Transforming Power: Energy, Environment, and Society in Conflict

John Byrne · Noah Toly · Leigh Glover

joulu 2011 · Energy and Environmental Policy Kirja 1 · Transaction Publishers

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In 1934, Lewis Mumford critiqued the industrial energy system as a key source of authoritarian economic and political tendencies in modern life. Recent debate continues to engage issues of energy authoritarianism, focusing on the contest between energy-driven globalization (the spread of energy deregulation and the simultaneous consolidation of the oil, coal, and gas industries) and the so-called "sustainable energy" strategy that celebrates the local and community scale characteristics of renewable energy. Including theoretical inquiries and case studies by distinguished writers, Transforming Power is divided into three parts: Energy, Environment, and Society; The Politics of Conventional Energy; and The Politics of Sustainable Energy. It interrogates current contemporary energy assumptions, exploring the reflexive relationship between energy, environment, and society, and examining energy as a social project. Some of these have promised a prosperous future founded upon technological advances that further modernize the modern energy system, such as "inherently safe" nuclear power, environmentally friendly coal gasification, and the advent of a wealthier, cleaner world powered by fuel cells; and the "green technologies," said by advocates to prefigure a revival of human scale development, local self-determination, and a commitment to ecological balance. >br> This volume offers a timely engagement of the social issues surrounding energy conflicts and contradictions. It will be of interest to policymakers, energy and environmental experts, sociologists, and historians of technology.

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John Byrne is director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy and distinguished professor of energy and climate policy at the University of Delaware. He has contributed to Working Group III of the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1992 and shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the panel's authors and review editors. His books includeTransforming Power: Energy, Environment and Society in Conflict; Energy Revolution: Toward an Energy-Efficient Future for South Korea; and Governing the Atom: The Politics of Risk. Noah Toly is a research associate and Ph.D. candidate in the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Delaware. Leigh Glover is policy fellow and assistant professor in the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Delaware.