The co-creation of worth, calculative devices and calculative agencies in the Danish wind power market

Wind power generated electricity offers a unique vantage point on the nature of markets and the specific organizing processes by which markets become constructed, configured, and contested. Modern Wind power generated electricity emerged in Denmark after the first oil supply crisis in 1974 when various entrepreneurial actors responded to that situation and saw wind power as one possible solution to ‘the’ problem. Today wind power is globally the fastest growing energy technology and supplies significant amounts of energy in countries like Denmark and Germany, in Denmark wind power generated electricity supplies 20% of annual electricity consumption. Although the trajectory of wind power institutionally and materially is much more robust today than 25 years ago very few thought that this technology had such a future. In the context of the 1970s with modernization and emerging nuclear power, many evaluated wind power as a relic from the past, some imagined opportunities (doomed as unrealistic), but nobody imagined that wind power should become one of the important ‘weapons’ against the CO2-related climate change at the turn of the century. However, confronted with emergent technologies outside the existing evaluative frames and institutionalised categories, it is not about being right or wrong from an objective epistemology, but about what epistemologies are used to frame the potential worth of a potential new energy technology

Introducing the lens of markets-in-the-making to transition studies:The case of the Danish wind power market agencement

This paper contributes to a renewed understanding of markets in transition studies by focusing on how unknown things must be ‘framed’ and pacified in order to be attributed some ‘value’ that makes them ‘matter’. We empirically analyze the making of a market agencement for wind power deployment in Denmark. Using an analytical framework of framing and pacifying, we trace three entangled ‘domains of action’ associated with the employment of (a) sociopolitical devices to enable the discursive valuation of wind power, (b) economic devices to develop price-setting models for investors, and (c) technical devices to facilitate grid integration, thereby framing wind power as socio-politically, economically, and techno-scientifically ‘valuable’, respectively. This market agencement has consistently produced concerns (i.e., overflows) requiring constant re-framing. We discuss how the lens of markets-in-the-making can contribute to transition studies. By showing how the domains of action entangle and ‘overflow’ onto each other, this study demonstrates that the relational lens of socio-technical agencements can help shed additional light on the dynamics and agency of markets in transition.</p

Dansk værftsindustri efter 1945

Udviklingen af den danske værftsindustri i tiden efter 1945 er på flere måder interessant, ikke mindst derved, at værfterne i perioden gik fra at være blandt landets ledende industrier til kun at være af underordnet betydning. En udvikling derfor den brede offentlighed tydeligst markerede sig ved massefyringer og »lukning« af hele lokalsamfund som f.eks. Nakskov. Trods denne særstatus er der hidtil kun foretaget enkeltstående studier af de danske værfter. Der mangler således endnu en samlet forklaring af udviklingen, og hertil kommer, at flere centrale elementer hidtil har været temmelig overset i forskningen. Forfatteren, der er historiker og ansat ved Fiskeri- og Søfartsmuseet i Esbjerg, fremhæver i nærværende artikel nogle temaer, der med fordel kunne inddrages i en samlet syntese om værftsindustriens udvikling. Artiklen bygger på et foredrag afholdt ved Dansk Historiker Møde i 2003

U.S. Virgin Islands 2007 – Galathea 3 ekspeditionen

Denne artikel har en forhistorie. En forhistorie, der strækker sig over 40 år, og både fungerer som udgangspunkt og spejl. I 1967 rejste Handels- og Søfartsmuseets daværende museumsinspektør, dr. phil. Henning Henningsen til U. S. Virgin Islands, de tidligere dansk vestindiske øer, for at deltage i festlighederne i forbindelse med fejringen af 50-året for overdragelsen af øerne til USA den 31. marts 1917. Henningsen publicerede efterfølgende en artikel i Handels- og Søfartsmuseets årbog, hvori han med stor sans for detalje og akkuratesse præsenterede et billede af øerne. I 2007 rejste Galathea 3 ekspeditionen ud i verden og kom på vejen forbi U.S. Virgin Islands, hvor der blev ophold i lidt over to uger. På denne del af ekspeditionen var nærværende artikels forfatter i Henning Henningsens’ fodspor og oplevede øerne med næsten samme optik, men med fire årtiers forskel. Denne artikel giver med andre ord et billede af forskelle og ligheder igennem tid i en tidligere dansk tropekoloni