Rethinking the scale, structure & scope of U.S. energy institutions

This essay notes some of the key institutions created in the twentieth century for the purpose of delivering energy in North America. Those institutions are being challenged by a combination of stresses in three interconnected areas: reliability, economics, and environmental sustainability. The essay argues that these three stresses create an “energy trilemma” requiring institutional reform. We suggest that new and modi½ed institutions can best be understood if we evaluate them along three dimensions: institutional scale, structure, and scope. We consider real-world examples of recent institutions in light of each of these dimensions and note both successes and concerns that those factors illuminate. We conclude by noting that some institutional changes will be organic and unplanned; but many others, including responses to climate change, will bene½t from conscious attention to scale, structure, and scope by those engaged in designing and building the energy institutions needed in the twenty-½rst century

Energy injustice and Nordic electric mobility: inequality, elitism, and externalities in the electrification of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) transport

Much research on electric mobility transitions has been descriptive or positive, rather than normative or critical, assessing the deeper ethical, justice, or moral issues that arise. To address this gap, this study qualitatively assesses the ongoing transition to Nordic electric vehicles (EVs) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) systems. It does so through the various lenses of distributive justice, procedural justice, cosmopolitan justice, and recognition justice. It asks: what are the types of injustices associated with electric mobility and V2G? In what ways do emerging patterns of electric mobility worsen socio-environmental risks or vulnerabilities? Based on original primary data collected from 257 experts across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, the study finds that electric mobility can erode elements of distributive justice for being accessible only to the rich, and for raising risks related to privacy, hacking, and cyberterrorism. Electric mobility may contravene aspects of procedural justice by reinforcing exclusion and elitism in national planning. It can erode cosmopolitan justice by producing negative environmental externalities, and exacerbating rural (and global) vulnerability. It may threaten recognition justice through unemployment, disruption to traditional businesses, and the entrenchment of patriarchy. Thankfully, the study also proposes a suite of policy mechanisms to address many of these concerns

Spatializing energy justice

This paper introduces the concept of spatial justice and inequality to understandings of energy poverty and vulnerability. By applying an explicitly spatial lens to conceptualize energy poverty as a form of injustice, it contributes to debates in the domain of ‘energy justice’, where previous examinations of energy deprivation through a justice framing have focused on inequalities between social groups and often marginalized questions of spatial difference. We start from the premise that geographic disparities in the risk and incidence of domestic energy deprivation are a key component of energy justice. An extensive literature review has allowed us to highlight the spatial and temporal variation of cross-sectoral and entire-energy-chain injustices that lead to elevated energy poverty risks. These processes contribute to the rise of energy injustices via four mechanisms – which we term landscapes of material deprivation, geographic underpinnings of energy affordability, vicious cycles of vulnerability, and spaces of misrecognition – operating at a multiplicity of scales. While lending some support to area-based approaches towards energy poverty alleviation, our findings also suggest that such policies alone may marginalize the underlying structural dynamics that (re)produce spatial inequalities. Therefore, achieving energy justice necessitates broader interventions in the fundamental driving forces of spatial inequality

Renewable, ethical? Assessing the energy justice potential of renewable electricity

Energy justice is increasingly being used as a framework to conceptualize the impacts of energy decision making in more holistic ways and to consider the social implications in terms of existing ethical values. Similarly, renewable energy technologies are increasingly being promoted for their environmental and social benefits. However, little work has been done to systematically examine the extent to which, in what ways and in what contexts, renewable energy technologies can contribute to achieving energy justice. This paper assesses the potential of renewable electricity technologies to address energy justice in various global contexts via a systematic review of existing studies analyzed in terms of the principles and dimensions of energy justice. Based on publications including peer reviewed academic literature, books, and in some cases reports by government or international organizations, we assess renewable electricity technologies in both grid integrated and off-grid use contexts. We conduct our investigation through the rubric of the affirmative and prohibitive principles of energy justice and in terms of its temporal, geographic, socio-political, economic, and technological dimensions. Renewable electricity technology development has and continue to have different impacts in different social contexts, and by considering the different impacts explicitly across global contexts, including differences between rural and urban contexts, this paper contributes to identifying and understanding how, in what ways, and in what particular conditions and circumstances renewable electricity technologies may correspond with or work to promote energy justice

Overcoming the global injustices of energy poverty

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Energy justice: conceptual insights and practical applications

Though it is far from obvious, concepts from justice, philosophy, and ethics can significantly inform energy consumers and producers. This study details how energy justice can serve as a novel conceptual tool for philosophers and ethicists that better integrates usually distinct distributive and procedural justice concerns. Energy justice serves as an important analytical tool for energy researchers striving to understand how values get built into energy systems or to resolve common energy problems. Energy justice presents a useful decision-making tool that can assist energy planners and consumers in making more informed energy choices. Our energy justice framework has elements of Kantian ethics, which takes each person as an end. It has libertarian elements of freedom and choice, suggesting that good societies present people with a set of opportunities or substantial freedoms, so they can choose to exercise these or not. It is pluralist about value, holding that capabilities for people are different and also that their own interests vary. It is concerned with justice as recognition, noting that failures of procedural justice can result in discrimination and marginalization. It, also, has elements focused on utilitarianism and welfare, attempting to improve the quality of life for all people, as defined by their capabilities

Global energy justice ::problems, principles, and practices /

"We need new ways of thinking about, and approaching, the world's energy problems. Global energy security and access is one of the central justice issues of our time, with profound implications for happiness, welfare, freedom, equity, and due process. This book combines up-to-date data on global energy security and climate change with fresh perspectives on the meaning of justice in social decision-making. Benjamin K. Sovacool and Michael H. Dworkin address how justice theory can help people to make more meaningful decisions about the production, delivery, use, and effects of energy. Exploring energy dilemmas in real-life situations, they link recent events to eight global energy injustices and employ philosophy and ethics to make sense of justice as a tool in the decision-making process. They go on to provide remedies and policies that planners and individuals can utilize to create a more equitable and just energy future"-

Global energy justice: problems, principles and practices

We need new ways of thinking about, and approaching, the world's energy problems. Global energy security and access is one of the central justice issues of our time, with profound implications for happiness, welfare, freedom, equity, and due process. This book combines up-to-date data on global energy security and climate change with fresh perspectives on the meaning of justice in social decision-making. Benjamin K. Sovacool and Michael H. Dworkin address how justice theory can help people to make more meaningful decisions about the production, delivery, use, and effects of energy. Exploring energy dilemmas in real-life situations, they link recent events to eight global energy injustices and employ philosophy and ethics to make sense of justice as a tool in the decision-making process. They go on to provide remedies and policies that planners and individuals can utilize to create a more equitable and just energy future