RESEARCH

For New Energy Sources, Unlocking Technological Energy

Innovation
Posted April 1, 2013

When The Energy Collective asked me to write a series of posts about new energy sources, the term
gave me pause. The more I thought about the concept of new energy sources, the more complex it
became. What exactly a new energy source and what is in particularly makes a new energy source
new? Whats at stake in how we think about and deal with new energy sourcesand how should we
think about and deal with them?
Anyone who took high school physics will remember that theres no new energy on earthor anywhere
else in the universe. Energy can be moved around, stored, or shifted from one state to another, but itcan
never be created or destroyed. When we talk about new energy sources, then, we are not talking about
new sources of energy at all. Rather, were talking about new methods, usually facilitated by new
technologies, through which human societies can harness existing sources of energy.
Take, for instance, the new energy sources covered in this series: oil sands, biofuels, and marine
energy. None of these energy sources can really be said to be new: oil sands have been around for
over 100 million years, and both the flows of solar energy that we tap for biofuels and the wave and tidal
processes we harvest for marine energy have existed since the advent of the earth system.
What makes the exploitation of these and other energy sources possible are our application of extraction
and conversion technologies to existing stocks or flows of energy. These stocks and flows, which are
relatively few in number, include the flow of solar energy from sun to earth, which we harness for solar
and wind energy; the flow of radioactive heat from the inner earth, from which we derive geothermal
energy; stocks of energy within atomic nuclei, which we exploit for power through nuclear fission; and
stocks of fossil fuelsbuilt up over geological time through high pressure, high temperature
transformation of photo synthetically sequestered solar energythat we combust for most of our energy.
What all of these energy stocks and flows have in common is that our ability to exploit them is a function
of the quality of the technology we have to do so. If energy sources are never new, but are rather
made newly available by our enhanced ability to harness them, then new and more effective technologies
are the key enabling factors that dictate our capacity to exploit any new source of energy.
It may sound like terminological nitpicking, but its a key point. With the possible exception of some
massive, easily accessible oil and gas finds of the 20
th
century, virtually all of our current and recent
energy supply has been made possible by the development of advanced new extraction or conversion
technologies. The hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technologies that have unlocked enormous
amounts of shale oil and gas, the more efficient solar panels and larger wind turbines that are helping
improve renewable' penetration, the in-situ extraction technologies that have made oil sands economical,
and the nuclear and hydropower technologies that provide our carbon-free base load power are all cases
in point.
But the story is slightly more complicated, because the technologies that enable this access to 'new'
energy sources are never just machinery, or equipment, or the application of technical knowledgeas
the dictionary definitions of the term suggest. As scholars in Science and Technology Studies (STS)have
been arguing for decades, these and other technologies are better understood as sociotechnical systems
in which material componentsadvanced machinery, better equipment, and the likeare articulated
through the social, political, economic, and institutional contexts in which theyre situated.
It may sound like an abstruse academic distinction, but again, its not. Indeed, its a distinction with vast
explanatory power, one that reveals why shale gas production has exploded in the US but is unlikely,
despite the easy exportability of the key machinery and processes; why nuclear power is growing rapidly
in China but being shut down in Germany, despite the technology in both places being broadly similar;
and why renewable have become a battle ground for culture wars in some places but not others. In all
cases, the market penetration of a particular technology or technology class is a function not of the
essential properties of the associated machinery and equipment but rather of the other factors the soft,
mushy, and harder to pin down factors that define the possibility space for the expansion of the
technical components. In short, the social in sociotechnicaland the political, the economic, and the
institutionalare inescapable and powerfully determinative.
Several implications follow. As many have pointed out, unless we take seriously the challenge of
developing better new technologies, expansively defined, we cant expect to both continue expanding the
supply of energy available for powering human civilization and mitigate anthropogenic climate change. In
a world in which billions of people still lack access to modern energy services and already high
atmospheric carbon concentrations threaten to continue to soar, the challenge of developing the
technologies needed to secure a high-energy, low-carbon future is a stark one.
To the extent that we are able to address this challenge effectively, it will be through maximizing global
energy efficiency and developing and deploying low-carbon energy technologies that can accelerate our
ongoing energy transition. Whether its through improving renewable, advancing nuclear, developing
CCS, or some combination of these and other approaches, the pursuit of new energy sources as part of
a larger energy transition strategy demands of us a full reckoning with the socio-technological realities at
the heart of this process.
How might we actually do this? To begin with, governments need to invest much more money into energy
innovationas many have argued here and elsewhere. Without advancing the performance and reducing
the cost of low-carbon technologies significantly, were unlikely to see system transformation at a rate
consistent with limiting meaningfully atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. The best mechanism
for funding such innovation would be to implement a low but rising hypothecated carbon tax, which would
have the dual effect of raising revenue for low-carbon innovation and increasing slowly but progressively
the cost of carbon-intensive energy sources.
If governments are to succeed in this global technology race, they will have to take seriously the reality
that technologies are sociotechnical systems and that innovation goes beyond mere invention. They will
have to improve the context in which innovation takes place, maximizing the pace at which it occurs
through smart reforms to legal and regulatory policy, education and labor policy, and other policy areas.
In short, governments will have to reorient their economies, their societies, their political systems, and
their institutions towards new models that encourage rather than inhibit innovation; that approach
innovation as a complex but feasible sociotechnical process; and that marshal levels of resource
commitment commensurate to the scale of the challenges theyre addressing. Let the hard but necessary
work begin.

Source:
http://theenergycollective.com/markecaine/201826/new-energy-sources-unlock-energy-
innovation-technology