal power plants are all known with having close links to the AKP; these are Kipaş (9 plants), Çelikler (7 plants), Zorlu (5 plants), Güriş (5 plants), Saray-Greeneco (4), Sanko (3 plants), and Türkerler (3 plants)⁸. What is striking about these companies is that none of them was established specifically to operate in the energy sector and only one (Zorlu) started to invest in the energy sector before the AKP era⁹. It is also notable that one of these companies, Çelikler, is known for polluting the environment by consistently avoiding taking the necessary measures in its four thermic power plants (Birgün, 23 October 2021). The number of geothermal power plants owned by the AKP's loyalists are not limited to these. There are also smaller operations, such as Gürmen (2 plants), Özmen (2 plants), Akça (2 plants), Aydem (1 plant), and Limak (1 plant). As these numbers reveal that the majority of the 63 plants are owned by the AKP-friendly companies.

The resistances to geothermal projects

The initial geothermal projects, which started around 2011, triggered no protest at the local level, due to the articulation of the AKP's renewable discourse by the local authorities (Sabah, 9 February 2011) the promises of cheap heating opportunities (Sabah, 7 March 2013), and the high prices offered for the lands (Vergili interview 2021). It was only after the adverse environmental impact of these projects became visible that locals in a few villages turned to question them. The protests emerged around 2013 first in the Yılmazköy and Imamköy villages of Aydın, and spread within a few years, to several villages in the provinces of Aydın, Manisa, İzmir, and Denizli. However, there were also villages where the local people remained silent despite the environmental destruction. As stated by local people, this is either due to political identification with the AKP (Vergili interview, 2021; Yılmaz interview 2021; Şengün interview, 2022) or due to fear of repression (Uysal interview, 2021; Değerli interview 2021). In both cases, this demonstrates the impact of the AKP's authoritarian populism at the local level.

The inhabitants of the protesting villages are predominantly small farmers. Although there are differences in income levels among the villages because of the changing land productivity and the value of the products grown, almost all peasants produce on small plots that they own, rent, or simply use. The protesters were not limited to the peasants. As is the case with other local environmental movements in Turkey (Ozen and Ozen, 2022), the resistance involved a heterogeneous group of actors including local politicians, deputies of the main opposition party (CHP), professionals, and environmentalists from nearby cities¹⁰. These actors played prominent functions in the mobilizations against geothermal projects by providing peasants with technical and legal information, by organizing and coordinating the protests, by establishing local environmental associations, and by establishing networks among protesters from different villages, towns, and provinces (Uysal interview, 2021; Değerli interview, 2021; Vergili interview, 2021; Orpak interview, 2022). Protesters engaged in a range of collective actions, including holding panels, meetings, demonstrations and sit-ins, and initiating lawsuits. Among these protest actions, demonstrations and sit-ins held in places close to the project areas were effective in attracting the attention of the media and the public. The main reason for this is that the police reacted harshly to these protests by firing tear gas, beating protesters, detaining them, and launching investigations against some protesters (Değerli interview, 2021; Hacıbektaşlı interview, 2021; Başköy interview I, 2022).

Interviews with the protesters revealed that three somewhat interrelated issues stood out as the main reasons behind the resistance. The first and the most prominent was environmental damage caused by geothermal projects and, in relation to this, the harm to agricultural production. The second reason was the injustices and inequalities that environmental threats create or exacerbate. In this respect, peasants underlined the fear of dispossession and displacement, and the possible increase in class and gender inequalities as a result. The final reason was the protesters’ lack of trust in state agencies. In particular, doubts were expressed by the protesters about the monitoring processes and, accordingly, the operation of the geothermal plants in accordance with the regulation. In what follows, all these reasons are elaborated with a view to showing how they created dissatisfaction and led to the generation of resistance to geothermal projects.

Environmental threats

As mentioned earlier, the locals did not react to the first geothermal plants constructed in Germencik town of Aydın, and in Alaşehir town of Manisa in 2011 and 2012. However, the damage caused by the early geothermal operations paved the way for local protests against similar projects elsewhere. As the locals from various villages stated:

We opposed geothermal projects because we had heard from other villages that olives and figs dried up. (Şengül, Evrensel 5 October 2018)

We know [what happened to] Aydın Germencik. We know what will happen to us. … We do not want geothermal. (Duacılı interview, 2022)

Germencik is before our eyes. … If it [that geothermal plant] had not been there, we would not have known so much about its environmental impact. … The companies would deceive us, too. (Başköy interview II, 2022)

As the number of geothermal plants rapidly increased in the following years, ecological destruction became more visible and more widely experienced over a larger area. Thus, protests diffused to villages and towns of not only the provinces of Aydın and Manisa, but also of Denizli and Izmir.

The peasants in particular became alarmed when the olive, fig, pomegranate, and pine trees began to dry up in places where drilling works were carried out and reinjection wells were built. As expressed by a peasant: ‘Big pine trees were dried up. I've never seen the mulberry tree dry. Even the mulberry tree has dried up in Alangüllü village’ (Celayır interview, 2022). In this regard, according to the protesters, the critical events in the mobilization against geothermal projects were the drying out of almost half of the saplings in a fig orchard in Germencik, the cutting down and drying out of olive trees, and the drying out of a whole pomegranate orchard in Denizli, and the drying out of 10-acre vineyard in Alaşehir due to the release of wastewater by the nearby geothermal plants (Vergili interview, 2021; Orpak interview, 2022; Çallıca interview, 2022; Ülgen interview, 2022). Also, according to the protesters, 2-3-meter-deep crevices appeared in the soil, and the irrigation water started to run hot in geothermal plants operation areas (Kuyucular interview, 2021; Hacıbektaşlı interview, 2021).

The locals in Alaşehir town of Manisa where several geothermal plants were built claimed that the vineyards were adversely affected by the increasing amount of boron in irrigation water because of the operations (Türk interview, 2022). Also, the increased humidity in the air and the related acid rain forced the farmers in Alaşehir and neighboring town Sarıgöl to cover vineyards (Ülgen interview, 2022). What is also highly noteworthy in this regard is the hydrothermal explosions in wells and pipes that occurred in Alaşehir in 2012 (Aksoy et al., 2014) and 2019 (Evrensel, 17 March 2019) and in Aydın in 2020 and 2021 (Evrensel, 13 August 2020; Birgün, 1 January 2021), pumping out a significant amount of very hot geothermal fluid that harmed vineyards in Alaşehir and farmlands in Aydin¹¹. Alongside the damages given to trees, vineyards, and agricultural fields and vegetation, the protesters also strongly emphasized the pollution of soil and water resources by the waste water of plants, and the cutting of olive trees and the use of farmlands for the construction of power plants, drilling wells, reinjection wells, roads to plants, and pipelines (Başköy interview I and II, 2022; Kuyucak interview, 2021; Vergili interview, 2021; Hastaoğlu interview, 2022; Orpak interview, 2022). Another issue that the villagers especially emphasized is the odor nuisance because of the gases emitted into the atmosphere:

An unbearable stench is being emitted. As we pass by the plant, we cannot stand the smell. (Kuyucular interview 2021)

They did drilling and a foul odor came out, all windows of the house were closed, but it was still smelling so much that we could not stay inside the house. We went out and shouted at the drillers: ‘We can't stand this smell!’. (Hacıbektaşlı interview 2021)

Based on all these, geothermal energy projects were conceived by the peasants as a significant threat to their livelihood. They believed that geothermal energy production and agriculture were not compatible because the former destroys the latter. As expressed by one protester, geothermal energy might be ‘renewable’, but farmlands damaged by geothermal energy projects are certainly not (Özdamar, 2015).

Most of the claims raised by the locals were confirmed by the reports on environmental impact of geothermal energy projects. The one prepared by TMMOB (2021) draws attention to the problems related to the violations of legislation, both in site selection and in the operation of the power plants. It is especially emphasized that the wild discharge methods used by the companies to minimize costs are the main causes of surface and groundwater pollution, which pose a serious threat to agriculture and public health. The report prepared by the Aydın Efeler Municipality (2016) states that the fig products exported from Aydın to Croatia in 2015 were returned due to sulfate detection, while also underlining that there were no industrial facilities in Aydın other than the geothermal plants producing sulfates. It also pointed out the increased humidity in Aydın. A report prepared by the CHP (2021) highlighted the high amount of boron content in the irrigation water in Aydın, probably due to the mixing of the geothermal fluid (CHP Report, 2022). Like TMMOB report, this report also draws attention to the geothermal companies’ inappropriate methods of discharge of geothermal fluids into the natural environment. Finally, CSB-EBRD report (2020) states the necessity of further investment for protection of air quality, the prevention of gas emissions, the prevention of foul odor (the reduction of hydrogen sulfide), as well as the use of proper re-injection methods.

More interestingly, the provincial strategic plan prepared in 2023 by Aydın governorship also confirms these claims. Given that governors are appointed by the President and, as such, generally side with the government, they tend to avoid statements that, implicitly or explicitly, criticize the consequences of governmental actions. Yet, the problems related to geothermal projects, especially in Aydın, are so great that the governorship of this province had no choice but to describe these problems as ‘threats’ in the strategic plan. Specifically, the unplanned use of geothermal resources, and the lack of inspection on reinjection of used geothermal resources are cited as problems related to the development of geothermal energy (Aydın Valiliği, 2023). The plan also refers to pollution of farmlands by geothermal wastes containing high levels of boron, and states that the pollution created by the geothermal projects in farming areas stands out as the main factor threatening the agricultural sector in Aydın.

Injustices and inequalities

The rural workers believe that they would be forced to migrate from the villages to cities because of these threats posed to their livelihood, and as revealed by the interviews, the possibility of migration and city life was a real concern. They worried about having to abandon the accustomed village life, their social status, and social networks and relations in the villages. They were also highly concerned about the difficulties of adapting to city life, as expressed by a protester as follows: ‘We cannot be happy in the city. This [village community] is like a nuclear family. We are happy here as a family. We cannot have this in the city’ (Basköy interview II, 2022). Another overriding concern of the villagers about being forced to migrate to the city is ‘proletarianization’. As a woman protester from Duacılı village of Denizli stated in the interview: ‘When the geothermal company grabs our land, will we have any choice but to be workers? NO! we don't want to be workers’ (Duacılı interview, 2022). The peasants also emphasized in this regard the injustices that they were subjected to, referring to land grabbing. Specifically, they stated that the lands that they had come to possess through years of hard work were being taken away from them, and they were forced to become workers (Evrensel, 5 October 2018). At this point, it should also be noted that some of the protesters that were not from rural areas saw the struggle not only as an environmental struggle, but also as a struggle against the ‘proletarianization process’:

We do not see this struggle as just an ecological struggle. That's why I don't describe myself as an environmental lawyer or environmental activist. I define it from a different angle: every plundering project made here is something that inflates urbanization, migration from rural to urban areas, unemployment and creates the class we call the reserve army of workers. (Değerli interview, 2021)

Strikingly, the fear of dispossession and displacement was more widespread and more intense among rural women, mainly because they believed that they would have limited employment opportunities after losing their traditional livelihoods (Başköy interview I, II, 2022; Duacılı interview, 2022; İçtepe interview, 2021; Ener interview, 2021). A leading rural woman protester explained this view as ‘the women realizing that their bread was being taken away from them’ (Koldaş interview, 2022). Given the low education level of women in villages, as well as the hegemony of patriarchal roles, norms, and values in the village communities, this fear is not unfounded. As stated by a woman protester from Manisa, ‘the women are aware of the fact that in case their land is taken from them, they would suffer most … because it would be much more difficult for women, unlike men, to find a job in a factory or elsewhere in the city’ (Değerli interview, 2021). This fear or anxiety of rural women proved critical in shaping the resistance to geothermal energy projects: not only were most of the rural protesters women, but also these women became the driving force of the resistance. Compared to men, they were more determined and courageous, even in the face of oppressive police practices (Yakan interview, 2021; Efe interview, 2022; Şengün interview, 2022).

Lack of trust to state agencies

The opposition to geothermal projects was also closely related with the locals’ deep suspicion about the aim of the renewable policy and practices, as well as the state agencies’ intent to plan and monitor related operations. Based on this, some protesters expressed that they were not against geothermal energy itself, but the way it is produced:

We are not against geothermal [energy projects], we want its production in the right place, and with the right methods through the construction of monitoring mechanisms. (İçtepe interview, 2021)

We believe that with this law, with this investor, with this private sector, with these controlling institutions in the Turkish context, this energy is not clean. It is an energy that destroys the air, water, and soil. (Çallıca interview, 2022)

The non-rural protesters in particular envisaged geothermal energy development as a means of appropriating nature for the creation of new capital accumulation opportunities (Değerli interview, 2021; Uysal interview, 2021; Çallıca interview, 2022). Some peasant protesters also mentioned that the real aim of geothermal development is to provide AKP cronies with new ‘profiteering business opportunities’ (Yılmaz interview, 2021; Başköy interview II, 2022; Duacılı interview, 2022). In substantiating these claims, the protesters primarily emphasized the opening to exploitation of ‘1^st class farmlands’, which provide livelihood to millions, to serve to the interests of a few companies (Vergili interview 2021; Çallıca interview 2022). They also drew attention to the processes of the appropriation and enclosure of the nature, which involved the transfer of publicly owned lands used by the locals to geothermal companies. A protester remarked that publicly owned lands were granted to specific companies by the government using the non-negotiable public tender method developed for use only in extraordinary situations, such as fire and earthquake (Güney interview, 2022).

The lack of effective planning or sound monitoring processes were two issues strongly emphasized by the protesters in expressing their lack of trust in state agencies. In this respect, some peasants underlined their ‘exclusion’ from the processes of planning of geothermal projects: ‘it was a fait accompli, the decisions [about geothermal plants] were taken in Ankara [the capital city]’ (Kuyucak interview, 2021). Many of the interviewed protesters emphasized how the lack of inspection paved the way for the companies’ deliberate negligence of the rules and regulations, allowing overexploitation of geothermal resources and avoidance of the burden of environmental protection measures (Vergili interview, 2022; Uysal interview, 2021). Along with the overexploitation of geothermal resources, the inappropriate reinjection of geothermal fluids, and the use of uncontrolled discharge methods were also often stressed as the main reasons for environmental degradation:

Look, they [companies] take the hot water from the ground. After using it, they should inject this water back again. But since there is a cost of reinjecting the water and the gas, they pour the water into the creeks and release the gas to the atmosphere. (Yılmaz interview 2021)

Perhaps more importantly, the protesters believed that authorities deliberately overlooked geothermal companies’ unauthorized actions, which included drilling wells, cutting down olive trees, and using the rural population's lands without the necessary permissions (Ener interview, 2021). In other words, they were of the opinion that those companies with government connections use these to avoid environmental assessment and monitoring:

Both the government and the state have given way to this rush of renewable energy. There is no law, no regulation, nothing. It is left up to the companies alone to take environmental measures. (Uysal interview, 2021)

Several permits are required to cut trees from a forest. If a person cuts trees without these permits, they will be imprisoned. It has such severe penalties. But the [geothermal] companies were not subjected to such punishment. (Ener interview, 2021)

The protesters’ distrust of state institutions also relates to the way authorities responded to their collective actions. Despite the widespread protests, the authorities’ negligence over the adverse environmental effects, and the insistence in giving permits to new projects further increased protesters’ anxiety and uneasiness about the companies’ operations (Evrensel, 19 March 2019). Moreover, the harsh and repressive reactions of the police to the peaceful protests (Kuru interview, 2022; Celayır interview 2022; Efe interview, 2022) made the strong support of the state institutions to the companies visible to the villagers (Ener interview, 2021; Orpak interview, 2022). Accordingly, they are still afraid of the renewal of projects that a few companies withdrew in the face of intense protests and the overturning of some of the lawsuits they won against geothermal projects.

Conclusion

This study has argued that understanding power/resistance nexus in the field of renewable energy requires analysis of politics and capital accumulation dynamics in specific geographical conjunctures. Focusing on the resistance to geothermal energy projects in Turkey, where authoritarianism, populism, and crony capital accumulation operate through one another, I have demonstrated that the formulation of geothermal policy and practices not primarily for decarbonization, but rather for the perpetuation and consolidation of the political power of the AKP government set the stage for the generation of widespread resistances. More specifically, my analysis sheds light on how the transition to renewable energy can be used by an authoritarian populist power to create new capital accumulation opportunities for its cronies, who play crucial roles in financially and politically supporting its dominance, at the expense of the degradation of highly fertile farmlands and the rural livelihood depending on them. It was the environmental injustices, and class, and gender inequalities that were either created or aggravated through these processes that triggered the widespread resistance to geothermal energy projects in the Aegean region. These local resistances presented a very different picture of geothermal energy than the government, making visible the sacrifice of a crucial opportunity for decarbonization in favor of short-term political and economic interests.

This study broadens our understanding of the power relations entailed by the transition to renewable energy which, as highlighted by political ecology scholars, is necessary for grasping renewables-driven land transformation (Knuth et al., 2022) and for ensuring just energy transition (McCarthy, 2015). The analysis of the Aegean case reveals that besides serving as a socioecological fix to crisis of capitalism (Palmer, 2021; Spivey, 2020; Siamanta 2019; Castree and Christophers, 2015; McCarthy, 2015), renewable energy development may also play a regime sustaining role by providing resource-seeking authoritarian governments with new resources to appropriate and exploit for their own purposes. As such, it may also exacerbate injustices and inequalities beyond the communities in the immediate vicinity of the projects. As shown in this paper, the AKP government took advantage of the global promotion of renewable energy production to transform, in the words of Harvey (2014: 248), ‘environmental issues into big business’ for its cronies, thereby perpetuating its political power. Specifically, opening smallholders’ farmlands to the extraction of the geothermal resources in an unplanned, unregulated, and uncontrolled manner, it turned renewable energy development into a highly profitable business for its cronies, the financial and political supporters of the authoritarian regime in Turkey. Thus, a vitally important consideration in comprehending the power relations shaping renewable energy policy and practices is to elucidate the intricate dynamics and connections between class interests and political interests, and the implications of these connections in terms of the consequent injustices and inequalities, not only at the local, but also at the broader level.

In close connection with this, the study points to the importance of examining the ways authoritarian populism serves to class interests (Bernstein, 2020; McKay et al., 2020; Jakobsen and Nielsen, 2023) to understand the power/resistance dynamics of renewable energy in contexts such as Turkey. It demonstrated how the AKP's populism shaped the renewable discourse: while opening the agriculturally intensive region to the exploitative geothermal production to provide its cronies with accumulation opportunities, the AKP government also presented this energy production by drawing on its populism, as serving to the interests of those subjected to injustices and inequalities created by this process. The class component of authoritarian populism is clearly visible at this point, as it seeks to align the interests of the dominated classes with the dominant ones (Hall, 1988). Both the energy companies engaging with the exploitative form of geothermal energy development, and those dispossessed as a result are interpellated by the AKP's populism as ‘the people’ benefitting from the ‘domestic and national’ resources of the country. It is the popular appeal of this populist discourse that enabled the AKP government to incorporate the lands owned, rented, or used by rural people into the accumulation process. The continual production of capital accumulation opportunities, in turn, proved highly beneficial, as mentioned above, for the survival of the authoritarian populist regime in Turkey; in short, each has become functional in the reproduction of the other.

This study also extends insights on the generation of local resistance to renewable energy projects by focusing on the resistance to geothermal energy. The scholarship on renewable energy in general, and on the resistance to renewable energy in particular have so far predominantly focused on wind and solar energy. It should be taken into account in understanding the resistances to geothermal energy that geothermal resources, like fossil-fuels, are ‘extracted’ from underground. Therefore, geothermal energy involves different land use dynamics: unlike solar power and wind power that lead to large-scale land grabbing (Scheidel and Sorman, 2012; Mulvaney, 2019) as they involve land-based energy production (Huber and McCarthy, 2017), geothermal energy production does not require large-scale lands. Therefore, the dispossessions and related social discontent created by geothermal projects may not arise from land grabbing. Rather, they might be more related to environmental destruction. As the Aegean case reveals, when not sufficiently planned, regulated, or monitored, geothermal energy may pose serious environmental risks, including the production of high CO₂ emissions. As such, rather than serve as a socioecological fix to climate change, geothermal energy, when operated improperly, may in fact further greenhouse gas emissions. This requires reviewing the practice of placing different renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal into a single category of ‘clean and renewable energy’. Such a categorization, as this study shows, may be used opportunistically to portray geothermal energy as essentially clean energy to obscure the environmental risks and costs that it may entail when inappropriately extracted.

Footnotes

Highlights

Understanding power/resistance nexus in renewable energy development requires analysis of politics and capital accumulation dynamics in specific geographical conjunctures.

Renewable energy development may lead to the generation of resistance by creating serious environmental injustices, and class and gender inequalities.

Renewable energy development may serve the aims and agenda of authoritarian populist powers, playing, as such, a regime sustaining role.

Geothermal energy may be as destructive as fossil fuel-based energy when not planned, regulated, and monitored effectively.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Izmir University of Economics (grant number BAP-2019-05).

ORCID iD

Hayriye Ozen

Notes

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