Browsing by Author "Sovacool, Benjamin K."
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- The Power Production Paradox: Revealing the Socio-Technical Impediments to Distributed Generation TechnologiesSovacool, Benjamin K. (Virginia Tech, 2006-04-17)Dramatic improvements in renewable energy and small-scale distributed generation (DG) technologies have been made in the last twenty years. Nevertheless, they remain underutilized in the American electric utility system. Despite the immense environmental, technical, and financial promise of renewable energy systems and DG technologies, such generators still constitute a very small percentage of electricity generation capacity in the United States. This relative neglect occurs despite remarkable gains in their technical performance and reductions in their cost of producing power—the result (in part) of dramatic government support for several decades. Moreover, the technologies often demonstrate great environmental benefits that appeal to policymakers and consumers. At the same time, they offer ways to enhance strained distribution and transmission networks. This project attempts to answer the apparently paradoxical question: why do new energy technologies that offer such impressive benefits also find the least use? The dissertation emphasizes how the history and culture of the community of electricity producers and users helps explain why the new technologies have seen little use. Going beyond technical explanations of alleged low capacity factors and high capital costs, it focuses on the social nature of decision making among participants in the electric utility system. The approach not only helps us understand the glossing over of renewable energy and distributed generation technologies, but also suggests ways of overcoming the barriers faced by their advocates.
- Reconstructing Iraq: merging discourses of security and developmentSovacool, Benjamin K.; Halfon, Saul E. (Cambridge University Press, 2007-04)This article argues that reconstruction is an emerging discourse of international politics that merges security and development discourses in powerful and troubling ways. We focus on Iraq as a site for articulating and institutionalising a particular version of reconstruction, uncovering five narratives that constitute Iraqi reconstruction discourse. We conclude by suggesting that reconstruction repackages security and development into a singular, technical, and bureaucratic worldview. This view obscures working and reliable solutions to poverty and instability by treating development as a central justification for war, and war as a promising way to develop a state and society.
- Sociotechnical agendas: Reviewing future directions for energy and climate researchSovacool, Benjamin K.; Hess, David J.; Amir, Sulfikar; Geels, Frank W.; Hirsh, Richard; Medina, Leandro Rodriguez; Miller, Clark; Palavicino, Carla Alvial; Phadke, Roopali; Ryghaug, Marianne; Schot, Johan; Silvast, Antti; Stephens, Jennie; Stirling, Andy; Turnheim, Bruno; Vleuten, Erik van der; Lente, Harro van; Yearley, Steven (2020-12)The field of science and technology studies (STS) has introduced and developed a "sociotechnical" perspective that has been taken up by many disciplines and areas of inquiry. The aims and objectives of this study are threefold: to interrogate which sociotechnical concepts or tools from STS are useful at better understanding energy-related social science, to reflect on prominent themes and topics within those approaches, and to identify current research gaps and directions for the future. To do so, the study builds on a companion project, a systematic analysis of 262 articles published from 2009 to mid-2019 that categorized and reviewed sociotechnical perspectives in energy social science. It identifies future research directions by employing the method of "co creation" based on the reflections of sixteen prominent researchers in the field in late 2019 and early 2020. Drawing from this co-created synthesis, this study first identifies three main areas of sociotechnical perspectives in energy research (sociotechnical systems, policy, and expertise and publics) with 15 topics and 39 subareas. The study then identifies five main themes for the future development of sociotechnical perspectives in energy research: conditions of systematic change; embedded agency; justice, power, identity and politics; imaginaries and discourses; and public engagement and governance. It also points to the recognized need for pluralism and parallax: for research to show greater attention to demographic and geographical diversity; to stronger research designs; to greater theoretical triangulation; and to more transdisciplinary approaches.
- Wind Turbines and Invisible Technology Unarticulated Reasons for Local Opposition to Wind EnergyHirsh, R. F.; Sovacool, Benjamin K. (Johns Hopkins Univ Press, 2013)Local opposition to wind turbines stems from concerns about environmental and economic damage, as well as conflicts between rural and urban residents. This essay goes beyond these considerations to explore the often-unarticulated explanations for animosity toward this energy technology. Originally, it posits that opposition to visually obvious turbines arises from the successful history of an electric utility system that made its product largely invisible in its manufacture and physical manifestation. The existence of conspicuous turbines, however, reminds observers that power generation requires difficult choices in a technology-based society. The system's previous achievement in hiding infrastructural elements, in other words, sometimes works ironically to spur objections to wind turbines. Receiving little historical study, the concealed features of a system's infrastructure often influence assessments of technologies. By revealing the previously invisible, this essay, which draws on research in history, landscape architecture, geography, and psychology, therefore provides insights for social scientists and policymakers.