Energy Technology and Society
Risk and Novelty in Energy Scenarios
Investigators
Marco Semadeni, Daniel
Spreng
Partners
SCK-CEN (Belgian Nuclear Research Center), IPSN (Institut de
Protection et de Sûreté Nucléaire, France).
Time Frame
2002 - 2003
Funding
As part of the larger task "Fusion and the Public Opinion"
of SERF 3 (socio-economic research on fusion), the project is financed
by the 'European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA), EURATOM.
Abstract
The aim of this research is to characterize the development of energy
technologies in terms of novelty and risk and to search for interrelationships
of these two aspects of technological change based on existing energy
scenarios. We will start with bringing together opinions and perception
about risk and novelty in energy scenarios present in the research
community and society.
The characteristic difference of energy scenarios is usually the
quantity of energy supplied and consumed, and the kind of energy
sources preferentially used. It is often argued that new energy
technologies are necessary to fill a future gap between energy supply
and demand. In this study we perceive the development of energy
technologies as a choice of society dependent on many other choices
and therefore suitable to certain economic cultures and less suitable
to others. Fusion, for instance, may be suitable for a society that
has a Faustian drive, "Wer immer strebend sich bemüht,
...", but may be less acceptable in a press button society
that strongly values the present, or in a conservative society that
places much value in the past. The quantity of technical energy
turnover in society is less directly related to novelty and risk
than to other aspects of societal developments: Both high energy
and low energy scenarios can be risky and novel; and both high energy
and low energy scenarios can be high-tech and low-tech. The question
is how people and experts perceive the scenarios and how they accept
scenarios or respective technologies like fusion as a function of
risk and novelty.
Knowledge about the technical accessibility of energy including
fictions of novel energy technologies and their risks can deviate
greatly. Corresponding information asymmetries and the very specialized
elements of energy systems may facilitate push strategies in RD&D
in one region and inhibit constructive developments to satisfy pull
strategies in others or vice versa. Changing social and economic
conditions may shift focus within risk and novelty and influence
energy policy. Ultimately, the impact on technology developments
may be very ambiguous. Therein the relationship of the two terms
risk and novelty reveal equivalent, overlapping or controversial
aspects in order to help resolve uncertainty involved in communication
and decision.
Information about risk consists of a given class of uncertainty.
This can be associated with measurements and statistics, models,
the past and the future, different perspectives, and communication.
Therein the perception of people is most important for the acceptance
of a technology. But acceptance has also to do with information
linked to novelty. In modern society novelty often has a positive
connotation and draws on people's curiosity. Novelty is the "newness"
of an innovation or a perceived newness of an idea, practice, or
object by an individual or another unit, and the reaction to it
(adopted from Rogers, 1983). As for risk, the degree of novelty
present in energy scenarios will be dependent on the perception
of the person asked. And finally, the acceptance of a technology
may be irrational and not determined by technological or political
intelligence.
It will be studied how different groups relate to supply- and demand-side
technologies imbedded in various energy-scenarios, scenarios with
and without fusion as one of several high-tech energy-supply options.
The question to be answered is, are people willing to invest in
risk reduction or in novelty that allows for new opportunities?
The investigation includes a distinction of preferences of experts
and preferences of the public.
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