Expertise
Gabe Eckhouse researches the political economy of energy markets and the changing structure of the global energy system. His work focuses on the industries and supply chains that underpin modern industrial society, with particular attention to oil, gas, batteries, and critical minerals. Across this research, he examines how the material conditions of production—from geology and extraction technologies to infrastructure and industrial organization—shape market formation, volatility, and investment.
His first book, Carbon Purgatory (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2026), analyzes the unstable transformation of oil and gas markets in an era of incomplete energy transition. The book argues that the world has entered a prolonged and turbulent period in which fossil fuels remain deeply embedded even as alternative energy systems expand.
His research also examines questions of performativity, uncertainty, and market coordination. He studies how projections, scenarios, and expectations about the future shape present investment decisions, and how expert knowledge, state strategy, and corporate calculation interact in the making of energy markets. A related concern is volatility: why energy markets repeatedly generate instability, why market signals often fail to coordinate long-term transformation, and how actors attempt to stabilize these systems under conditions of technological, ecological, and geopolitical upheaval.
He is the recipient of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship from the European Commission for the project Materializing Renewable Capital (MaRC), and in 2025 was awarded an Early Career Grant from FORMAS to study the barriers to developing a Nordic battery industry. Gabe received his PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley in 2022.