Place-Based Energy Transitions: Who Decides and Who Benefits in a Clean Energy Future

What does a truly just energy transition look like — and who gets to define it? In this episode of People, Places, Planet, host Sebastian Duque Rios sits down with Nadia Ahmad (Barry University School of Law) and Danielle Stokes (University of Richmond School of Law), collaborators on the Just Energy Transitions and Place (JET Place) project, a multi-institutional research initiative examining how place, land use law, and community governance shape who bears the burdens and who captures the benefits of America's shift to clean energy. Drawing on fieldwork across Florida, Louisiana, Kansas, and Pennsylvania, they make the case that decarbonization without redistribution isn't a just transition at all. From federalism and zoning conflicts to power purchase agreements, IRA rollbacks, and the structural barriers facing marginalized communities, this conversation surfaces the deeply human stakes behind every permitting decision and planning process — and explores what it looks like when communities successfully reclaim agency in the energy future being built around them. The conversation also zeroes in on Florida as a potentially cautionary case: a state with extraordinary solar potential but a regulatory environment defined by vertically integrated utilities, restricted third-party PPAs, and legislation that threatens to ban net zero targets at every level of government. What "Just Energy Transition" Really Means: Decarbonization and Distribution (4:50) Navigating the Regulatory Landscape: Federal, State, and Local Authority (8:10) Just Energy Transitions and Place (21:39) Why Place-Centered Energy Planning Is Essential to Energy Justice (27:12) Florida: A Placed-based Case Study of Energy Governance Challenges (41:38) Concluding Thoughts: Policy Instability, IRA Rollbacks, and Reasons for Hope (50:07) ★ Support this podcast ★