Renewable Energies

This concise book focuses on the importance of the global aspects of alternative energy consumption. Focusing on theories of energy use and possible energy transition, Renewable Energies delivers an accessible overview on the relationships between different types of energy production and their practical usages in modern societies. It evaluates different types of energy production, not independently from each other, but as culturally and socially dependent on one another. The book also reflects on challenges for social science analysis in a politically steered realm of research.

Renewable Energy normally refers to usable energy sources that are an alternative to fuel sources, but without the negatively evaluated consequences of the replaced fuels. Although energy issues have a long tradition in sociology and other social sciences, it may now be high time to conceptualize these in sociological terms as the lynchpin in our understanding of the way societies are set to develop in the 21st century.

This concise book focuses on sociological attempts at better framing contemporary theories of energy transformations and to deliver an accessible overview on the relationships between different types of renewable energy sources and their practical usages in modern societies. A strong focus is laid upon new forms of environmental governance and unavoidable knowledge gaps triggered by attempts to transform contemporary energy systems to renewable ones.

Critical topics include the challenge of transition from centralized to decentralized system structures, the integration of renewable energies into existing energy structures or the replacement of these, coping strategies to unforeseen risks and conflict issues, and socio-cultural reservations to new technologies connected to renewable energies.

1. Introduction: The next great experiment 2. Energy and Society: Energetic foundations of sociology 3. Contemporary Social Theories of Energy Transitions 4. Wind, Solar, and Biomass in Sociotechnical Transition 5. Renewable Energy from Below the Ground 6. Political Regulation and New Forms of Environmental Governance 7. Energies in Conflict: New restraints and old obstacles 8. Integrating Renewable Energies into Existing Electricity Systems 9. Conclusion: Nonknowledge and Exnovation as Progress