Against Transitions? Uncovering Conflicts in Changing Energy Systems

• Published in: Science as culture 2013-06, Vol.22 (2), p.149-156
• Main Author: Laird, Frank N.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Conflict; Energy; Energy industry; Energy planning; Energy policy; Energy resources; Energy transition; Fossil fuels; social and political conflict; Technological change; technological systems; U.S.A
• ISSN: 0950-5431; 1470-1189
• DOI: 10.1080/09505431.2013.786992

Energy analysts call major changes to the energy system transitions. However, the very phrase energy transition can frame the issue in such a way as to downplay the profound social and political disruptions such energy changes portend. The phrase has appeared in energy policy studies for decades. During the 1970s energy crisis the National Energy Plan, President Jimmy Carter's energy policy blueprint, used this term to frame its goals and policies. America is now at an historic turning point as the postwar era of oil and gas comes to a close. America has made two major energy transitions in the past (U.S. EOP, 1977, p. 4; see also CBO, 1977, p. 4). The plan went on to note that the previous transitions, from wood to coal and from coal to oil and natural gas, took place because technological innovations enabled energy industries to use new fuels, not because they ran out of the old fuels. The plan pointed out that policymakers in the 1970s faced managing a new type of transition, one in which the old fuel was growing scarce and the possible replacements posed problems of cost and scale (U.S. EOP, 1977, p. 7). Reprinted by permission of Carfax Publishing, Taylor & Francis Ltd.