Making useful knowledge for heat decarbonisation:Lessons from local energy planning in the United Kingdom

Heat decarbonisation is challenging in many countries, but few studies address its ‘wicked problem’ qualities and the implications for producing useful knowledge. This paper elucidates the challenges by applying insights from science and technology studies, especially Callon’s concept of knowledge ‘frames’, to explain the fate of a prominent UK innovation – the EnergyPath Networks (EPN) and Local Area Energy Planning (LAEP) tool of the Smart Systems and Heat programme. The aim of the tool, which coupled an engineering model with local planning, was to provide authoritative knowledge to support local decision making. However, after six years of piloting with local authorities the future take-up of EPN and LAEP remained uncertain, for two key reasons. First the techno-economic knowledge frame encountered numerous overflows emanating from more potent political-economic and technological perspectives governing local priorities. Second the framing of local decision making neglected the marginality of energy planning at local government level. Our analysis shows the problems that arise when lab-based research and development prematurely frame energy system problems, before encountering societal and political contexts of use. Problem definitions and solutions for heat decarbonisation based predominantly on technical–economic knowledge lack requisite authority to progress this wicked problem, and must become more context-responsive

Energy transitions, sub-national government and regime flexibility : how has devolution in the United Kingdom affected renewable energy development?

We acknowledge the support of the Economic and Social Research Council for funding the research on which this paper was based (Grant Number RES-062-23-2526).Peer reviewedPostprin

The role of place in energy transitions: siting gas-fired power stations and the reproduction of high-carbon energy systems

Analysts of the spatial dynamics of energy transition have given insufficient attention to the obduracy of fossil fuel-based energy systems, and understanding such persistence requires greater analytical attention to the role of place. This paper responds to these concerns through a distinctive longitudinal, whole sector analysis of the siting decisions of 111 gas-fired power station projects in England and Wales, from 1988 to 2019. Evidence shows that over 67,000 MW of new capacity has been consented, with few insurmountable siting problems, with place providing an important explanatory element. The fact that many projects were able to re-inhabit sites of former coal- and oil-fired power stations enabled developers successfully to mobilise arguments that gas power was a net environmental improvement, while obviating or deflecting objections based on place and landscape. The combination of site choice and consenting rules also helped gas-fired power stations nullify challenges based on the systemic risks of burning gas, and negotiate climate change policy constraints. Researchers need to theorise how ‘systems of places’ shape the reproduction of dominant socio-technical systems for energy, by mediating the extent and efficacy of public engagement in decision-making and problematising political challenges to the social order

Community tensions, participation, and local development: Factors affecting the spatial embeddedness of anaerobic digestion in Poland and the Czech Republic

Anaerobic Digestion plants (AD plants) are an important part of energy transition towards low-carbon rural economies in Central European countries. However, their benefits in making rural spaces more energy sustainable and energy self-sufficient are frequently questioned. In our paper, we strive to deepen our understanding of the level of embeddedness of two modes of operation of AD plants (AD on-farm, AD off-farm) in cases of Poland and the Czech Republic. We evaluate the pros and cons of both modes and assess their importance for the local rural development and energy transition through the lens of their embeddedness in the life of rural communities. Through questionnaire surveys in two municipalities (Buczek in Poland, Stonava in the Czech Republic, n = 232) and a set of expert interviews (19) with local and regional stakeholders, we have found that AD plants are specific rural enterprises as they usually rely on local biomass resources and are generally more grounded in the local economy and in local social structures than other enterprises. We also discovered that both types of AD plants investigated create significant (but varied) linkages with local stakeholders. The awareness of ADs among local population is high and significantly influenced by previous visits to the AD plant. By providing jobs and organizing local events for the local population operators of AD plants create space for their deeper acceptability and their embeddedness into the life of rural communities, however, site-specificity and local socio-cultural contexts must be also considered

Policy and practice: the EU referendum, planning and the environment: where now for the UK?

The referendum of 23 June 2016, in which the UK voted to leave the European Union, has potentially far-reaching implications for planning, especially its interface with environmental policy. While the five months since the referendum show stability in the worlds of planning practice, moves to renegotiate the UK’s relationship with Europe raise a number of important questions: will we see an erosion of the firm environmental standards and targets characteristic of EU environmental policy? Will business interests and infrastructure proponents be successful in arguing that Brexit requires yet further growthsupporting measures? How will the evident salience of immigration, sovereignty and identity concerns shape planning and environmental policy? Will the devolved governments thwart or redirect the ‘leave’\ud process? Alongside responses to specific institutional changes, planning and environmental bodies will need to respond to a political context in which elites are mistrusted, the benefits of globalisation and supra-national governance are questioned, and ‘putting Britain first’ is a discourse with increased traction

The utilization of environmental knowledge in land use planning: drawing lessons for an ecosystem services approach

Proponents of ecosystem services approaches to assessment claim that it will ensure the environment is ‘properly valued’ in decision making. Analysts seeking to understand the likelihood of this could usefully reexamine previous attempts to deploy novel assessment processes in land-use planning and how they affect decisions. This paper draws insights from a meta-analysis of three case studies: environmental capital, ecological footprinting, and green infrastructure. Concepts from science and technology studies are used to interpret how credibility for each new assessment process was assembled, and the ways by which the status of knowledge produced becomes negotiable or prescriptive. The influence of these processes on planning decisions is shown to be uneven, and depends on a combination of institutional setting and problem framing, not simply knowledge content. The analysis shows how actively cultivating wide stakeholder buy-in to new assessment approaches may secure wider support, but not necessarily translate into major influence on decisions

Decentralising energy governance? Wales, devolution and the politics of energy infrastructure decision-making

Much can be learned about the scope for changing the trajectory of energy system development by examining the effects of governance re-scaling, and how this is negotiated by prevailing regimes of energy provision. To advance this proposition, this article uses Barry's concept of ‘technological zones’ to analyse how devolution within the British state, to Wales, has affected the politicisation and organisation of electricity infrastructure decisions. The evidence presented centres on arguments about energy governance and devolution in two government inquiries. While logics of democratic accountability to Wales were asserted, along with arguments for more territorially integrated approaches to energy infrastructure decisions, the more dominant discourse emphasised swift and stable procedures to facilitate major investment and infrastructure delivery. The research shows that while intensifying place-based conflicts and pressures for governance re-scaling potentially disrupt the reproduction of infrastructural systems they do not automatically do so, which should direct our attention to the conditions which shape their politicisation

An improved ontological representation of dendritic cells as a paradigm for all cell types

The Cell Ontology (CL) is designed to provide a standardized representation of cell types for data annotation. Currently, the CL employs multiple is_a relations, defining cell types in terms of histological, functional, and lineage properties, and the majority of definitions are written with sufficient generality to hold across multiple species. This approach limits the CL’s utility for cross-species data integration. To address this problem, we developed a method for the ontological representation of cells and applied this method to develop a dendritic cell ontology (DC-CL). DC-CL subtypes are delineated on the basis of surface protein expression, systematically including both species-general and species-specific types and optimizing DC-CL for the analysis of flow cytometry data. This approach brings benefits in the form of increased accuracy, support for reasoning, and interoperability with other ontology resources. 104. Barry Smith, “Toward a Realistic Science of Environments”, Ecological Psychology, 2009, 21 (2), April-June, 121-130. Abstract: The perceptual psychologist J. J. Gibson embraces a radically externalistic view of mind and action. We have, for Gibson, not a Cartesian mind or soul, with its interior theater of contents and the consequent problem of explaining how this mind or soul and its psychological environment can succeed in grasping physical objects external to itself. Rather, we have a perceiving, acting organism, whose perceptions and actions are always already tuned to the parts and moments, the things and surfaces, of its external environment. We describe how on this basis Gibson sought to develop a realist science of environments which will be ‘consistent with physics, mechanics, optics, acoustics, and chemistry’