Energy Research & Social Science最新文献

Energy concepts are taught in many schools, but children rarely have an opportunity to grapple with energy problems and work on their own solutions. This study explores the impacts of Connect Science, a service-learning (SL) program developed to enhance elementary students' energy literacy in the United States. Program impacts were explored within the context of a randomized controlled trial. Teachers in the SL intervention group were provided with professional development, coaching and curricular materials. Each fourth grade class chose an energy problem to address, and designed projects to test out a solution. Teachers in a waitlist control group taught their typical energy unit. Upon completion of the unit, students were asked to write about a problem related to energy production or use and propose a potential solution. Inductive content analysis was used to code 703 student responses (377 from control group and 326 from SL group). The majority of students expressed concerns about wasting or using too much electricity or the use of nonrenewable energy sources. Solutions focused on energy conservation and the use of renewable or clean resources were mentioned most frequently overall. Students in the SL group were significantly more likely to mention environmental impacts of various energy sources and to suggest energy conservation solutions or educating others. Conversely, the control group student responses more often focused on electric circuits or electrical safety. Results from this study suggest the promise of environmental SL programs to advance energy literacy and promote critical thinking about how to address energy problems.

Energy security is one of the most important topics in energy-related literature. As such, various concepts and dimensions are introduced to contribute to energy security assessments. However, the literature lacks an approach to prioritise these dimensions, as they cannot always be addressed simultaneously. This study is the first step in investigating the importance and prioritisation of energy security dimensions by focusing on the context of community energy systems. Such collective and decentralised energy systems are gaining momentum in the energy transition context; however, they have received minimal attention on their energy security aspects. First, a literature review is conducted to gain an overview of the studied energy security dimensions, highlighting dimensions such as energy availability and infrastructure that are studied the most. In contrast, environment and societal effect dimensions have received minimal attention. Next, an existing agent-based model is used to assess the importance of energy security dimensions and their priority in community energy systems. The results revealed that infrastructure and governance are the most impactful dimensions for the energy security assessment of community energy systems. Energy prices were one of the least influential dimensions in energy security assessments. The study also explored various existing energy security concepts and proposed the most suitable one in the energy communities' context. A research agenda emphasising the need to study governance, societal effects and environmental dimensions is also presented. Lastly, infrastructure, governance, environment and societal effects are concluded to be the most crucial energy security dimensions for community energy systems.

The interplay between just transition and stakeholder involvement appears to be central to discussions on climate change, sustainability, the green economy, and achieving climate neutrality. Given that this transition involves long-term and profound changes across many socio-economic and environmental areas, the role of stakeholders in addressing this complex challenge is crucial. This paper examines the degree of stakeholder engagement in three coal-intensive regions within the EU: Western Macedonia in Greece, Silesia in Poland, and Stara Zagora in Bulgaria. Utilizing empirical research methods, including fieldwork, interviews, and questionnaires, this study provides a granular understanding of local governance mechanisms and their impact on the just transition process. The integration of place-based governance, deliberative democracy, and stakeholder engagement frameworks offers a comprehensive and innovative approach to addressing the complex challenges of transitioning from coal-dependent economies. The empirical findings underscore the importance of inclusive governance structures and highlight the significant risks associated with inadequate stakeholder involvement, offering a novel perspective on the pathways to a successful just transition.

Expanding electricity access (Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7) and empowering women (SDG 5) are closely linked. Most studies quantifying the benefits of the former for women focus on their economic empowerment; however, if and how such access results in women's empowerment is best understood by examining the cultural context, norms, and gender roles in which that access occurs. For instance, time saved from the use of electric appliances may be used for productive engagements, but if gender roles restrict women from leaving the home or engaging in paid work, such benefits are not realized. Here, we delve deeper into the multi-faceted and context-specific concept of women's empowerment via 28 semi-structured interviews with Zambian women. We include households with and without electricity to understand women's subjective meaning of empowerment and how access to electricity may (dis) empower them. We analyze their responses using Deshmukh-Ranadive's (2005) Spaces approach to empowerment which categorizes an individual's spaces into physical, economic, political, socio-cultural, and mental space. We find that electricity access empowers women by expanding their economic and physical, along with mental, space. This occurs via paid opportunities outside the home using electrical appliances and women reporting greater economic independence, camaraderie, self-reliance, and agency as a result. Additionally, by asking women to define what empowerment means to them, we not only bolster the claim that electricity access empowers women both economically and socially, but also ensure future programs account for empowerment explicitly in their plans.

This article examines why foreign actors promote rooftop photovoltaic (PV) projects in cities characterized by ongoing ethno-national conflicts, and why the host government accepts these projects despite viewing them as undermining its sovereignty. It finds that foreign aid providers increasingly view off-grid PV technology as a low-cost solution for helping the embattled minorities of the city strengthen their autonomy and self-sufficiency by disconnecting them from the state-controlled national electricity grid. Local authorities accept these projects because they view them as benign initiatives that can help them address ‘infrastructure vacuums’ in neglected spaces of the city. This allows foreign actors to shape the status quo of the disputed city while avoiding political pushback by the host government. This dynamic is examined in the case of East Jerusalem, where EU and UN bodies invested in rooftop PV projects over the past decade with the stated goal of strengthening the energy autonomy of the city's Palestinian neighborhoods and preserving the option of dividing the city's infrastructure in a future peace agreement. Through government protocols and interviews with foreign aid representatives who promoted the projects, Jerusalem municipal officials who approved them, and Palestinian users who installed them, this article finds that Israeli authorities viewed these projects as a necessary buffer to address ungoverned areas of the city where Palestinians viewed municipal integration projects as an act of occupation. Foreign actors introduced PV solutions to these areas but struggled to overcome technical, bureaucratic, and social hurdles that limited their progress.

Energy poverty has become a growing concern. Energy communities have been highlighted to be key enablers to facilitate a just energy transition. However, energy poverty and energy communities have mostly been treated in relative isolation from each other. This study sets to unravel the specificities of energy communities' energy poverty alleviation approaches and barriers faced. The Netherlands is selected as a case due to a doubling of energy communities over the past decade and, as in the whole of Europe, growing concern about energy poverty. A survey is developed to appraise energy communities' (lack of) engagement in tackling energy poverty with n = 196. Using an ordinal logistic model, the self-reported effectiveness of approaches of energy communities in addressing energy poverty is assessed. Key results are that 52 % of energy communities address energy poverty, predominantly through providing advice, financial support and small energy efficiency measures. The largest barriers are identifying and reaching households in energy poverty, and lack of financial and human resource capacities. This study concludes that energy communities have potential to address energy poverty because of their capacity for citizen engagement and, in some cases, their financial support to vulnerable households. Future research is recommended to scrutinise the potential of energy communities to contribute to energy poverty alleviation as part of a local governance arrangement of partners. Insights from this study on implications for energy community movements and policy makers can also be valuable for other countries facing energy poverty challenges.

For decades the European Union has been building its normative identity on the international scene. In line with this goal, one of its core normative priorities became environmentalism and the fight against climate change, visible especially in the policies related to greenhouse gas emissions reductions or shifts away from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources. Hence, within this article, we evaluate this proclaimed self-identification as a global environmental leader through the stances of the Union towards the Nord Stream 2 project. With the help of Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) and a sentiment analysis, we juxtapose the environmentalist claims against the reality of energy-driven interests of the block and a major natural gas pipeline from Russia. Moreover, we contrast the European ideal with the Russian pragmatism about fossil fuel projects and thus highlight the differing approaches to the pipeline over the years 2015–2021. Our analysis therefore adds to the critical discourse on the Normative Power Europe (NPE) concept but also questions the illusive Russian interest in environmentalism evident in our results, which we evaluate as a mere selling tactic for the pipeline.

With the proliferation of net zero targets in climate policy and corporate climate governance, the question of how to deal with greenhouse gas emissions considered hard-to-abate is attracting growing attention. In this context, the notion of carbon management has emerged on the political agenda – an umbrella term typically encompassing carbon capture and storage (CCS), carbon capture and utilization (CCU) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Here, we investigate the emerging politics around the design of a national carbon management strategy in Austria, a country which can be considered a yet understudied latecomer regarding CCS and novel CDR methods including BECCS and DACCS. Based on expert interviews with policy actors as well as qualitative document analysis, we identify four actor coalitions as well as key fault lines. These fault lines specifically relate to a) whether the CCS ban in Austria should be lifted, and b) which economic sectors get access to carbon storage and transport infrastructure as well as subsidy schemes (selective vs. unrestricted integration). We also find that framing CCS, CCU and CDR under the umbrella term carbon management produces specific coalitional effects while simultaneously concealing contested climate policy choices – a finding with wider implications beyond the Austrian case.

The installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems on residential units is one of the measures that countries around the world are implementing to mitigate the impact of the global warming crisis. Australia has become the world leader in the solar PV sector since it introduced its solar-related program in 2001. The adoption was initially spurred by government-driven incentive schemes providing opportunities for early adopters to financially capitalise on the technology through feed-in tariffs. Over time, the growth was further propelled by the phenomenon often referred to as the neighbourhood effects. This paper conducted a statistical analysis to investigate the demographic composition, at postal area (POA) resolution, associated with the PV uptake in Australia. To detect the presence of the neighbourhood effects, a formula was developed to simplify its quantification, drawing analogies to kinematics. The results of the regression analysis reveal that gender, share of certain age groups, land area, and dwellings with a vehicle do not correlate with adoption. On the other hand, other variables such as marital status, weekly household income, number of bedrooms, population and dwellings densities, do have influences, positively and negatively. Furthermore, the “accelerated rate” determines a positive impact of the neighbourhood effects in the range of 15 to 20 additional PV units installed per year per POA. A publicly accessible tool was developed with this study that can aid policymakers in exploring the socio-economic indicators identified in this analysis as predictors of the diffusion of the technology for effective policies, regulations, and schemes.

Solar generation has experienced rapid growth in the effort to decarbonize energy systems. However, the sustainable use of photovoltaic (PV) systems entails costly management, leading to the accumulation of abandoned PV panels in developing countries. Reusing these abandoned PV panels appears promising because it is technically and economically feasible in such regions. Despite this potential, there is a lack of social theory identifying the conditions necessary for their reuse. This study aims to fill that gap. Using grounded theory and data from interviews, observations and archives in Bangladesh, this study develops a social theory emphasizing that the successful reuse of PV systems requires acceptance by political leaders. This acceptance is more likely when it is difficult for leaders to exploit PV systems for personal gain. Four social conditions are essential to create such a situation: 1) reducing excess demand for electricity from PV systems, 2) public support for reusing PV systems, 3) political responsiveness through political competition, and 4) careful choice of physical locations of PV systems to prevent privatization.