Carbon reduction, ‘the public’ and renewable energy

Engaging with socio‐technical configurations

Bibliographic Data

ID8360420
AuthorsGordon Walker (0000-0002-5278-6792, Lancaster University, corresponding author), Noel Cass (0000-0003-2652-1931, Lancaster University, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume39
Issue4
Pages458-469
Publication date2007-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueArea (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0004-0894 • E-ISSN: 1475-4762
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1475-4762.2007.00772.x
OpenAlexW2042068075
LanguageEN
Citations received128
References cited26

In the context of challenging targets for renewable energy generation, this paper draws out social implications of moves towards low carbon energy systems. As renewable energy develops as a heterogeneous category, many potential forms of social relation between ‘publics’ and technologies are emerging. Utilising perspectives from science and technology studies, we outline five modes in which renewable energy has been implemented in the UK and how these involve different configurations of technology and social organisation. We argue that a multiplicity of roles for ‘the public’ are implicated across this increasingly complex landscape, cutting across established categories and raising questions of meaning, differentiation, interrelation and access. Policy assumptions and conceptions are questioned, highlighting that dominant characterisations of public roles have been part of a concentration on particular socio‐technical pathways to the exclusion of others

Business · Context (archaeology) · Economic system · Economics · Environmental economics · Epistemology · Geography · Meaning (existential) · Political science · Public policy · Public relations · Renewable energy · Sociology · Energy and Environment Impacts · Engineering · Law · Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance

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