Big “G” and Small “G”: The Variable Geometries of Educational Governance in an Era of Big Data

With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution and the intelligent economy, this conceptual chapter explores the evolution of educational governance from one based on governing by numbers and evidence-based governance to one constituted around governance by data or data-based educational governance. With the rise of markets and networks in education, Big Data, machine data, high-dimension data, open data, and dark data have consequences for the governance of national educational systems. In doing so, it draws attention to the rise of the algorithmization and computerization of educational policy-making. The author uses the concept of “blitzscaling”, aided by the conceptual framing of assemblage theory, to suggest that we are witnessing the rise of a fragmented model of educational governance. I call this governance with a “big G” and governance with a “small g.” In short, I suggest that while globalization has led to the deterritorializing of the national state, data educational governance, an assemblage, is bringing about the reterritorialization of things as new material projects are being reconstituted

Overcoming barriers to the implementation of alternative fuels for road transport in Europe.

The success of implementing alternative fuels for road transport depends on their cost, performance and reliability. This paper focuses on the use of natural gas and LPG, hydrogen and biofuels in Europe. A brief presentation is given of their technical development status, their market potential, and barriers to their implementation in various market segments. Some market barriers are common to many new technologies, and can be overcome through adequate policy measures at European level. Generally, a combination of policies is required, and a number of supporting measures increase their effectiveness. The following policies affecting energy use in transport are discussed: market incentives, policies targeting technology and vehicle efficiency, and overall system improvement

Energy and Air Pollution: World Energy Outlook Special Report 2016

WEO 2016 SR: Contribution to the IEA’s 2016 World Energy Outlook Special Report on Energy and Air Pollution (IIASA Contract No. 16-106) - Around 6.5 million premature deaths each year can be attributed to air pollution - Energy production and use are by far the largest man-made sources of air pollutants - Technologies to tackle air pollution are well known Clean air is vital for good health. Yet despite growing recognition of this imperative, the problem of air pollution is far from solved in many countries, and the global health impacts risk intensifying in the decades to come. The scale of the public health crisis caused by air pollution and the importance of the energy sector to its resolution are the reasons why the IEA is focusing on this critical topic for the first time. Based on new data for pollutant emissions in 2015 and projections to 2040, this special report, the latest in the World Energy Outlook series, provides a global outlook for energy and air pollution as well as detailed profiles of key countries and regions: the United States, Mexico, the European Union, China, India, Southeast Asia and Africa. In a Clean Air Scenario, the report proposes a pragmatic and attainable strategy to reconcile the world’s energy requirements with its need for cleaner air. Alongside the multiple benefits to human health, this strategy shows that resolving the world’s air pollution problem can go hand-in-hand with progress towards other environmental and development goals

Why did Better Place fail?: Range anxiety, interpretive flexibility, and electric vehicle promotion in Denmark and Israel

With almost $1 billion in funding, Better Place was poised to become one of the most innovative companies in the electric mobility market. The system Better Place proposed had two novel prongs; first, to reduce the cost of batteries, and second, to reduce range anxiety, public infrastructure concerns, and long charging times. Yet, despite this seemingly strong combination, Better Place failed to make any progress in Denmark and Israel, the first two markets it operated in, and subsequently declared bankruptcy, selling off its collective assets for less than$500,000. Drawing from science and technology studies and the notion of “interpretive flexibility,” this paper posits several reasons to explain the failure of Better Place, including that Denmark is not as “green” as it seems nor is the Israeli market as attractive as believed, and that Better Place's solution to charging time and range anxiety resolved a psychological, not a functional, barrier of the general public to adopt electric vehicles. Before investigating these two reasons, the paper presents a short history of Better Place and explores the contours of its operations in Denmark and Israel. It then discusses why Better Place “failed” across both countries before concluding with implications for energy planning, policy, and analysis

Assessment of energy efficiency and sustainability scenarios in the transport system

Background Energy Policy is one of the main drivers of Transport Policy. A number of strategies to reduce current energy consumption trends in the transport sector have been designed over the last decades. They include fuel taxes, more efficient technologies and changing travel behavior through demand regulation. But energy market has a high degree of uncertainty and the effectiveness of those policy options should be assessed. Methods A scenario based assessment methodology has been developed in the frame of the EU project STEPS. It provides an integrated view of Energy efficiency, environment, social and competitiveness impacts of the different strategies. It has been applied at European level and to five specific Regions. Concluding remarks The results are quite site specific dependent. However they show that regulation measures appear to be more effective than new technology investments. Higher energy prices could produce on their turn a deterioration of competitiveness and a threat for social goals

The need for comprehensive and well targeted policy mixes to stimulate energy transitions: the case of energy efficiency policy.

To meet global climate goals an energy transition is needed. However, energy transitions are complex and longterm processes and require a variety of public policy interventions to steer their direction and speed to achieve global climate change mitigation targets. One area where policy support is required is energy efficiency, which offers a high potential for carbon savings. It is widely acknowledged that energy efficiency improvements will need to be faster and deeper than is currently the case and this requires policy instrument mixes to support both those energy efficiency measures that are simple and cost-effective as well as more complex and costly technologies. In other words, policy mixes need to be well-targeted and comprehensive. In this paper, we address the issue of comprehensiveness in terms of technology-specificity and the level of complexity and costliness of energy efficiency measures. We use an existing dataset produced as part of a pan-European effort to understand instrument mixes in 14 EU Member States in the area of energy efficiency. Based on the empirical analysis and our segmentation of instrument types and their role in the overall mix, we illustrate the need for using a comprehensive instrument mix rather than single instruments

Solar hydrogen system for cooking applications: Experimental and numerical study

This paper describes the development of a semi-empirical numerical model for a solar hydrogen system consisting of a proton exchange membrane electrolyser (PEM) powered by photovoltaic panels to produce hydrogen as fuel for cooking applications, focussing on Jamaica as a suitable case-study. The model was developed in TRNSYS and includes a novel numerical component based on FORTRAN to model the operation of the PEM electrolyser. The numerical component was developed based on operational data from a purpose constructed small-scale experimental rig. The numerical model was calibrated using data from the experimental rig powered by operational data from a photovoltaic panel system in the UK and predicted photovoltaic panel power data from Jamaica. For the test conditions, experiments indicated an electrolysis maximum efficiency of 63.6%. The calibrated model was used to develop a case study analysis for a small community in Jamaica with a daily cooking demand of 39.6kWh or 1.7kg of H2 gas. Simulations indicate that the H2 production plan is sufficient for the cooking needs of the case-study.This project is partly funded by ACP Caribbean & Pacific Research Programme for Sustainable Development of the European Union (EuropeAid/130381/D/ACT/ACP)

Apples, oranges, and consistent comparisons of the temporal dynamics of energy transitions

Benjamin Sovacool (2016) has provided interesting food for thought in asking “how long will it take?” for the unfolding of energy transitions. Historical evidence of “grand” or global energy system transitions taking decades to centuries to unfold contrasted with highly selective recent and rapid examples of mostly incremental technological change make for an engaging argument. But the observed contrasts are due to the apples-and-oranges comparison between transitions that are measured differently, defined differently, characterized by different processes, and explained differently

Public opinion and environmental policy output: a cross-national analysis of energy policies in Europe

This article studies how public opinion is associated with the introduction of renewable energy policies in Europe. While research increasingly seeks to model the link between public opinion and environmental policies, the empirical evidence is largely based on a single case: the US. This limits the generalizability of findings and we argue accordingly for a systematic, quantitative study of how public opinion drives environmental policies in another context. Theoretically, we combine arguments behind the political survival of democratic leaders with electoral success and environmental politics. Ultimately, we suggest that office-seeking leaders introduce policies that seem favorable to the domestic audience; if the public prefers environmental protection, the government introduces such policies in turn. The main contribution of this research is the cross-country empirical analysis, where we combine data on the public's environmental attitudes and renewable energy policy outputs in a European context between 1974 and 2015. We show that as public opinion shifts towards prioritizing the environment, there is a significant and positive effect on the rate of renewable energy policy outputs by governments in Europe. To our knowledge, this is the first systematic, quantitative study of public opinion and environmental policies across a large set of countries, and we demonstrate that the mechanisms behind the introduction of renewable energy policies follow major trends across European states

Analysing future change in the EU's energy innovation system

We develop a novel approach for quantitatively analysing future storylines of change by combining econometric analysis and Monte Carlo simulation for four different storylines of change in the EU's energy innovation system. We explore impacts on three key innovation outcomes: patenting (innovation), co-invention (collaboration), and technology cost reduction (diffusion). We find that diverse mixes of policy instruments stimulate collaborative innovation activity. We find that both RD&D expenditure and trade imports support knowledge generation and exchange, and that these relationships are largely robust to future uncertainty. Conversely, we find that policy durability and stability are only weakly linked to innovation outcomes, suggesting that adaptive policy responding to rapidly changing innovation environments should play an important part of the EU's energy future