You are on page 1of 16

See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269825892

The Social Dimensions of Energy Transitions

Article in Science as Culture · June 2013


DOI: 10.1080/09505431.2013.786989

CITATIONS READS

52 109

3 authors, including:

Clark Miller
Arizona State University
85 PUBLICATIONS 2,188 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Urban Resilience to Weather-related Extreme Events View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Clark Miller on 31 January 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.


Science as Culture

ISSN: 0950-5431 (Print) 1470-1189 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/csac20

The Social Dimensions of Energy Transitions

Clark A. Miller , Alastair Iles & Christopher F. Jones

To cite this article: Clark A. Miller , Alastair Iles & Christopher F. Jones (2013) The
Social Dimensions of Energy Transitions, Science as Culture, 22:2, 135-148, DOI:
10.1080/09505431.2013.786989

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2013.786989

Published online: 30 May 2013.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1951

View related articles

Citing articles: 12 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at


http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=csac20

Download by: [197.155.4.15] Date: 29 January 2016, At: 19:18


Science as Culture, 2013
Vol. 22, No. 2, 135– 148, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2013.786989

GUEST INTRODUCTION

The Social Dimensions of Energy


Transitions

CLARK A. MILLER∗ , ALASTAIR ILES∗∗ & CHRISTOPHER F.


Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

JONES†

Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA,
∗∗
Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California at
Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA, †School of Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies,
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

KEY WORDS : Energy, society, infrastructure, energy justice, energy epistemics

The future of energy systems is one of the central policy challenges facing indus-
trial countries. This challenge is complex and multifaceted. Energy systems are
among the largest human enterprises, comprising 9 of the 12 most heavily capita-
lized companies in the world. They form the heart of the technological arrange-
ments around which contemporary industrial economies are organized. Efforts
to transform energy systems involve changes, therefore, not only to energy tech-
nologies and prices but also to the broader social and economic assemblages that
are built around energy production and consumption. Yet energy planning and
policy rarely account for these broader dimensions of energy change. Two
recent US energy reports illustrate this trend: the US National Academy of Engi-
neering’s study, America’s Energy Future, and the US Department of Energy’s
recent review of its programs (NAE, 2009; DOE, 2012). These reports form the
most comprehensive analyses of the US energy policy in the past decade. Yet
both reduce energy systems to remarkably narrow configurations of energy tech-
nologies, the prices at which these technologies can deliver energy in a useful
form, and the carbon emissions they release. The result is stunted energy
debates that systematically underemphasize the meaning and consequences of

Correspondence Address: Clark A. Miller, Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, Arizona State Univer-
sity, PO Box 875603, Tempe, AZ 85287-560, USA. Email: clark.miller@asu.edu

# 2013 Process Press


136 C. A. Miller et al.

energy systems and their changes for human societies and provide limited oppor-
tunities for people other than energy engineers, bureaucrats, and economists to
make influential contributions to energy policy deliberations.
We must do better. Energy debates need to be informed by robust empirical and
theoretical inquiries into what current and future energy changes will mean for
diverse groups of people across the planet (see e.g. Abramsky 2010). Responding
to this challenge, the essays in this collection explore how the social and the tech-
nological are intertwined in contemporary efforts to transform energy systems.
The essays are informed by and indebted to the growing body of scholarship on
socio-technological systems, much of which has been developed through analyses
of energy systems (see, especially, Hughes, 1983; Nye, 1990, 1998; Hecht, 1998,
2012; Geels, 2005). Energy systems are socio-technological systems that involve
not only machines, pipes, mines, refineries, and devices but also the humans who
Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

design and make technologies, develop and manage routines, and use and
consume energy. In turn, energy systems include financial networks, workforces
and the schools necessary to train them, institutions for trading in energy, roads,
regulatory commissions, land-use rules, city neighborhoods, and companies as
well as social norms and values that assure their proper functioning. Anyone
with a toddler, for example, knows that a key element of parenting now involves
teaching children how to live safely among highly dangerous energy technologies:
“Don’t stick your finger in the outlet!” and “Don’t run into the street!”
The value of analyzing energy changes through the lens of socio-technological
systems stems from the ability to make visible important aspects of energy trans-
formation that go unrecognized and unacknowledged in other analytical
approaches. These include the social processes that stimulate and manage
energy transformation, the social changes that accompany shifts in energy tech-
nologies, and the social outcomes that flow from the organization and operation
of novel energy systems. Energy systems can only change when and if people
make choices, whether these agents are business managers, policy officials, scien-
tists and engineers, or consumers. In turn, changes in energy technologies reshape
social practices, values, relationships, and institutions, such as new business
models, forms of work, and ways of knowing and living. Over time, these
changes can contribute to creating or reinforcing unequal distributions of power
and wealth in industrial societies. This raises important normative questions.
Who will comprise the energy haves and have-nots of the twenty-first century?
Who will control access to affordable, reliable, sustainable energy supplies and
who will not? Who will benefit from new energy systems, who will lose, and
whose lives and livelihoods will be put at risk?
Analyzing these processes, the essays reflect on three critical, intersecting
aspects of energy transformation that socio-technological systems perspectives
uniquely address. The first is the idea of energy infrastructures. What does it
mean, the essays ask, that energy systems are at once relatively hidden from
public scrutiny and yet deeply structuring of social and economic arrangements
The Social Dimensions of Energy Transitions 137

that can stifle alternatives without our realizing it? The second is the idea of energy
epistemics. Who knows about energy systems, what and how do they know, and
whose knowledge counts in governing and reshaping energy futures? The third
is the idea of energy justice. What does it mean to implement a just energy trans-
formation that will neither perpetuate the existing negative impacts of energy pro-
duction and use nor create new ones?

Energy Systems in Flux


Contemporary energy systems often appear remarkably stable and resilient.
Indeed, the stability and reliability of supply and demand are often viewed as
an essential hallmark of energy systems, providing a foundation for the growth
of robust industries and prosperous economies. The appearance of stability,
Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

however, belies the enormous work it takes to maintain steady flows of energy,
including massive ongoing investments in new energy infrastructure like develop-
ing oil fields and constructing electric power plants. Indeed, in 2011, the Inter-
national Energy Agency estimated that $38 trillion in investments will be
required to meet global energy demand through 2035, even if we continue to
rely heavily on fossil fuels (IEA, 2011). More will be required to finance large-
scale deployment of renewable technologies. In a highly uncertain financial and
political environment, companies, governments, and societies confront major
policy and business choices regarding whether, where, and how much to invest
in coal, natural gas, renewable energy, unconventional oil, and carbon sequestra-
tion projects respectively.
Thus, despite an appearance of stability, perhaps more than at any other time in
the past half-century, the core foundations of contemporary energy systems are in
flux along numerous dimensions. Consider the following changes at work:

. Concerns about the potential impacts of climate change have given rise to
scientific and political discourses motivating major policy initiatives and
financial investments across the globe designed to foster the adoption of
renewable energy technologies and thereby reduce carbon emissions while
creating green jobs. As a consequence of rapid cost reductions in wind and
photovoltaic technologies, these initiatives are poised to accelerate over the
next decade. Nonetheless, tensions are emerging around different approaches
to building renewable energy plants and their implications for ecosystems,
worker health, and communities, including utility-scale and community-
scale facilities and distributed energy systems (on solar energy, see e.g.
Aanesen et al., 2012; on wind, see e.g. Cowell et al., 2011).
. The advent of new hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” technologies that enable
the extraction of natural gas from shale formations has created a glut in the US
markets, driving prices to extraordinarily low levels. This unexpected expan-
sion of supply has already led to substitution of gas for coal in the production
138 C. A. Miller et al.

of electricity, the cancelation of plans in some locations to build new coal


plants, and the closure of some existing plants. At the same time, public pro-
tests against the use of fracking technologies have accelerated. A new front in
social conflicts over energy has opened around concerns about the short-term
health hazards of chemicals used in the fracking process, which are opaque to
the public because of industry secrecy, and the still large ongoing carbon
emissions associated with a surge in gas-fired electricity production, which
perpetuates dependence on fossil fuels.
. New discoveries of conventional oil have dwindled to a trickle, forcing oil pro-
ducers to adopt a range of new production methods, including drilling in
deeper offshore waters and exploiting unconventional oil sources, such as Vene-
zuelan heavy crude and Canadian tar sands. Producing oil with these technologies
is significantly more expensive than in conventional oil fields. Combined with the
Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

increased dependency of many oil producing countries on this resource to support


ambitious state projects and budgets, this cost has helped push up oil prices
rapidly over the past decade, with little sign of this trend being reversed. Uncon-
ventional oil production also poses much higher environmental risks. These
include climate change impacts as these forms of oil have higher carbon
content on a per unit energy basis and ecological damage from the use of
complex, often poorly understood or ill-regulated technologies in novel and dif-
ficult-to-work-in environments, as illustrated by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
. As a result of elevated oil prices, automobile manufacturers, policy leaders,
and consumers are once again focused on achieving energy efficiency in
transportation fleets, including the growing availability and adoption of
hybrid, electric, and natural gas vehicles. The USA also recently adopted
new fuel economy standards of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. High oil
prices have also resulted in substantial social dislocation. For low-income
communities in the USA, gasoline costs often comprise a significant pro-
portion of total household spending expenditures, and high prices reduce
available funds for other necessities. Poor communities in developing
countries also face growing food prices partly due to the high costs of oil
used in agricultural production as well as to the intensifying competition
for land and commodities between biofuels with food.
. The meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant following a tsunami in
March 2011 has called into question for many communities the viability of
nuclear energy at a time when many in the industry expected a renaissance.
Numerous countries in Europe have decided to phase out nuclear power,
the USA has largely halted what appeared to be the first new nuclear plants
to be constructed in decades, and Japan has faced severe public backlash
against the idea of restarting its nuclear facilities. Widespread protests have
also confronted the Indian government’s decision to continue forward with
its plans to rapidly escalate the construction of nuclear power plants in the
wake of the accident.
The Social Dimensions of Energy Transitions 139

An energy transition is, therefore, clearly underway. Significantly more uncertain,


however, is the timing, pathways, and forms this transition will take.
All of this renders particularly acute the need for energy policy to become
much more critically reflective about the nature and implications of energy tran-
sitions (see, especially, the Laird essay in this collection). Traditionally, energy
transitions have been understood in terms of fuel sources, such as the transition
from wood to coal, coal to oil, or oil to renewables. Viewed from a socio-tech-
nological systems perspective, this framing of energy transitions looks naı̈ve at
best. On one hand, transitions in fuels are inevitably accompanied by widespread
social, economic, and political transformations that must also be factored into
assessments of energy change. Even more importantly, neither fuels nor their
associated technologies of extraction, generation, and use determine the social
and economic forms that energy systems take over time. Rather, these technol-
Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

ogies are interpretively flexible, like all technologies, and can be shaped into a
range of diverse energy systems. Thus, the key choices involved in energy tran-
sitions are not so much between different fuels but between different forms of
social, economic, and political arrangements built in combination with new
energy technologies.
In other words, the challenge is not simply what fuel to use but how to organize
a new energy system around that fuel. Consider solar photovoltaics. Price declines
among photovoltaic modules have pushed the solar industry almost exclusively
toward photovoltaics rather than other solar technologies, such as concentrated
solar thermal plants or Stirling engines. This growing emphasis has several impli-
cations for societies. For example, there is a new race among companies, commu-
nities, and governments to determine whether utility-scale, community-scale, or
rooftop-scale photovoltaic installations will form the heart of future solar
energy developments. From the perspective of utilities, large-scale installations
have clear advantages: they operate with economies of scale, are easier to integrate
into electricity grids, and generate revenues that flow almost exclusively to utili-
ties. Conversely, from the perspective of electricity consumers, small-scale, dis-
tributed installations can currently deliver energy more cheaply (due, in part, to
the fact that they do not have to account for the costs of building and maintaining
the electricity grid and also to significant policy incentives) and offer individuals
and households a more personal, hands-on relationship with the production of
energy. Utilities are thus confronted with the prospect of rapidly increasing
numbers of households and businesses withdrawing at least a portion of their elec-
tricity demand from the grid. Coupled with net metering laws that require utilities
to credit households for electricity they produce that exceeds their own consump-
tion, utilities face what one Arizona energy regulator has termed the prospect of
“cascading natural deregulation” that fuels a precipitous decline in energy con-
sumption and thus threatens utilities’ core financial models (SWEIF, 2010).
Thus, utilities and their investors have significant incentives to favor government
policies, business plans, and technology designs that discourage the development
140 C. A. Miller et al.

of distributed installations in favor of industrialized, large-scale plants that may


have much greater ecosystem and land-use impacts.
Or consider another example, the introduction of charging stations for electric
vehicles. Even with their current capabilities, a roughly 30 mile range, battery-
powered electric vehicles offer a less polluting, lower carbon emitting, and
more efficient alternative to gasoline powered vehicles for the shorter distances
typical of daily commuting. Such vehicles would primarily be on the road in
the early morning and, again, in the late afternoon or evening. Otherwise, they
are stationary, parked in the garage at home (at night) or at work (during the
day). The choice of which period to charge these vehicles has enormous conse-
quences, however, for the ways in which electricity is sourced and supplied.
Today, most electric vehicles are sold in combination with a home charging
station that enables their owners to charge them at night, when electricity rates
Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

are at their lowest. Yet, as a long-term solution, this has the potential to lock in
the need for large amounts of new electricity production at night, thus encouraging
the retention of fossil fuels or the large-scale expansion of wind or nuclear power.
For electric vehicles to be compatible with solar energy, they need to be charged
during the day, which means the development of large-scale charging capacity at
workplaces, parking sites, and battery swap stations for those drivers who are
willing to exchange their batteries. Alternatively, storage systems need to be
developed to capture and release renewable energy at night. These options have
implications for who will pay the cost of infrastructure (consumers, companies,
or governments), the design and lay-out of urban areas and buildings, and the cre-
ation of markets for particular forms of renewable energy versus fossil fuels.
Understood in these terms, energy transitions are about who benefits and who is
put at risk. They are about the power of regulatory institutions, the structure of
markets, and the distribution of wealth. And they are about how people of all
sorts work and live. Without understanding this, policy-makers, researchers, acti-
vists, and investors hoping to direct energy transitions are likely to encounter pol-
itical opposition and may contribute to unintended adverse impacts. When the
Obama Administration chose to place oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico under a
moratorium, it jeopardized the jobs not only of those who worked on the rigs
but also those in the adjacent states whose livelihoods depended on the oil indus-
try, from boat owners to wire manufacturers to hotel owners. The resulting threat
of economic decline helped mobilize a strong public uprising against the morator-
ium, which ended sooner than initially imagined. Yet government policies and
industrial renewal could have followed a different pathway toward what many
communities, unions, and activists call a “just transition”. For example, faced
with a similar situation in the 1990s when Germany dramatically reduced the
burning of coal to generate electricity, the country used widespread programs to
retrain coal industry workers to find new jobs, sometimes in renewable energy.
This assured greater justice in changing from coal and broke up historically
log-jammed constituencies.
The Social Dimensions of Energy Transitions 141

Large-scale energy transitions like those discussed above are some of the
most momentous decisions that societies ever make. They will likely define
much of the local, national, and global politics of the next 50 years and
beyond. It is critical, therefore, that societies grapple with the full ramifications
of these transitions and approach them as the complex socio-technological
system transformations that they really are. In particular, societies must define
clear standards against which to define and measure successful energy tran-
sitions. Price and system stability are important; so are carbon emissions. But
if the goal is to change the organization and operation of the largest and most
influential human enterprises on the planet toward more sustainable, just
alternatives, our ambitions should demand more than simply reducing carbon
emissions. Re-envisioning energy is a potentially powerful contributor to
improving human well-being around the globe through the creation of thriving,
Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

innovative, sustainable communities. Approaching energy system change from


that perspective could generate a very different policy conversation about the
future of energy.

Social Dimensions in Energy Change


The essays in this collection reveal insights into the complexities of energy system
change that can be grouped under three overarching themes. The first theme is
energy infrastructure. By infrastructure, we mean, following Edwards et al.
(2009), “big, durable, well functioning systems and services” that are typically
hidden from public view yet highly significant in structuring social, political,
and economic organization. Infrastructure is foundational to modern energy
systems; its durability means that it can exert influence for many decades. In
their original state, coal, oil, and natural gas are buried in hard-to-reach places, dif-
ficult to transport, and hard to use. It is only the vast, industrialized, large-scale
deployment of drills, mines, pipelines, storage facilities, railroads, tankers, refi-
neries, and distribution systems that render fossil fuels seemingly cheap and abun-
dant for consumers. Many renewable energy systems exhibit a similar reliance on
large-scale manufacturing facilities, long-distance transmission wires, and a pro-
liferation of consumer appliances. Take away key aspects of energy infrastructure,
and the energy system can come crashing down quickly, bringing numerous other
systems down with it (Nye, 2010). During modern electricity blackouts, for
example, computer systems shut down, elevators and trains cease to run, and hos-
pitals and factories may have to cut back on their activity. These functional
elements of infrastructure are well recognized and even topics of policy debate,
although long periods can elapse between major policy deliberations regarding
any given infrastructure. The social consequences of these systems are less fre-
quently appreciated. As science, technology, and society scholars have demon-
strated, how we build and use infrastructure shape and reflect everything from
our political systems, working patterns, living arrangements, leisure practices,
142 C. A. Miller et al.

health outcomes, and environmental conditions (Hughes, 1983; Nye, 1990;


Winner, 1980; Kaijser and van der Vleuten, 2006).
Several of the essays help build a critical understanding of energy infrastruc-
tures and apply the resulting insights to renewable energy technologies. In his his-
torical analysis of coal canals, oil pipelines, and electricity transmission wires,
Jones demonstrates that design choices have financial, geographic, and environ-
mental consequences. Iles argues that two possible transitions in our transportation
infrastructure—the substitution of biofuels and electric motors for oil-powered
automobiles—offer a range of implementation pathways that are more and less
sustainable. Whether these design decisions are made by industry officials or con-
sumer groups and how they are implemented are likely to shape the consequences
of these changes. Through separate life-cycle approaches to photovoltaic cells and
rare-earth mining, Mulvaney and Raman each reveal that renewable energy
Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

systems can display environmentally damaging patterns of infrastructural organ-


ization parallel to those of the fossil fuel energy systems they purport to replace
in a more sustainable fashion. The use and potential release of toxic chemicals
in photovoltaic cell manufacturing and the reliance of wind and solar energy on
rare earth materials mined in unsustainable fashion both indicate the need to
pay greater attention to the infrastructure requirements of renewable energy
systems. Similarly, Levidow et al. contend that path dependence is not simply a
reality for our fossil fuel systems; their study of biofuel policies shows that pre-
vious investments shape renewable energy infrastructures as well. Moore analyzes
the envisioning process for the ambitious Desertec solar plan, illustrating the need
for tools that can aid system designers in navigating the complex social and pol-
itical landscapes in which they are operating. Collectively, our authors show that it
is not simply a question of whether to build infrastructure for renewable energy
systems but rather how to approach such a task and what forms of intertwined
social, economic, political, and technological arrangements get built and/or
evolve to produce new forms of energy production and consumption.
The materiality of our energy systems results from how people think about and
understand these systems. Therefore, a second focus of these essays is the knowl-
edge practices governing energy systems. The successful operation of contempor-
ary energy networks depends on highly complex and specialized knowledge to
identify oil and gas reserves miles beneath the earth’s surface, integrate hundreds
of producers and millions of consumers in vast electricity grids, and manufacture
many technologies from generators to photovoltaic cells. These epistemological
developments are normative as well as functional (Ezrahi, 1990; Porter, 1996;
Jasanoff, 2004). For example, ideas of risk and opportunity are pervasive in the
energy sector, and these calculations often reflect the biases of particular
groups. The desirable path forward often looks very different depending on
whether one is a policy-maker, an energy entrepreneur, or a local citizen.
Several essays in this volume further our understanding of what we refer to as
energy epistemics. Laird argues that the concept of “energy transitions” has been
The Social Dimensions of Energy Transitions 143

used so narrowly in major US policy discussions that it may no longer be appro-


priate for capturing the broad social consequences of energy systems change out-
lined in these essays. He recommends that we either abandon the term or learn to
use it in a more nuanced manner. Hess draws our attention to the plurality of poss-
ible transitions, emphasizing the convergences and divergences between a focus
on sustainability and climate change mitigation, on the one hand, and a transition
based on resilience and climate change adaptation on the other. Jasanoff and Kim
demonstrate that powerful and enduring socio-technical imaginaries shape the
ways in which nation-states understand and allocate the risks and opportunities
in large projects such as nuclear power. In a related vein, Sovacool and Brossman
explore the role of fantasies arising from particular energy sources in enabling and
perpetuating transitions. Essays by Ottinger, Phadke, and Bhadra continue the
interest in energy epistemics but focus on bottom-up knowledge rather than the
Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

top-down dictates of policy-makers and cultural brokers. Like Mulvaney and


Raman, Ottinger notes that renewable energy developments can have many of
the same problems as those based on fossil fuels. She argues that one step in rec-
tifying this situation is to give greater credence to the “street science” of local
communities within debates about the health and environmental concerns of
wind power. Bhadra examines the role of citizens and activists in recasting the
politics of nuclear power in India. Seeking to produce more just outcomes for
renewable energy developments, Phadke reports on a “landscape symposium”
model she has developed for engaging citizens in the decision-making process
for wind power. Collectively, these essays demonstrate that whose knowledge
is considered relevant has profound consequences for the shape of energy systems.
Energy justice is a third theme that cuts across all the essays in this volume.
A fundamental but often overlooked dimension, energy justice addresses the
serious and conflict-laden normative and ethical issues raised by energy pro-
duction and consumption, including equitable access to energy, the fair distri-
bution of costs and benefits, and the right to participate in choosing whether
and how energy systems will change. Energy justice thus involves “choices
about what kinds of energy systems to build for the future, where to build them,
and how to distribute their benefits, costs, and risks” (Miller, 2012). The distri-
bution of energy production and use and their impacts is highly unequal, as are
the resulting economic and political benefits (O’Rourke and Connolly, 2003).
Many Native American households on reservations still lack electricity whereas
affluent urban residents can buy and drive electric vehicles as a luxury. Human
rights are also at the heart of energy justice: energy is essential to human life. Pol-
itical systems have only rarely defined energy as a basic right, yet in many cases
they provide strong rules that both facilitate broad distribution of low-cost energy
and make it difficult to disconnect consumers, even when they fail to pay their
bills. Energy justice also poses questions of procedural justice. Many changes
are currently taking place with little input from community and consumer
voices, potentially laying the foundations of yet more injustices in future.
144 C. A. Miller et al.

Together, the essays underscore that energy justice is a multi-layered phenom-


enon that spans energy systems from localized community controversies to
national and global policy-making. For example, one crucial issue in energy
justice is who has the right to choose. As demonstrated in essays by Iles, Ottinger,
Phadke, and Bhadra, citizens and communities often have different perspectives
on how, when, whether, and where to build energy systems than do industry
executives or policy-makers. Similarly, Laird, Jasanoff and Kim, Hess,
Levidow et al., and Sovacool and Brossman reveal that conceptual frameworks
operating at high levels often privilege the ideas and values of certain groups
while marginalizing alternative perspectives. A third common issue is that
energy systems often create inequalities in the distributions of harms and benefits.
As Jones, Mulvaney, and Raman argue, the dangerous pollutants associated with
energy are often concentrated in locations or groups with little wealth or political
Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

power while the largest consumers of energy are often able to live without expos-
ing themselves to such environmental contamination. Moore shows that the
benefits of solar power created in the Sahara Desert will likely serve countries
to the north and east while excluding those to the south. Though renewable
energy has widely been linked in the popular imagination to a more just social
order, these essays make it clear that such a result is not inevitable. It will
require new imaginations, new procedures, and new power dynamics.

Conclusion
Making energy transitions will be one of humanity’s great challenges for the
twenty-first century. Whatever form they take, energy transitions will be
complex socio-technological transformations that require major changes for
many communities. Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, recently observed, for
example, that the oil industry is ready to build the new systems necessary to
fuel another century of oil consumption. Climate change will occur, he acknowl-
edged, but ”we will adapt . . . It’s an engineering problem, and has engineering sol-
utions” (Tillerson, 2012). This is not a pretty picture. Engineering on this scale is
inevitably social, political, and economic engineering as much as it is technologi-
cal. Worse, humanity’s track record of engineering on this scale is not strong (see,
e.g. Graham, 1996; Scott, 1998). Winners and losers will be rampant, and such an
approach may reinforce the very production and use patterns that have caused
climate change, adding even more carbon emissions to the already vast momen-
tum of global warming built into the planetary environment due to the past 50
years of global growth. There may be planetary boundaries beyond which
societies are far less able to adapt over reasonable time frames (Rockström
et al., 2010). Should societies be captive to the ambitions of the oil industry
without extensive public debate?
Yet challenges are also opportunities. For several reasons, we (the authors of
this introduction) are cautiously optimistic about the potential for building an
The Social Dimensions of Energy Transitions 145
Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

Figure 1. Credit: the youth are awesome. Source: http://www.youthareawesome.com/?attachment_


id=25499.

alternative energy future that is more just and less ecologically destructive. First,
with the notable exception of the fossil fuel industries, the idea of encouraging an
energy transition that significantly reduces carbon emissions now has widespread
social support. The motivations for seeking change are much stronger now than
in previous energy crises. There is greater awareness of the possibility of disruptive
conflicts if energy futures are not opened up to greater public deliberation (Figure 1).
There is also greater traction for attending to societal concerns about existing
energy extraction and production, rather than just energy supply fears. In the
past few years, global protests have grown around “fracking” in the natural gas
industry (Ferguson and Smith, 2012) and the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure
such as the oil sand-delivering Keystone XL pipeline and struggles over deep sea
drilling (DiPeso, 2012). The giant profits of oil companies through the global
financial crisis have undermined their credibility as socially beneficial producers
of energy. The US Department of Defense has, surprisingly, emerged as a major
financier of renewable energy projects, emphasizing their role in enhancing the
security of military facilities and the nation in both energy independence and
climate change risks (Sarewitz et al., 2012). Moreover, governments, industry,
and investors are increasingly interested in gaining a greater share of the global
energy market, worth at least $5 trillion, by pursuing promising alternatives.
China is a case in point, as it has made tremendous investments in solar and
wind technologies in the hope of dominating world markets (although other
nations, especially South Korea, may take turns in leading the race to produce
the world’s cheapest photovoltaic panels; see Reuters, 2012).
146 C. A. Miller et al.

Third, the development of new infrastructures for alternative energy systems


creates opportunities for insisting that energy designs and decisions explicitly
incorporate an awareness of the social dimensions of energy transitions. While ret-
rofitting existing infrastructures can be enormously expensive, many benefits can
be achieved without greatly increasing the cost of new systems when incorporated
at the design stage. Policy-makers, industries, communities, and non-governmen-
tal organizations (NGOs) are starting to think more critically about how energy
infrastructures are being designed, built, and rebuilt. Regulators have shown
greater awareness that multiple trajectories of energy development co-exist and
that increasing diversity rather than settling on a single dominant system is a
good outcome. Promisingly, this critique is already being applied to renewable
energy technologies, whereas fossil fuels went largely unchallenged until long
after their entrenchment. As seen in community, union, and NGO responses to
Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

the siting of wind and solar farms, or the development of specific technologies
such as electric cars, engaged publics increasingly want a say in how energy is
delivered, for what uses, where, and to whom.
Fourth, there is increasing societal interest in democratic participation in tech-
nological change. Recent research has focused on innovative, deliberative models
of public engagement in scientific and technological decision-making (Sclove,
1995; Kleinman, 2000; Iles, 2013; Phadke, 2013). Current efforts tend to focus
on individual technologies rather than complex technological and social
systems (Graffy and Booth, 2008) and usually involve relatively small-scale
public engagement (Miller and Moore, 2011), rather than seeking to understand
and enhance the capacity for deliberative systems to enable society-wide conver-
sations about energy policy (Dryzek, 2010). Nonetheless, such efforts suggest an
alternative model for technological development that replaces narrow technology
assessments with broader socio-technological systems assessments. Rather than
seeing communities as a barrier to change, this research demonstrates that
active engagement with a wide range of social actors can produce outcomes
that are more democratic and legitimate and that account for a wider array of pol-
itical and economic factors in technological change. Several of our contributors
note that communities can be valuable partners in renewable energy planning,
not simply barriers to energy development.
Energy is a harbinger for a new era in human history. We are now moving from
an era of constructing large-scale technologies to one of re-constructing complex,
socio-technological systems that link energy to a wide range of other systems such
as water, transportation, food production, and housing. This transition will chal-
lenge engineers, societies, policy-makers, and the social and policy sciences to
develop new approaches to innovation that integrate both technological and
human dimensions together. We must recognize the need to go beyond the devel-
opment of new gadgets like the iPhone to see the ways in which society is consti-
tuted with its technological systems and to understand that to change technological
systems is to change who we are, how we behave, and how we live. Langdon
The Social Dimensions of Energy Transitions 147

Winner may have been right when he described society as sleep-walking through
fundamental changes in the technological constitution of twentieth century society
(Winner, 1986), but it is hard to imagine that we will sleep-walk through the mag-
nitude of energy systems change now envisioned. Only by being attentive to the
social dimensions of our energy systems can we hope to stimulate genuine inven-
tiveness in how we approach the challenge of governing an energy transition.

References
Aanesen, K., Heck, S. and Pinner, D. (2012) Solar Power: Darkest Before Dawn (New York:
McKinsey & Co.).
Abramsky, K. (2010) Sparking a Worldwide Energy Revolution: Social Struggles in the Transition to
a Post-Petrol World (Oakland, CA: AK Press).
Cowell, R., Bristow, G. and Munday, M. (2011) Acceptance, acceptability and environmental
Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

justice: The role of community benefits in wind energy development, Journal of Environmental
Planning and Management, 54(4), pp. 539–557.
DiPeso, J. (2012) Trading power, Environmental Quality Management, 21(4), pp. 87–97.
Dryzek, J. (2010) Foundations and Frontiers of Deliberative Governance (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press).
Edwards, P., Bowker, G., Jackson, S. and Williams, R. (2009) Introduction: An agenda for infra-
structure studies, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 10(5), pp. 364–374.
Ezrahi, Y. (1990) The Descent of Icarus: Science and the Transformation of Contemporary Democ-
racy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Ferguson, D. and Smith, M. (2012) No Frackin’ way: Activism in the Marcellus Shale Region,
Business Research Yearbook, 19(2), pp. 497–505.
Geels, F. (2005) Technological Transitions and System Innovations: A Co-Evolutionary and Socio-
Technical Analysis (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar).
Graffy, E. and Booth, N. (2008) Linking environmental risk assessment and communication: An
experiment in co-evolving scientific and social knowledge, International Journal of Global
Environmental Issues, 8(1/2), pp. 132–146.
Graham, L. (1996) The Ghost of the Executed Engineering: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet
Union (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Hecht, G. (1998) The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity After World War II
(Cambridge: MIT Press).
Hecht, G. (2012) Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade (Cambridge: MIT Press).
Hughes, T. (1983) Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Societies, 1880–1930 (Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press).
International Energy Agency (IEA). (2011) World Energy Outlook (Paris: International Energy
Agency).
Iles, A. (2013) Greening chemistry: Emerging epistemic political tensions in California and the
United States, Public Understanding of Science, 22(4), pp. 461–480. doi: 10.1177/
0963662511404306.
Jasanoff, S. (Ed.). (2004) States of Knowledge: The Co-production of Science and the Social Order
(London: Routledge).
Kaijser, A. and van der Vleuten, E. (2006) Networking Europe: Transnational Infrastructures and the
Shaping of Europe, 1850–2000 (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications).
Kleinman, D. L. (2000) Science, Technology & Environment (New York: SUNY Press).
Miller, C. (2012) Energy justice: Ensuring human dignity in the post-carbon future, Cairo Review of
Global Affairs, May, pp. 46–59.
148 C. A. Miller et al.

Miller, C. and Moore, S. (2011) Arizona’s Energy Future (Phoenix, MD: AZ Town Hall).
Nye, D. (1990) Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880–1940
(Cambridge: MIT Press).
Nye, D. (1998) Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies (Cambridge: MIT Press).
Nye, D. (2010) When the Lights Went Out: A History of Blackouts in America (Cambridge: MIT
Press).
O’Rourke, D. and Connolly, S. (2003) Just oil? The distribution of environmental and social impacts
of oil production and consumption, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 28,
pp. 587–617.
Phadke, R. (2013) Public deliberation and the geographies of wind justice, Science as Culture, 22(2),
000– 000.
Porter, Theodore. (1996) Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Reuters (2012) Debt-laden Chinese firms need infusion of funds, The New York Times, August 15.
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, III, F. S., Lambin, E. F., Lenton, T. M.,
Scheffer, M., Folke, C., Schellnhuber, H. J., Nykvist, B., de Wit, C. A., Hughes, T., van der
Downloaded by [197.155.4.15] at 19:18 29 January 2016

Leeuw, S., Rodhe, H., Sörlin, S., Snyder, P. K., Costanza, R., Svedin, U., Falkenmark, M., Karlberg,
L., Corell, R. W., Fabry, V. J., Hansen, J., Walker, B., Liverman, D., Richardson, K., Crutzen, P. and
Foley, J. A. (2010) A safe operating space for humanity, Nature, 461, pp. 472–475.
Sarewitz, D., Thernstrom, S., Alic, J. and Doom, T. (2012) Energy Innovation at the Department of
Defense (Washington, DC: Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes).
Sclove, R. (1995) Technology and Democracy (New York City: Guilford Press).
Scott, J. (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have
Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).
Southwest Energy Innovation Forum (SWEIF). (2010) Summary Report. Available at
http://www.swenergyforum.com/
Tillerson, R. (2012) The New North American Energy Paradigm: Reshaping the Future. Speech to
the Council on Foreign Relations, June 27.
US Department of Energy (DOE). (2012) QTR: Report on the First Quadrennial Technology Review
(Washington: Department of Energy).
US National Academy of Engineering (NAE). (2009) America’s Energy Future: Technology and
Transformation (Washington: National Academies Press).
Winner, L. (1980) Do artifacts have politics? Daedalus, 109(1), pp. 121–136.
Winner, L. (1986) The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology
(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press).

View publication stats

You might also like