Tracing circuits of electricity clearly can reveal how distant spaces have become unevenly affected by the growth of urban areas. These circuits are comprised of flows of electricity, production and distribution infrastructure, the built environment using this electricity or changed by building power plants and transmission lines, government regulators, generation and distribution companies, consumers, and the discourses used to sustain this circulation (Harrison and Popke 2011). Within each circuit, “equity, justice and vulnerability are constantly (re)constructed” (Hall, Hards and Bulkeley 2013, 419) because networked infrastructure and their technological systems can alter landscapes and spaces in uneven and unjust ways. For example, fracking, coal-powered plants, and hydropower dams can damage surrounding spaces, but those living nearby might not benefit from the additional electricity generation. Based on the inequalities and vulnerabilities that have arisen in these
electricity assemblages, scholars and advocates (ibid.) call for investigating injustices revolving around not only the production of electricity but also its consumption. By tracing an electricity circuit spanning from Bangkok to the Laos hinterlands, the case study in this paper illustrates an example of planetary urbanization, the effects this circuit has on the spaces far away from the thought-of urban area, and the ways in which it has produced injustice across borders.