Energy Permacrisis

Sandy Smith-Nonini is an affiliated Researcher and former Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, where she taught for 18 years. She is a recipient of the Peter K. New Prize for applied anthropology and co-founded CommunEcos, an environmental education non-profit.

"Smith-Nonini systematically and incisively explores the complex ways in which energy and financial politics are entangled. She shows how, over the past several decades, energy prices have been entwined with banking, technological innovations, lifestyles, wars, injustices, and climate change. This book helps us see how, far from simply a matter of physical power, access to energy is always about access to money."- Alf Hornborg, Professor Emeritus of Human Ecology, Lund University, Sweden“The Energy Permacrisis is a valuable resource for scholars seeking to understand the connections between energy, climate change, finance, and global politics. By combining historical depth with contemporary case studies, Sandy Smith-Nonini demonstrates how energy crises are shaped by power, inequality, and fossil capitalism, offering important insights into the challenges of a just and sustainable energy transition. A must read for all students of contemporary capitalism and the energy that undergirds our civilizational order.”- Tim Di Muzio, Associate Professor of IR and Political Economy, University of Wollongong, Australia

• 1. Introduction: Days of Miracles and Plunder Part I: Petro-Financialization (2007-2015) 2. Car Crash: Oil Price, Automobility and the 2008 Financial Crisis 3. Gaslighting: The Financialized Fragility of Shale Gas (and Oil) Part II: Energetic Kleptocracy (2011-2019) 4. Energy “Theft” as Resistance: Metabolic Disorders of the Greek Debt Crisis 5. Disempowered: Tracking the Fossil Debt behind Puerto Rico’s Long Blackout Part III: Post-pandemic Energy Crises (2020 -2025) 6. When Texas Freezes Over: Legacies of Deregulation and Un-Natural Gas 7. Europe’s Energy Permacrisis – 2022 and its Sequelae 8. Short Circuit: LNG, Circular Debt and the Post-Pandemic Polycrisis Part IV: Energy Weapon (2022 -2026) 9. Carbon Sabotage: Fossil (In)Tensions behind Russia’s War in Ukraine 10. Unholy Land: Gaza’s Forbidden Gas and Metabolic Siege 11. The Big One: War in Iran Crimps the Global Fuel Line Anti-Conclusion 12. To Fix Climate, We Have to Fix Energy