Research

Thematic Research Areas and Current and Past Research Projects 
 

The broad research emphasis in ESPI is on coupled processes of social and technological change in energy systems. Under this broad topical focus, we are currently pursuing research under three thematic areas: (1) the analysis and management of change in large-scale, socio-technical energy systems; (2) energy, justice, and societal outcomes: lives, livelihoods, and lifestyles; and (3) reflexive governance of energy systems transformation. We describe each of these themes below. 
 

Analysis and Management of Change in Large-Scale, Socio-Technical Energy Systems 
 

Key to understanding energy system change is understanding the full lifecycle of energy systems—from production through conversion, distribution, and consumption—and the embeddedness of energy systems in human lives, livelihoods, and lifestyles at each of these sites. Key, too, is understanding the ways in which such systems are managed: the skills and capacities required to operate them, and the ways in which they demand certain forms of social order to ensure their stability and security. Current and past research projects and participant experience in this arena include: 
 

• Joseph Herkert: Promoting the adoption of renewable energy technologies - His recent work focuses on the macroethical aspects of engineering. He is currently working on a paper on engineering ethics and climate change. His previous projects included engineering ethics and sustainable development and engineering ethics and risk communication.
  He has also done some work on energy policy, most notably a project on applying decision models to sustainable energy choices.He has also worked on adoption of renewable energy technologies by publicly owned utilities.
• Arthur Mason: Restructuring in the natural gas industry – Energy markets are undergoing a transformation as a consequence of changing economics and government oversight. Industry liberalization is ushering in a new era of competition and restructuring the basis of production relations. Mason’s work situates these changes at the intersection of U.S. national energy policy and global energy politics and draws on theories from the disciplines of cultural anthropology, discourse analysis, and science and technology studies. Specifically, Mason’s work examines the cultural shifts brought forth by the 2001 energy crisis in the United States, regional and federal policy on Alaskan natural gas development, institutional commitments to economic principles of a newly restructured industry, and how the interplay between these different forces contributes to establishing a global natural gas energy market. (ArthurMason.com)
• Clark Miller: Knowledge systems and the globalization of nuclear energy – Part of a larger study on the politics of knowledge systems in international governance, this project examines the history of the International Atomic Energy Agency as an effort to create stability and security in world order. Specifically, the project examines long-term changes in the nuclear non-proliferation regime and their impacts on the ability of the IAEA to monitor and manage the transition from nuclear energy systems to nuclear weapons systems from the 1950s to the present. A key part of the study will be to analyze the role of IAEA inspections in global debates over the status of Iraqi and Iranian nuclear programs after 1990.
• Lori Hidinger and Arthur Mason: Risk Management and Emergency Management in Energy Systems – In the 1990s, Lori Hidinger served as an energy systems crisis management operator at the Department of Energy. Arthur Mason also shares a long-term interest in the practice of risk analysis and risk management in energy systems.
• Karin Ellison and Paul Hirt: History of Energy System Development – Karin Ellison wrote her PhD dissertation at MIT on the history of Grand Coulee Dam in the Pacific Northwest, with a particular emphasis on the thirty year history of multiple-purpose river development in the United States, an essential element in the logic of transforming the nation’s rivers into large-scale energy production systems. Paul Hirt is currently writing a history of the development of dams and electricity grids in the Pacific Northwest.
• Brad Allenby: Earth Systems Engineering and Management – Energy systems are central elements in the global scale technological and ecological systems at the focus of Earth systems engineering and management.

Energy, Justice, and Societal Outcomes: Lives, Livelihoods, and Lifestyles 
 

Similarly key to understanding the impacts of energy system change on human wellbeing and welfare is understanding the ways in which energy systems impinge on questions of justice and equity in and among communities. How are energy systems bound up in the lives, livelihoods, and lifestyles of communities across the globe, and with what consequences for justice, fairness, and survival? Is it just, for example, that some on Earth enjoy luxury sports-utility-vehicles while others have insufficient claim on energy systems to light refugee camps at night to prevent widespread theft and violence? Is it possible that energy system transformation will create opportunities for addressing such basic inequities in global society? 
 

• Jamey Wetmore, Monamie Bhadra, and Erin Daly: Technology and Inequity – Jamey Wetmore has written extensively about questions of equity, responsibility, and ethics in large-scale technological systems. Of particular note, his study of the history of automobile safety showed that a key element in the transformation of large-scale technological systems was the transformation of notions of responsibility, liability, and ethics among engineers and in society more broadly. Monamie Bhadra is interested in the relationship between technology and equity on global scales. Erin Daly has recently finished her Master’s thesis on the social disjuncture between images and understandings of New Orleans as a technological system of levees and infrastructure and as a city of jazz and culture.
• Jamey Wetmore: Automobile Culture – Energy is not simply a source of economic productivity and development, it is also a deep-seated element of cultural imagination. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in automobile culture, as mobile energy sources transformed society into a culture on the move. Indeed, not only has the care been woven into the American psyche, but into every other large-scale technological system that has subsequently been created. By contrast, cultures like the Amish that eschew modern technologies and energy systems offer a very distinct model of life, livelihood, and lifestyle.
• Sander van der Leeuw: Long-term Change in Energy Systems and Human Society

Reflexive Governance of Energy Systems Transformations 
 

The third thematic area of research focuses on the analysis and design of processes for the reflexive management and governance of energy system transformation that can take into account the human and societal dimensions of those systems. Building on the model of real-time technology assessment, ESP participants are working on a variety of efforts to engage energy research and innovation to ensure that the intersections of energy and society are considered at an early stage in the technological development process. 
 

• Cynthia Selin and Daniel Sarewitz: Scenario Research – Cynthia Selin has pursued substantial research on scenario planning as a form of social and policy activity, including considerable research on the invention of scenario planning at Royal Dutch / Shell, where it was pioneered as a tool for informing corporate decisionmaking based on the development of prospective possibilities about the future of energy. She and Dan Sarewitz have subsequently applied scenario development as a tool for reflexive governance within the Center for Nanotechnology and Society and see valuable opportunities for applying scenarios more generally to questions of energy and society.
• Erik Fisher: Reflexive Assessment of Nanotechnology-Based Energy Research – Nanotechnology offers one possible approach to addressing future energy needs, and Fisher has launched a comparative study of two labs studying the potential application of nanotechnology to photovoltaic energy development.
• Dave Conz, David Guston, and Monamie Bhadra: Reflexive Assessment of Synthetic Biology-Based Biofuels Research – Another hot topic in energy research is the development of synthetic biology-based photobioreactors for producing biofuels. Conz, Guston, and Bhadra are pursuing an engaged, ethnographic study of an interdisciplinary, multi-institution team of researchers seeking to develop a viable model for long-term energy production based in this field.