From efficiency to state entrepreneurialism: Shifting versions of the economization of biogas in the Danish state

Abstract

The relationship between the market and the state in energy transitions is a popular contemporary topic. While some argue that the role of the state is mainly to fix market failures, research on state entrepreneurialism contends that states should engage in energy transitions by shaping markets to support societal objectives. This study contributes to this debate by examining how the Danish state has engaged in developing specific low-carbon energy resource economies, informed by different versions of economizations (i.e. specific bureaucratic ways of understanding and intervening in the economy and the markets pertaining to a resource). This study demonstrates that the Danish state’s engagement in biogas development from a local energy resource to biomethane that is suited for European gas markets has been contingent on shifting biogas economizations. We identify the pivotal moment when a sequence of political agreements marked intensified state support of biogas, including a taskforce organized in the Danish Energy Agency (2012–2016). We conceptualize this as a shift towards an entrepreneurial version of economization seeking to actively promote biogas investments and demonstrate how this version of economization was cultivated in parallel to a dominant bureaucratic version of economization with a mode of reasoning that adhered to socio-economic cost efficiency. We argue that states are likely to be characterized by a bureaucratic repertoire of economizations that can coexist, albeit with tensions between them, with relative significance that may shift over time. These dynamics are likely to shape states’ engagement in cultivating economies for low carbon energy resources.