Download or read book Sustainable Energy Transitions written by Dustin Mulvaney and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-12-03 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook introduces the key concepts that underpin sustainable energy transitions. Starting with the basic biophysical principles, current sources and environmental consequences of existing energy resource use, the book takes readers through the key questions and topics needed to understand, prescribe, and advocate just and sustainable energy solutions. The interdisciplinary nature of the book aims to build bridges across the social and natural sciences and humanities, bringing together perspectives, ideas and concepts from engineering, economics, and life cycle assessment to sociology, political science, anthropology, policy studies, the humanities, arts, and some interdisciplinary thinkers that defy categories. This accessible approach fills the gap for a textbook that integrates sustainability science and engineering studies with strong empirical social science and it will be a useful tool to anyone interested in the socio-ecological dimensions of energy system transitions.

Download or read book Enabling Sustainable Energy Transitions written by Siddharth Sareen and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This compact book argues that ideas about accountability and legitimation - drawn from work on environmental governance - can open up new analytical perspectives on what is holding back effective energy system transformation. With bite-size chapters and illustrative cases that draw on the work of five expert witnesses, this is a novel intervention into debates over the politics of energy transition."--Professor Gavin Bridge, Durham University, UK "The book theorizes and advances the research frontier on legitimation practices and accountability with a carefully crafted analysis bridging scholarly fields of environmental governance, political economy, energy research and democratic theory. It is a must-read for all students and scholars interested in shaping more legitimate, democratic and accountable energy transition from the local to global context." -Professor Karin Bäckstrand, Stockholm University, Sweden This open access book reframes sustainable energy transitions as being a matter of resolving accountability crises. It demonstrates how the empirical study of several practices of legitimation can analytically deconstruct energy transitions, and presents a typology of these practices to help determine whether energy transitions contribute to sustainability. The real-world challenge of climate change requires sustainable energy transitions. This presents a crisis of accountability legitimated through situated practices in a wide range of cases including: solar energy transitions in Portugal, urban energy transitions in Germany, forestland conflicts in Indonesia, urban carbon emission targets in Norway, transport electrification in the Nordic region, and biodiversity conservation and energy extraction in the USA. By synthesising these cases, chapters identify various dimensions wherein practices of legitimation construct specific accountability relations. This book deftly illustrates the value of an analytical approach focused on accountable governa nce to enable sustainable energy transitions. It will be of great use to both academics and practitioners working in the field of energy transitions. Siddharth Sareen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation at the University of Bergen, Norway.

Download or read book The Political Economy of Clean Energy Transitions written by Douglas Jay Arent and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 631 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A volume on the political economy of clean energy transition in developed and developing regions, with a focus on the issues that different countries face as they transition from fossil fuels to lower carbon technologies.

Download or read book Accelerating Sustainable Energy Transition s in Developing Countries written by Laurence L. Delina and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-02-09 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accelerating sustainable energy transitions away from carbon-based fuel sources needs to be high on the agendas of developing countries. It is key in achieving their climate mitigation promises and sustainable energy development objectives. To bring about rapid transitions, simultaneous turns are imperative in hardware deployment, policy improvements, financing innovation, and institutional strengthening. These systematic turns, however, incur tensions when considering the multiple options available and the disruptions of entrenched power across pockets of transition innovations. These heterogeneous contradictions and their trade-offs, and uncertainties and risks have to be systematically recognized, understood, and weighed when making decisions. This book explores how the transitions occur in fourteen developing countries and broadly surveys their technological, policy, financing, and institutional capacities in response to the three key aspects of energy transitions: achieving universal energy access, harvesting energy efficiency, and deploying renewable energy. The book shows how fragmented these approaches are, how they occur across multiple levels of governance, and how policy, financing, and institutional turns could occur in these complex settings. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of energy and climate policy, development studies, international relations, politics, strategic studies, and geography. It is also useful to policymakers and development practitioners.

Download or read book The Material Basis of Energy Transitions written by Alena Bleicher and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2020-08-05 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Material Basis of Energy Transitions explores the intersection between critical raw material provision and the energy system. Chapters draw on examples and case studies involving energy technologies (e.g., electric power, transport) and raw material provision (e.g., mining, recycling), and consider these in their regional and global contexts. The book critically discusses issues such as the notion of criticality in the context of a circular economy, approaches for estimating the need for raw materials, certification schemes for raw materials, the role of consumers, and the impact of renewable energy development on resource conflicts. Each chapter deals with a specific issue that characterizes the interdependency between critical raw materials and renewable energies by examining case studies from a particular conceptual perspective. The book is a resource for students and researchers from the social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering, as well as interdisciplinary scholars interested in the field of renewable energies, the circular economy, recycling, transport, and mining. The book is also of interest to policymakers in the fields of renewable energy, recycling, and mining, professionals from the energy and resource industries, as well as energy experts and consultants looking for an interdisciplinary assessment of critical materials. Provides a comprehensive overview of key issues related to the nexus between renewable energy and critical raw materials Explores interdisciplinary perspectives from the natural sciences, engineering, and social sciences Discusses critical strategies to address the nexus from a practitioner's perspective

Download or read book Complex Systems and Social Practices in Energy Transitions written by Nicola Labanca and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an interdisciplinary discussion of the fundamental issues concerning policies for sustainable transition to renewable energies from the perspectives of sociologists, physicists, engineers, economists, anthropologists, biologists, ecologists and policy analysts. Adopting a combined approach, these are analysed taking both complex systems and social practice theories into consideration to provide deeper insights into the evolution of energy systems. The book then draws a series of important conclusions and makes recommendations for the research community and policy makers involved in the design and implementation of policies for sustainable energy transitions.

Download or read book Empowering the Great Energy Transition written by Scott Valentine and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-17 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when climate-change deniers hold the reins of power in the United States and international greenhouse gas negotiations continue at a slow crawl, what options are available to cities, companies, and consumers around the world who seek a cleaner future? Scott Victor Valentine, Marilyn A. Brown, and Benjamin K. Sovacool explore developments and strategies that will help fast-track the transition to renewable energy. They provide an expert analysis of the achievable steps that citizens, organizational leaders, and policy makers can take to put their commitments to sustainability into practice. Empowering the Great Energy Transition examines trends that suggest a transition away from carbon-intensive energy sources is inevitable—there are too many forces for change at work to stop a shift to clean energy. Yet under the status quo, change will be too slow to avert the worst consequences of climate change. Humanity is on a path to incur avoidable social, environmental, and economic costs. Valentine, Brown, and Sovacool argue that new policies and business models are needed to surmount the hurdles separating the current consumption model from a sustainable energy future. Empowering the Great Energy Transition shows that with well-placed efforts, we can set humanity on a course that supports entrepreneurs and communities in mitigating the environmental harm caused by technologies whose time has come and gone.

Download or read book The Great Transition Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy written by Lester R. Brown and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-04-20 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The great energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy is under way. As oil insecurity deepens, the extraction risks of fossil fuels rise, and concerns about climate instability cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new world energy economy is emerging. The old economy, fueled by oil, natural gas, and coal is being replaced with one powered by wind, solar, and geothermal energy. The Great Transition details the accelerating pace of this global energy revolution. As many countries become less enamored with coal and nuclear power, they are embracing an array of clean, renewable energies. Whereas solar energy projects were once small-scale, largely designed for residential use, energy investors are now building utility-scale solar projects. Strides are being made: some of the huge wind farm complexes under construction in China will each produce as much electricity as several nuclear power plants, and an electrified transport system supplemented by the use of bicycles could reshape the way we think about mobility.

Download or read book Cross Border Renewable Energy Transitions written by Philippe Hamman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-26 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the intrinsically multiscale issue of renewable energy transition from a local, national and transnational perspective, and provides insights into current developments in the Upper Rhine Region that can serve as an international model. Organised around the exploration of stakeholder issues, the volume first describes a framework for public action and modelling and then articulates a triple complementary focus from the viewpoint of law, economics and sociology. This multidisciplinary approach is anchored in the social sciences, but also explores the ways in which technological issues are increasingly debated in the implementation of the ecological transition. With a focus on the Upper Rhine Region of France, Germany and Switzerland, the contributions throughout analyse how concrete regional projects emerge, and whether they are carried out by local authorities, private energy groups, network associations or committed citizens. From this, it appears that real-world energy transition modes can be best understood as permanent transactional processes involving institutional regulations, economic levers and barriers and social interactions. This book will be of interest to advanced students and scholars focusing on renewable energy transition, stakeholder issues, environment and sustainability studies, as well as those who are interested in the methodological aspects of the social sciences, especially within the fields of sociology, law, economy, geography, political science, urbanism and planning.

Download or read book Renewables written by Michael Aklin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-03-23 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive political analysis of the rapid growth in renewable wind and solar power, mapping an energy transition through theory, case studies, and policy. Wind and solar are the most dynamic components of the global power sector. How did this happen? After the 1973 oil crisis, the limitations of an energy system based on fossil fuels created an urgent need to experiment with alternatives, and some pioneering governments reaped political gains by investing heavily in alternative energy such as wind or solar power. Public policy enabled growth over time, and economies of scale brought down costs dramatically. In this book, Michaël Aklin and Johannes Urpelainen offer a comprehensive political analysis of the rapid growth in renewable wind and solar power, mapping an energy transition through theory, case studies, and policy analysis. Aklin and Urpelainen argue that, because the fossil fuel energy system and political support for it are so entrenched, only an external shock—an abrupt rise in oil prices, or a nuclear power accident, for example—allows renewable energy to grow. They analyze the key factors that enable renewable energy to withstand political backlash, andt they draw on this analyisis to explain and predict the development of renewable energy in different countries over time. They examine the pioneering efforts in the United States, Germany, and Denmark after the 1973 oil crisis and other shocks; explain why the United States surrendered its leadership role in renewable energy; and trace the recent rapid growth of modern renewables in electricity generation, describing, among other things, the return of wind and solar to the United States. Finally, they apply the lessons of their analysis to contemporary energy policy issues.

Download or read book Energy Transitions written by Vaclav Smil and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-05-26 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bold and controversial argument shows why energy transitions are inherently complex and prolonged affairs, and how ignoring this fact raises unrealistic expectations that the United States and other global economies can be weaned quickly from a primary dependency on fossil fuels. Energy transitions are fundamental processes behind the evolution of human societies: they both drive and are driven by technical, economic, and social changes. In a bold and provocative argument, Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects describes the history of modern society's dependence on fossil fuels and the prospects for the transition to a nonfossil world. Vaclav Smil, who has published more on various aspects of energy than any working scientist, makes it clear that this transition will not be accomplished easily, and that it cannot be accomplished within the timetables established by the Obama administration. The book begins with a survey of the basic properties of modern energy systems. It then offers detailed explanations of universal patterns of energy transitions, the peculiarities of changing energy use in the world's leading economies, and the coming shifts from fossil fuels to renewable conversions. Specific cases of these transitions are analyzed for eight of the world's leading energy consumers. The author closes with perspectives on the nature and pace of the coming energy transition to renewable conversions.

Download or read book Sustainable Energy Transition In South Asia Challenges And Opportunities written by S Narayan and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With South Asia's growing energy demand, governments in the region are facing the short-term pressures of facilitating energy access, while attempting to formulate long-term sustainable strategies. This book explores how the key economies of South Asia are addressing issues such as the diversification of energy consumption profiles and import sources, investments in renewables, enabling universal energy access, challenges to regional energy cooperation, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and the policy changes that can foster bilateral and multilateral action.As governments seek to ensure access to affordable, reliable, secure, sustainable and modern energy, trends and drivers are emerging and shaping the South Asian energy landscape. The first section of the book examines energy trends at the regional level, while the second section focuses on the internal and external challenges faced by India — the largest energy consumer in the region and the third-largest energy consumer in the world.The diverse perspectives in this volume provide a holistic snapshot of South Asia's ongoing low-carbon energy transition, and highlight the importance of the region working collectively to navigate the many obstacles.

Download or read book The Geopolitics of the Global Energy Transition written by Manfred Hafner and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is currently undergoing an historic energy transition, driven by increasingly stringent decarbonisation policies and rapid advances in low-carbon technologies. The large-scale shift to low-carbon energy is disrupting the global energy system, impacting whole economies, and changing the political dynamics within and between countries. This open access book, written by leading energy scholars, examines the economic and geopolitical implications of the global energy transition, from both regional and thematic perspectives. The first part of the book addresses the geopolitical implications in the world’s main energy-producing and energy-consuming regions, while the second presents in-depth case studies on selected issues, ranging from the geopolitics of renewable energy, to the mineral foundations of the global energy transformation, to governance issues in connection with the changing global energy order. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers in energy, climate change and international relations, as well as to professionals working in the energy industry.

Download or read book Renewable Energy Communities and the Low Carbon Energy Transition in Europe written by Frans H. J. M. Coenen and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume addresses renewable energy communities, and in particular renewable energy cooperatives (REScoops), in the context of the revised EU Renewables Directive. It provides a comprehensive account of the history and development of the renewable energy community movement in over six different countries of continental Europe. It addresses their visions, strategy, organisation, agency, and more particularly the challenges they encounter. This is of particular importance to gain more understanding into how renewable energy communities fare in domestic energy markets where they are confronted with regime institutions, structures and incumbents’ agency that tend to favour maintaining of the status quo while blocking attempts to empower and institutionalise renewable energy communities as market entrants having a disruptive, radical green and localist agenda. This volume will be an invaluable reference for academics and practitioners with an interest in social innovation in sustainable transitions, the role of community energy in energy markets, their agency, as well as an outlook to the impact that the EU Renewables Directive may have to change national legislation and policy frameworks to create a level playing field that is essentially more fair and beneficial to renewable energy communities.

Download or read book Managing the Transition to Renewable Energy written by Jeroen C. J. M. van den Bergh and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2008-03-31 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited work studies the transition to renewable energy. It offers perspectives from a wide range of disciplines, addressing macro, regional and local scales. Important lessons are also drawn from historical transitions.

Download or read book Dilemmas of Energy Transitions in the Global South written by Ankit Kumar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-16 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how, in the wake of the Anthropocene, the growing call for urgent decarbonisation and accelerated energy transitions might have unintended consequences for energy poverty, justice and democracy, especially in the global South. Dilemmas of Energy Transitions in the Global South brings together theoretical and empirical contributions focused on rethinking energy transitions conceptually from and for the global South, and highlights issues of justice and inclusivity. It argues that while urgency is critical for energy transitions in a climate-changed world, we must be wary of conflating goals and processes, and enquire what urgency means for due process. Drawing from a range of authors with expertise spanning environmental justice, design theory, ethics of technology, conflict and gender, it examines case studies from countries including Bolivia, Sri Lanka, India, The Gambia and Lebanon in order to expand our understanding of what energy transitions are, and how just energy transitions can be done in different parts of the world. Overall, driven by a postcolonial and decolonial sensibility, this book brings to the fore new concepts and ideas to help balance the demands of justice and urgency, to flag relevant but often overlooked issues, and to provide new pathways forward. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of energy transitions, environmental justice, climate change and developing countries. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003052821 has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Download or read book Energy Transitions written by Olivier Labussière and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-04-30 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book elucidates what it means to transition to alternative sources of energy and discusses the potential for this energy transition to be a more democratic process. The book dynamically describes a recent sociotechnical study of a number of energy transitions occurring in several countries - France, Germany and Tunisia, and involving different energy technologies - including solar, on/off-shore wind, smart grids, biomass, low-energy buildings, and carbon capture and storage. Drawing on a pragmatist tradition of social inquiry, the authors examine the consequences of energy transition processes for the actors and entities that are affected by them, as well as the spaces for political participation they offer. This critical inquiry is organised according to foundational categories that have defined the energy transition - ‘renewable’ energy resources, markets, economic instruments, technological demonstration, spatiality (‘scale’) and temporality (‘horizon(s)’). Using a set of select case studies, this book systematically investigates the role these categories play in the current developments in energy transitions.