Energy Research & Social Science最新文献

European governments have deployed targeted and untargeted financial support to protect vulnerable households from the impacts of the recent energy crisis. However, there is little knowledge of income elasticity of energy expenditure among households experiencing energy poverty. We therefore examine the link between energy expenditure and household income levels, considering a spectrum of factors including energy poverty status, energy efficiency of homes, and socio-demographics. We use England's official energy poverty definition, ‘Low-income, low-energy-efficiency’, and analyse the government's ‘Fuel Poverty Dataset’ from 2019. We find that, for all income groups, by far the greatest impact on energy expenditure is the dwelling's energy-efficiency rating, followed by floor area. An increase in income has negligible effects on energy expenditure for all income groups, but greatest for those in energy poverty, suggesting that even though most of their energy-oriented financial support is used for other pressing needs, this still offers some relief from energy poverty. We conclude that energy-efficiency improvements in homes would yield the most substantial and enduring financial benefits for these households, highlighting the need for targeted retrofitting policies. Additionally, older homeowners in energy poverty may need help to move into smaller, energy-efficient homes that are less expensive to heat.

The global green hydrogen rush is prone to repeat extractivist patterns at the expense of economies, ecologies, and communities in the production zones in the Global South. With a socio-ecological risk analysis grounded in energy, water, and environmental justice scholarship, we systematically assess the risks of the ‘green’ hydrogen transition and related injustices arising in 28 countries in the Global South with regard to energy, water, land and global justice dimensions. Our findings show that risks materialize through the exclusion of affected communities and civil society, the enclosure of land and resources for extractivist purposes, and through the externalization of socio-ecological costs and conflicts. We further demonstrate that socio-ecological risks are enhanced through country-specific conditions such as water scarcity, historical continuities such as post-colonial land tenure systems, as well as repercussions of a persistently uneven global politico-economic order. Contributing to debates on power, inequality, and justice in the global green hydrogen transition, we argue that addressing hydrogen risks requires a framework of environmental justice and a transformative perspective that encompasses structural shifts in the global economy, including degrowth and a decentering of industrial hegemonies in the Global North.

This paper proposes the concept of the informality- energy innovation- finance nexus, as a theoretical framework to analyse micro-grid based urban off-grid energy access. The provision of energy access in urban informal settlements has received increased attention by scholars working on informality and energy in recent years. Recently, scholars have looked at the off-grid-urban informality nexus and have argued for the integration of off-grid electrification technologies in South Africa's informal settlements. Concurrently scholars have argued for more user centric business models for off-grid contexts. Off-grid technologies like micro-grids and stand-alone solar home systems have become an integral part of the energy landscape of energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa and can fill a key gap for unelectrified urban informal settlements. However, there remains a gap in the literature linking user-centric off-grid business, financing models and urban informality. This paper fills this gap and argues for greater contextual embeddedness and attention to the local context when implementing off-grid business models in settings of urban informality. This paper draws on the findings of the Umbane project, a pilot study on solar powered refrigeration for women owned enterprises connected a micro-grid in an informal settlement Qandu-Qandu in Cape Town, Khayelitsha. This paper uses mixed research methods, including semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurship project participants and a survey. This paper offers key insights from our practice-based work on implementing solar micro-grids in settings of informality and the contextual factors and drivers that shape the informality, energy-innovation and finance nexus.

Petrochemical production is tightly entangled with fossil fuel extraction and constitutes the primary driver of oil demand growth. Therefore, scholars have increasingly started exploring the linkages between fossil fuels and chemicals, tracing their importance for the political economy of energy transitions. A defining feature in the global petrochemical industry is that the majority of the recent and ongoing build-out of production capacity is located in China. Therefore, the outlook of the Chinese petrochemical industry is critical to the prospects of national as well as global energy transitions. In this paper, we review and contextualize the Chinese expansion, distilling key dimensions that shape the prospects of petrochemical transitions: i) Chinese political economy dynamics and the role of industrial policy; ii) the tensions between petrochemical expansion, decarbonization, and pollution; and iii) ramifications for the international political economy of petrochemicals. On this basis, we propose a research agenda that explores these three areas in more depth, outlining key issues for an increasingly important trend that shapes reconfigurations in the global energy order.

We carry out a comparative institutional analysis of lithium development in neighboring Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, which together hold over 50 % of world lithium reserves. The comparison reveals that lithium institutional development is subject to long-term processes and contingent junctures within domestic political economies. The potential pivotal role of Chile's national development corporation, CORFO, illustrates the transformative significance of the slogan “institutions matter”: though rules and their enforcement are crucial, effective governance hinges primarily on fostering an institutional ecosystem conducive to mission agreement and translation. Engaging with the mission economy perspective, we argue that “good institutions” entail dynamic policy capacities that regulate and innovate economic development for the public good. Studying how, when and what types of policy capacities develop in the Lithium Triangle countries sheds light on the “institutions matter” inquiry of the political economy of development.

The management of the impacts of climate change on the electricity sector poses a growing challenge, but efforts to model future impacts to plan adaptation have been limited in their delivery of sufficiently usable information. Interviews with stakeholders in the Australian electricity sector about the use of climate science for adaptation reveal that there is recognition of the need for alternatives to the ‘top-down’ application of climate science and conventional modes of risk management in the sector. A more ‘bottom-up’, ‘holistic’ approach that focuses on the resilience of the system is expected to support pragmatic adaptive management of impacts on physical infrastructure and on the communities that depend on power supply. The idea of resilience offers a compelling vision of adaptation for the electricity sector, but our analysis shows that its conceptual baggage and the multiple – and to some extent conflicting – meanings that it connotes may impede the substantive and decisive action that is needed in the face of climate change impacts. We suggest that, if the term continues to be used, stakeholders in the electricity sector in Australia and elsewhere must work to achieve greater clarity about what resilience means in this context, including more specificity about what must be done, and by whom, to manage climate change impacts and enhance resilience.

As states like California move to decarbonize and invest in clean mobility, understanding how the evolving transportation landscape affects travel behavior becomes crucial. This transition to decarbonization presents an opportunity to create a more just energy system, benefiting underserved and historically marginalized communities. This study explored how a limited-income community in Sonoma County, California uses personal transportation to address their travel needs. Through qualitative interviews at two affordable housing complexes, we uncovered residents' experiences with transportation and factors influencing their travel choices. Our findings showed that participants navigated a complex, interconnected transportation system, comprising five critical subsystems: transportation options, infrastructure, availability, financing, and rules and norms. Each subsystem was characterized by distinct points of interaction, reflecting the multifaceted experiences of users. Individual circumstances, such as interactions with the criminal justice system and familial responsibilities, profoundly shaped participants' transportation choices. Participants prioritized factors such as cost-effectiveness, safety, convenience, and reliability, but their decisions were also influenced by their specific needs and contexts, including the need for point-to-point travel, family alignment, and familiarity considerations. In this work, we uncovered the social dimensions of personal transportation choices, which can help transportation planners and engineers better integrate a sociotechnical perspective when designing future transportation systems. By understanding the diverse needs of communities and applying a sociotechnical systems perspective, policymakers can work toward a more equitable and decarbonized transportation future, ensuring access regardless of personal circumstances and individual travel needs.

Health concerns regarding indoor air quality are leading to greater uptake of air purification technologies internationally, alongside the continuing normalisation of air conditioning. With thermal comfort largely considered separately from air quality, the energy sector risks inadequately preparing for the emergence of new indoor air practices and associated ‘needs’. Conceptually grounded in theories of social practice and design anthropological foresighting, this article explores how people's household air practices are changing, what kinds of air technologies they expect to be using in the near future (2025–2030), and how this might impact energy sector ambitions. The article draws on research from a four-year project with Australian households involving in-home virtual ethnography, and a design ethnography futures activity involving a ‘thing interview’ where participants designed and roleplayed their ideal future air technology and were interviewed by a researcher roleplaying the electricity grid. The analysis reveals that households increasingly expect healthy, safe and comfortable indoor environments, in which people seek to manage air flows through the home with air technologies. The futures analysis identifies the anticipated desire for air quality embedded within heating and cooling systems, an expectation for smart control, and some interest in incentives to modify air practices in order to optimise electricity system outcomes. We discuss the implications of these findings for energy demand, call for an expanded definition of thermal comfort that accounts for emerging air practices, and recommend further research on healthy, safe and comfortable air in indoor environments, pointing towards sites for intervention and innovation.

The global plastics industry is undergoing significant expansion, driven by record-scale infrastructure investments that are increasing fossil fuel demand. However, this growth has largely bypassed Europe, where mature markets, limited feedstock availability, and stringent environmental regulations prevail. Despite these constraints, in 2019 the petrochemical conglomerate INEOS announced plans for a new ethane cracker in Antwerp, the single largest project in the European chemical industry for decades. This unexpected development raises questions about how fossil-based plastic production can expand in a region purportedly transitioning away from fossil fuels. Here, we employ a neo-Gramscian perspective on transitions to analyse the INEOS investment as a case study using both documents and interview data. We trace the processes that facilitated this project, examining developments in the broader fossil fuel economy and INEOS's strategies for accommodating local and global transition pressures. Our analysis demonstrates that the investment represents a case of trasformismo, where limited socio-technical reconfiguration enables the expansion of fossil-based plastic production despite ongoing socio-ecological crises linked to plastics. We conclude that the expansion of plastics production in Europe exemplifies broader efforts to maintain fossil fuel hegemony beyond energy production. This finding highlights the need for strategic approaches that address fossil fuels as feedstock to effectively transition towards post-fossil forms of production.

Climate change commitments and the current global energy and living cost crises require investment into energy efficiency in buildings. With one of the oldest housing stocks in Europe, the energy intensity of buildings in the United Kingdom remains high compared to other countries. The adoption of energy retrofit measures can support tackling several social, economic, and environmental objectives. Scarce uptake of these is particularly evident within the private rented sector, which presents additional hurdles compared to social and owner-occupied housing. We adopt an innovative theoretical and methodology approach at the intersection of new economic sociology and energy demand reduction literature to analyse the social relations of energy retrofitting in Brighton and Hove through interviews with landlords and experts in the field. A high percentage of private rented sector housing in poorly insulated and historical buildings, makes retrofitting in this area particularly challenging. Several strategies and policies have been implemented to decarbonise homes; yet have failed in framing the problem surrounding the adoption of retrofitting measures largely in economic terms. By contrast, our case study shows evidence of the ‘relational’ nature of a retrofitting decision-making process shaped by landlords' identities and networks of relations among and within retrofit actors; this could support tailoring more efficient policies. Place-related assets, institutional landscape, climate and built environment specificities are also critical. We are recommending more efficient strategies at the central level that allow for place specific policies; these should account for local features and relational approaches to overcome challenges to retrofit within the sector.