Constructing Viking Link: How the Infopower of Cost-benefit Analysis as a Calculative Device Reinforces the Energopower of Transmission Infrastructure

Constructing Viking Link: How the Infopower of Cost-benefit Analysis as a Calculative Device Reinforces the Energopower of Transmission Infrastructure

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This paper sheds light on the performativity of economics in the decision-making process behind Viking Link, a Danish-British interconnector under construction.It shows how energopower, that is, the political power inherent to energy infrastructures, is reinforced through the workings of cost-benefit analysis as prescribed by the Danish Ministry of Finance.In doing so, socksmith santa cruz the paper offers a novel approach to the performativity of calculative devices, highlighting the role of infopower, a Foucauldian neologism denoting the power inherent to information structures.Calculative devices are understood as information infrastructures that exert power through the work of data formatting.The cost-benefit analysis, as such a calculative device, limits the potential valuations of Viking Link and hence restricts decision-making.

This has impactful consequences, as the infopower of mainstream economic thinking makes it possible to disregard relevant aspects of Viking sony c Link, like its (lacking) contribution to decarbonization and alternatives to interconnectors as ways of integrating fluctuating renewable energy.