Energía no convencional en los Andes argentinos: ¿territorios en dependencia o en transición?
Abstract
In the transition to sustainable energy systems, pressures arise on natural resources and territories. In Latin America, since the end of the 20th century, countries have sought to diversify their energy mixes, promoting the use of unconventional resources. In Argentina, the provinces of Neuquén and San Juan are well-endowed with gas, solar and wind resources. There, the development of large exploitation projects reposition the territories on a global and national scale. This paper aims to analyze the transition process in territories of the central zone of the Andes, considering the actors and infrastructures linked to unconventional energy resources. The central hypothesis is that regardless of the resource exploited, the projects strengthen the centralized energy system, perpetuate the inherited territorial trajectories, thus restricting the energy transition to the replacement of energy sources. The methodological approach is based both on primary data -obtained from semi-structured interviews and field observations-, and secondary data, recovered from research articles, reports and press releases. The unconventional energy resources and their associated projects in Neuquén and San Juan represent a weak transition in the territories, given the major role played by external actors and the inertia of pre-existing infrastructures.
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