Energy Research & Social Science最新文献

{"title":"Do local parties only mind their own business? Explaining the deployment of large-scale solar energy projects in Germany","authors":"Stefan Ćetković,&nbsp;Jules Bertemes","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103968","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103968","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While the literature on community acceptance of renewable energy projects has largely focused on public acceptance, the factors behind the political approval of renewable energy projects by local decision-makers have remained largely unexplored. In this article, we address this gap by investigating the relationship between the party composition of local parliaments, national election results and deployment of large-scale solar energy projects focusing empirically on the German Federal State of Bavaria during 2008–2020. We find that the party composition of the local parliaments in Bavaria has a strong and robust effect on the likelihood that a municipality will witness the implementation of solar parks. We particularly find that the major negative effect on the deployment of solar parks is associated with the strong presence of the independent local parties in the local parliaments. The success of the Green Party and the far-right populists in national elections has found to be less relevant for the local solar park deployment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"121 ","pages":"Article 103968"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143372202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From vulnerability to resilience: Empowering stakeholder-driven just transitions in island tourism economies","authors":"Ivelina Mirkova,&nbsp;Noemi Padrón-Fumero","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103966","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103966","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Achieving a just transition is essential for addressing the climate emergency, particularly in tourism-dependent island economies that face unique vulnerabilities such as environmental pressures, small-scale electricity networks, and heavy reliance on tourism. This study investigates how political dynamics, economic dependencies, and equity concerns influence stakeholder perceptions in tourism-dependent island economies, offering guidance for governance frameworks aimed at sustainable and inclusive outcomes. Framed within the concept of “just transition,” it addresses the multi-sectoral challenges of energy transitions, climate resilience, and sustainability, integrating environmental, social, and economic justice across key sectors like transportation, water management, and tourism. To explore this, we use a mixed-methods approach, engaging 36 stakeholders from various sectors to explore essential elements for a fair transition, including access to information, stakeholder engagement, transparency, and governance. Our findings using Q methodology reveal a range of views influenced by political contexts, from skepticism about policy effectiveness to debates on energy management strategies. The analysis suggests that framing transition issues in a way that prioritizes collaborative problem-solving over ideological divides can reduce polarization, enhance focus on shared goals, and improve perceptions of fairness and inclusiveness making discussions more pragmatic and solution-oriented. To effectively address the social and environmental challenges faced by island regions, policymakers must develop inclusive frameworks that integrate transparent policy evaluation, stakeholder collaboration, and adaptive governance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"121 ","pages":"Article 103966"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143350312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Establishing leadership in bringing carbon capture, utilisation and storage to scale","authors":"Maryem El Farsaoui ,&nbsp;Joao M. Uratani ,&nbsp;Mohammad Abu Zahra ,&nbsp;Steve Griffiths","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103960","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103960","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Carbon capture, utilisation and storage, often referred to simply as CCUS, refers to a suite of technologies to decarbonise many hard-to-abate industries. However, commercial-scale adoption of CCUS technologies faces critical barriers related to application scope, societal acceptance, and financing. Here we propose how fossil energy-exporting countries are uniquely situated to expedite CCUS deployment at scale. Using a sociotechnical systems perspective, we show how one such country, the United Arab Emirates, serves as an important case study for addressing eight different sociotechnical barriers to CCUS adoption. We evaluate the elements that are addressed by factors related to local context and those which represent opportunities for application in other geographies. We argue that scaling-up CCUS is both a duty and opportunity for countries like the UAE as they decarbonise their industries and economies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"121 ","pages":"Article 103960"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143350311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Presidential agendas without success: United States critical minerals and materials policy to support the electric vehicle transition","authors":"Khoi Hua,&nbsp;Eva Brungard,&nbsp;Kelly Lynn Anderson,&nbsp;Shannon Halinski,&nbsp;John A. Rupp,&nbsp;John D. Graham","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103964","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103964","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Presidents are important agenda setters in the U.S. policy making process, but the field of presidential studies has paid little attention toward critical minerals and materials policy. This article evaluates the efforts by Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden to spur the development of a domestic mining and processing sector to supply processed critical minerals and materials for electric vehicles. We focus on seven minerals and materials likely to be essential to batteries and magnet production in the near- and medium-term: cobalt, copper, graphite, lithium, manganese, neodymium, and nickel. Sourcing of these critical minerals and materials within the U.S. is seen as important from security, environmental, and economic perspectives. This article reveals a stunning paradox: three presidents, coming from different political parties and having a multitude of policy disagreements, uniformly agreed for fifteen years (2009–2023) that expanding mining and processing of critical minerals and materials in the U.S. is a national priority. Nevertheless, despite numerous presidential speeches, executive orders, agency activities, permitting processes, and subsidy/loan programs, minimal progress was made in stimulating additional U.S. mines for critical minerals and materials. Our analysis also explores why presidential agendas on critical minerals and materials policy did not lead to any meaningful change, highlighting systemic challenges, policy inconsistencies, and broader barriers, as well as suggestions for future research on how to make progress for the development of a robust U.S. supply chain to support the electric vehicle transition.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"121 ","pages":"Article 103964"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143372203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring beyond-compliance behaviors of Australian building practitioners: A cluster analysis","authors":"Yi Lu,&nbsp;Gayani Karunasena,&nbsp;Chunlu Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103969","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103969","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To meet Australia's 2030 goal of a zero-energy and carbon-ready residential building industry, new homes must attain high-performance ratings that are beyond-compliance. However, recent Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) data shows that most new residential projects in Victoria (Australia) were designed to meet only the minimum compliance level, without going beyond-compliance. Apart from the commonly examined reasons related to clients and policymakers, an underexplored aspect is the diverse behaviors of building practitioners during the compliance process. To effectively motivate different building practitioners to achieve beyond-compliance outcomes, a fundamental yet unanswered question is: how to segment building practitioners based on behavior constructs. To fill this gap, the study conducts a cluster analysis to explore segments of building practitioners with different beyond-compliance behaviors. Data were collected from a questionnaire survey of 73 residential building practitioners in Victoria, including architects/draftspersons, builders, and thermal performance assessors. Victoria was selected because many new Victorian houses still fail to achieve beyond-compliance, highlighting the importance of exploration. Three clusters of building practitioners were identified: lingerer, characterized by low subjective norms, perceived behavioral control; close-follower, marked by high normative alignment but low attitudes; and leader, distinguished by strong attitudes, subjective norms. The most significant difference between clusters was the subjective norms driven by clients' requests. As the first clustering study to segment building practitioners based on beyond-compliance behaviors, the findings facilitate building practitioners to identify key areas for self-improvement, and also help policymakers develop tailored strategies to promote different segments of building practitioners to go beyond-compliance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"121 ","pages":"Article 103969"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143264967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Facing a fossil free future through the past: The importance of history for understanding fossil fuel phaseouts","authors":"Lukas Slothuus","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103971","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103971","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The study of policies limiting the production of fossil fuels must be appropriately historicised. Contextualising these policies within a longer-term historical and wider geopolitical perspective helps illuminate the political dynamics and trajectories that variably give rise to, or prevent, such supply-side policies. Attention to this longer history furthermore helps understand the origins of the long-standing, powerful resistance to moving away from producing fossil fuels and how it might be overcome. In this article, I make the case for historicising fossil fuel supply-side policies following broader moves toward historicising the climate crisis. I contribute both conceptually and methodologically to the emerging literature on fossil fuel supply-side policies and broader politics of energy and climate. I chart the limited short-term past and present scope of the academic literature on these policies. I outline the necessary resources and tools, conceptual and practical, for better incorporating a historical dimension, both temporally and geopolitically. These include archival research, analysis of historical policy documents, interviews to construct oral histories and testimonies, as well as engagement with the secondary history literature. I illustrate these points with reference to the prominent supply-side example of Denmark, the first significant oil and gas producer to implement a phaseout policy, before reflecting on how to apply these lessons of historicization to other examples.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"121 ","pages":"Article 103971"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143264973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The acceleration of low-carbon transitions: Insights, concepts, challenges, and new directions for research","authors":"Benjamin K. Sovacool ,&nbsp;Frank W. Geels ,&nbsp;Allan Dahl Andersen ,&nbsp;Michael Grubb ,&nbsp;Andrew J. Jordan ,&nbsp;Florian Kern ,&nbsp;Paula Kivimaa ,&nbsp;Matthew Lockwood ,&nbsp;Jochen Markard ,&nbsp;James Meadowcroft ,&nbsp;Jonas Meckling ,&nbsp;Brendan Moore ,&nbsp;Rob Raven ,&nbsp;Karoline S. Rogge ,&nbsp;Daniel Rosenbloom ,&nbsp;Tobias S. Schmidt ,&nbsp;Johan Schot ,&nbsp;Darren Sharp ,&nbsp;Janet Stephenson ,&nbsp;Irja Vormedal ,&nbsp;Kejia Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103948","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103948","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Given that several low-carbon transitions are now accelerating, what can we say about the drivers, conditions, mechanisms, and dynamics of acceleration? This question is widely discussed in policy and academic circles, but so far there is little attempt to develop a more comprehensive answer that considers the pluralistic and heterogeneous nature of what acceleration is, how it comes about, and how it can be studied moving forward. To provide a more comprehensive approach to the phenomenon of acceleration, this paper offers a prismatic perspective that mobilizes insights from several social science disciplines and fields that have engaged with acceleration and links them to sustainability transitions. The objectives of the paper are threefold: to map out concepts or tools that are useful for better understanding or interpreting acceleration; to reflect on prominent themes and topics; and to identify research gaps and fruitful directions. Written by an interdisciplinary and authoritative team of authors, the paper draws from a wide range of concepts including but not limited to feedback theory from political science, incumbent reorientation and innovation races from business and management literature, cultural theory and public acceptance from socio-cultural studies, along with insights from consumption studies and sociology. It draws on this corpus to identify five singular dimensions of acceleration (economics, technology, business, policy, and behavior/culture) as well as four multi-dimensional mechanisms (tipping points, multi-system interactions, threshold dynamics and deep leverage points). It then examines underlying drivers and understandings of acceleration before synthesizing perspectives and charting directions for future research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"121 ","pages":"Article 103948"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143264971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Stepping on the Gas: Pathways to Reduce Venting in Household-Scale Kenyan Biogas Digesters","authors":"Benjamin L. Robinson ,&nbsp;Mike J. Clifford ,&nbsp;Evance Okoth Ouma ,&nbsp;Kevin Kinusu Kinyangi ,&nbsp;Michael Wasonga Adimo ,&nbsp;Charles Njoroge Muchoki ,&nbsp;Grace Gathogo ,&nbsp;Leah Kendi Kithinji ,&nbsp;Tabitha Wanjiru Ngigi ,&nbsp;Teresiah Njeri Mbuguah ,&nbsp;Eric Murithi Rukaria ,&nbsp;Samuel Machui Mwangi","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103963","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103963","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>One method of producing bioenergy is through Anaerobic Digestion (AD) of plant, animal, and human waste in a biodigester. AD is a cost-effective method of simultaneously managing harmful waste, creating biogas for cooking, and producing nitrogen-rich liquid fertiliser for agriculture. However, there is minimal exploration around how these household-scale biogas digesters, in Kenya and beyond, contribute to global bioenergy methane emissions - this paper directly addresses this gap.</div><div>We employ a two-phase approach which establishes the scale of the challenge through a rapid review of available literature on loss, leaking and venting, then contextualise this data with the lived experience of 33 biogas-users across 5 counties in Kenya.</div><div>The results highlight three critical dimensions - the demand, supply, and systemic from the users' perspectives - all linked to the venting phenomenon. The demand side showed a lack of understanding of venting and its causes, these included; pre-processing feedstock, feeding regime, seasonal influence, pressure, cookstove stacking, lack of maintenance and market access. On the supply side, our critical learning highlighted that biogas units are typically sold based upon the available feedstock, rather than the potential gas need. Next, we identify the systemic drivers; household-scale digesters do not pose a climate threat, a lack of technical solutions, and the overwhelming Pandora's Box of impacts. For each driver - the supply, demand, and systemic - we highlight a series of mitigating actions that small-scale, locally-led biogas stakeholders can take to minimise venting, this is summarised in our practical “venting framework”.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"121 ","pages":"Article 103963"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143264959","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From obstacles to heritage: The shifting status of glaciers across 150 years of mining research","authors":"Caroline White-Nockleby ,&nbsp;Scott D. Odell","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103953","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103953","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While the cryosphere is deteriorating due to climate change, mining of critical minerals is expanding to supply the clean energy transition, often in glaciated regions. We explore the convergence of these trends through a systematic review of 93 articles from 1875 to 2023. Informed by the framework of the “hydrosocial cycle,” we attend to both material and epistemological links between mining and the cryosphere, as well as how these links have evolved over time. We organize this literature across four categories of glacier-mining interactions, which have tended to emerge chronologically as foci of scholarly research: (1) Glaciers as Obstacles to Mining, (2) Glaciers as Archives of Mining, (3) Mining Impacts and Dust, and (4) The Rise of Cryoactivism. For over a century, we find, mining activities helped shape not only the physical cryosphere, but also the production of discourses and scientific knowledge about it. Over the last two decades, research has undergone a shift from a predominant discourse of glaciers as “obstacles” to mining, towards a recognition of glaciers as “heritage” –sensitive, unique, and valuable ecosystems that mining may threaten. Our results demonstrate the need for research across a greater variety of locations, as well as more interdisciplinary research, to explicate the increasingly complex and widespread interactions between the cryosphere and mining. These findings also help illuminate some key environmental justice challenges of securing critical minerals for the clean energy transition.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"121 ","pages":"Article 103953"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143133252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Diverging energy horizons: Rethinking public resistance in the Danish renewable energy transition","authors":"Matti Weisdorf,&nbsp;Kasper Tang Vangkilde,&nbsp;Simon Lex","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103945","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.103945","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article provides a new perspective on public resistance to renewable energy projects based on ethnographic fieldwork in Denmark. The Danish government's ambition of quadrupling renewable energy production by 2030 has faced substantial resistance, with concerns over insufficient local engagement in, and destructive environmental impacts of, renewable energy projects as frequent points of contention. To enhance our understanding of this resistance, we introduce the concept of “energy horizons,” which designates frameworks for perception, experiences, and expectations in the energy transition, conditioned by personal, cultural, and social histories. By elucidating differing interests and concerns while, at the same time, not rigidly equating these concerns with distinct groups of people, the concept a) enriches our understanding of how and why actors perceive uncertainties and potentials of renewable energy projects very differently, b) counteracts the idea that resistance and concerns belong unambiguously to certain individuals or groups, and c) illuminates the injustices entailed when certain horizons drown out others. Ultimately, the article emphasizes the necessity of recognizing and integrating diverse horizons through dialogue and collaboration, advocating for a “fusion of horizons” that supports mutual understanding and inclusive decision-making. Our perspective highlights the potential for reconciling the urgent need for large scale renewable energy production with the complexities of local community values and identities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"121 ","pages":"Article 103945"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143264958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}