Myles Lennon, "Subjects of the Sun: Solar Energy in the Shadows of Racial Capitalism" (Duke UP, 2025)

• Myles Lennon worked on New York energy efficiency policies, witnessing political will but minimal impact in implementation.
• Complex diverse urban housing and inefficient consumer market models hindered green goals like the Green Jobs, Green New York initiative.

• Solar energy is widely imagined as clean, but its production involves exploitative supply chains and fossil fuel use.
• The sun's affective power mystifies solar's racial capitalist labor conditions and challenges traditional Marxian commodity fetishism.

Solar energy, often seen as a clean and green solution, actually involves deeply exploitative and extractive production processes. Many solar panels are manufactured in Xinjiang, China, using forced Uyghur labor under harsh conditions. Additionally, the extraction of metals like cobalt and lithium, essential for solar technology and batteries, relies on exploitative labor practices involving children and women in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Despite solar panels being perceived as natural and pure—because they visibly shine under sunlight—this aestheticization obscures the violent realities behind their production. This disconnect challenges traditional Marxist views of commodity fetishism by adding the sun's affective power as a force that mystifies solar technology's material and racialized labor and environmental costs.

Understanding this duality is crucial for anyone working in clean energy or climate justice to critically assess the justness of the energy transition and recognize the unseen human and ecological costs embedded in renewable energy infrastructure.