How to kill a powerline: Utility-on-utility violence, electricity capital, and the political ecology of climate delay.

This article examines how incumbent electricity capital—firms and infrastructures already operating within electricity markets—use structural and strategic tactics to delay new low-carbon energy projects, focusing on the dynamics between incumbents and new entrants rather than solely on carbon intensity. Through a case study of the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) transmission line in Maine, it demonstrates how incumbent utilities, including fossil fuel and nuclear interests, financially supported and amplified pre-existing local opposition groups to slow the project's permitting and development, a process described as "utility-on-utility violence." The study highlights how this weaponization of public participation creates procedural injustices by limiting under-resourced community involvement and scapegoating opposition as astroturfed, thereby obscuring incumbent capital's role in climate delay. The article argues for policy reforms that enhance genuine public participation and discipline incumbent interference to support more democratic and equitable energy transitions.