ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the transformation of energy from potentiality to waste in order to extend understanding of the relational dynamics upon which contemporary accusations of wasting rely. By ethnographically analysing work to reduce energy consumption in the city of Manchester in the UK, it considers the broader transformations that have occurred which have enabled energy to shift from an object of desire to a problem of wasting. The chapter provides some of the more infrastructural qualities of energy saving to explore what this might tell about the morality of wasting. It explores a specific example of one way in which energy saving was attempted in the UK. Unpacking this example provides with another angle to understand the moral imperative implied in not wasting energy. The chapter then considers what the prospects of this relationship to energy might be as we move into a different energetic future.
