scholarly journals Sociotechnical imaginaries of low-carbon waste-energy futures: UK techno-market fixes displacing public accountability

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-641
Author(s):  
Les Levidow ◽  
Sujatha Raman
Keyword(s):  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Public Accountability ◽  
Energy Futures ◽  
Sociotechnical Imaginaries ◽  
Waste Energy ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Low Carbon Technologies

To implement EU climate policy, the UK’s New Labour government (1997–2010) elaborated an ecomodernist policy framework. It promoted technological innovation to provide low-carbon renewable energy, especially by treating waste as a resource. This framework discursively accommodated rival sociotechnical imaginaries, understood as visions of feasible and desirable futures available through technoscientific development. According to the dominant imaginary, techno-market fixes stimulate low-carbon technologies by making current centralized systems more resource-efficient (as promoted by industry incumbents). According to the alternative eco-localization imaginary, a shift to low-carbon systems should instead localize resource flows, output uses and institutional responsibility (as promoted by civil society groups). The UK government policy framework gained political authority by accommodating both imaginaries. As we show by drawing on three case studies, the realization of both imaginaries depended on institutional changes and material-economic resources of distinctive kinds. In practice, financial incentives drove technological design towards trajectories that favour the dominant sociotechnical imaginary, while marginalizing the eco-localization imaginary and its environmental benefits. The ecomodernist policy framework relegates responsibility to anonymous markets, thus displacing public accountability of the state and industry. These dynamics indicate the need for STS research on how alternative sociotechnical imaginaries mobilize support for their realization, rather than be absorbed into the dominant imaginary.

Overview of UK Policy and Research Landscape Relevant to Deploying Advanced Nuclear Technologies in the UK

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Underwood ◽  
Paul Nevitt ◽  
Andrew Howarth ◽  
Nicholas Barron
Keyword(s):  
Structural Integrity ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Advanced Materials ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Advanced Manufacturing ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Design Assessment ◽  
Low Carbon Economy ◽  
Uk Government ◽  
The Uk

Abstract The UK government is committed to tackling climate change through clean growth — cutting emissions while seizing the benefits of the low carbon economy [1,2]. In June 2019 UK government set a legally binding target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions from across the UK economy by 2050. Nuclear energy is seen as a vital contributor to decarbonising the UK economy as outlined in the Industrial Strategy [2] and subsequent Nuclear Sector Deal [3], and £180 million of funding has been provided by Government for a Nuclear Innovation Programme (NIP) over the period 2016–21, administered through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Initial phases of the NIP have researched advanced nuclear fuel cycles, digital reactor design methods and advanced materials and manufacturing techniques. Throughout this programme the UK has developed a better understanding of a range of Advanced Nuclear Technologies (ANT), including Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs) and the opportunities that they provide in decarbonising a future energy system. In parallel, UK government has established a policy framework designed to encourage the development of Advanced Nuclear Technologies [4] and awarded an initial phase of development for a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) [5]. These programmes of work are enabling the development of technologies towards commercialisation, whilst enabling regulations are advanced. For this paper, AMRs are defined as a broad group of advanced nuclear reactors which differ from conventional reactors that use pressurised or boiling water for primary cooling. AMRs use novel cooling systems or fuels and in order to achieve operational efficiencies and enhanced safety performance, they are typically planned to operate in harsh conditions, including high temperatures, radiation field and corrosive environments. As a result of this there are still many questions which need addressing in relation to how materials and fuels will perform in these more extreme conditions. Within the NIP, an Advanced Manufacturing and Construction initiative is supporting answering these questions. This paper provides an overview of the policy and research landscape that aims to bring AMR and SMR technologies to deployment in the UK, and how the Advanced Manufacturing and Construction initiatives are helping to underpin the R&D needs for AMR deployment in the UK. One example is a programme of work titled “Establishing AMR Structural Integrity Codes and Standards for UK GDA” (EASICS). The aim of this project is to establish guidance on the structural integrity codes and standards that are required to support the Generic Design Assessment (GDA), which is a UK licensing process, of an AMR design through technology innovation and transfer (primarily for high temperature reactors). An overview of project EASICS will be described in further detail in another paper presented at PVP2020, PVP2020-21721.

How can financial incentives promote local ownership of onshore wind and solar projects? Case study evidence from Germany, Denmark, the UK and Ontario

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Curtin ◽  
Celine McInerney ◽  
Lara Johannsdottir
Keyword(s):  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Onshore Wind ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
The Uk

Mobilising citizens as investors in local solar photovoltaic and onshore wind energy projects can help meet climate objectives, generate local development opportunities, and build social support for low carbon transition. This can be achieved through the introduction of financial incentives attractive to local actors. To investigate what types of financial incentives are effective at the feasibility, development, construction, and operation stages of project development, we undertake a comparative case study of their use in Denmark; Germany; the UK; and Ontario, Canada. We find that a requirement for incentives such as grants and soft loans at the feasibility and development stages is a distinguishing feature of projects with citizen involvement, reflecting their greater risk aversion, lack of technical experience and financial capacity, and their inability to balance risk across a portfolio of projects. At later project stages, market-independent supports (feed in tariffs, grants, and tax incentives) have been effective in mobilising investment, but market-based supports (feed in premiums and quota schemes) can also be tailored to the specific needs of local community actors. These findings add a new dimension to the growing academic and policy debate about how Governments can effectively mobilise investment from local communities and citizens in distributed renewable technologies.

scholarly journals Economic and Carbon Costs of Electricity Balancing Services: The Need for Secure Flexible Low-Carbon Generation

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (16) ◽  
pp. 5123
Author(s):  
Mauro Lafratta ◽  
Matthew Leach ◽  
Rex B. Thorpe ◽  
Mark Willcocks ◽  
Eve Germain ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Capital Investment ◽  
Electricity Sector ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Carbon Intensity ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Security Of Supply ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Low Carbon Technologies ◽  
Balancing Services

The electricity sector aims to achieve a balanced progress in all three dimensions of the energy trilemma: affordability, decarbonisation and security of supply. Separate strategies for decarbonisation and security of supply have been pursued; each with close attention to minimising costs, thus consistent with the affordability aspect of the trilemma. However, while it is evident that the pathway for decarbonisation increases pressure on security of supply, the pressures that cost-minimising security of supply measures are putting on decarbonisation goes unaddressed. The United Kingdom (UK) is a global leader in the transition towards a decarbonised economy and aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. As a major part of the UK, Great Britain (GB) has achieved greater than 50% of low-carbon electricity generation and the grid’s carbon intensity has dropped by 36% over the period 2015–2019. However, balancing services that provide security of supply uses only 8% of low-carbon generation. Their carbon intensity is double the grid’s average and this gap is widening. This is an effect of a systemic reliance on carbon-intensive fuels. Financial support for capital investment for flexible low-carbon technologies is much needed. The GB context suggests that an integrated strategy covering all three dimensions of the trilemma might achieve an improved balance between them and unlock an affordable, net-zero emissions and secure power system.

scholarly journals Energy transitions and uncertainty: Creating low carbon investment opportunities in the UK electricity sector

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (8) ◽  
pp. 1387-1403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronan Bolton ◽  
Timothy J Foxon ◽  
Stephen Hall
Keyword(s):  
Electricity Markets ◽  
Electricity Market ◽  
Capital Intensity ◽  
Electricity Sector ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
The Face ◽  
Incumbent Regime ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Low Carbon Technologies

This paper examines how actors in the UK electricity sector are attempting to deliver investment in low carbon generation. Low carbon technologies, because of their relative immaturity, capital intensity and low operational costs, do not readily fit with existing electricity markets and investment templates which were designed for fossil fuel based energy. We analyse key electricity market and infrastructure policies in the UK and highlight how these are aimed at making low carbon technologies ‘investable’ by reducing uncertainty, managing investment risks and repositioning actors within the electricity socio-technical ‘regime’. We argue that our study can inform contemporary debates on the politics and governance of sustainability transitions by empirically investigating the agency of incumbent regime actors in the face of uncertainty and by offering critical insights on the role of markets and finance in shaping socio-technical change.

Optimal approaches to manage power system decarbonation

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 1447-1452
Author(s):  
Vincent Mazauric ◽  
Ariane Millot ◽  
Claude Le Pape-Gardeux ◽  
Nadia Maïzi
Keyword(s):  
Free Energy ◽  
Linear Programming ◽  
Phase Transitions ◽  
Power System ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Faraday’S Law ◽  
Optimal Description ◽  
Low Carbon Technologies

To overcome the negative environemental impact of the actual power system, an optimal description of quasi-static electromagnetics relying on a reversible interpretation of the Faraday’s law is given. Due to the overabundance of carbon-free energy sources, this description makes it possible to consider an evolution towards an energy system favoring low-carbon technologies. The management for changing is then explored through a simplified linear-programming problem and an analogy with phase transitions in physics is drawn.

scholarly journals Imagining the smart city through smart grids? Urban energy futures between technological experimentation and the imagined low-carbon city

Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802110059
Author(s):  
Leslie Quitzow ◽  
Friederike Rohde
Keyword(s):  
Smart Grid ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Grids ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Energy Futures ◽  
Urban Energy ◽  
The City

Current imaginaries of urban smart grid technologies are painting attractive pictures of the kinds of energy futures that are desirable and attainable in cities. Making claims about the future city, the socio-technical imaginaries related to smart grid developments unfold the power to guide urban energy policymaking and implementation practices. This paper analyses how urban smart grid futures are being imagined and co-produced in the city of Berlin, Germany. It explores these imaginaries to show how the politics of Berlin’s urban energy transition are being driven by techno-optimistic visions of the city’s digital modernisation and its ambitions to become a ‘smart city’. The analysis is based on a discourse analysis of relevant urban policy and other documents, as well as interviews with key stakeholders from Berlin’s energy, ICT and urban development sectors, including key experts from three urban laboratories for smart grid development and implementation in the city. It identifies three dominant imaginaries that depict urban smart grid technologies as (a) environmental solution, (b) economic imperative and (c) exciting experimental challenge. The paper concludes that dominant imaginaries of smart grid technologies in the city are grounded in a techno-optimistic approach to urban development that are foreclosing more subtle alternatives or perhaps more radical change towards low-carbon energy systems.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document