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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
GUEST INTRODUCTION
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
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
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
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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?
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.
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.
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,
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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
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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.
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.
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