ACCEPTED OPEN PANELS–Energy

7. Applied Interdisciplinary Sustainable Transitions Research

Ruth Woods, Dept. of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, NTNU; Antti Silvast Silvast, Dept. of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, NTNU

Academic scholars examining sustainable transitions are increasingly working across disciplines and professions, in order to address complex and multidimensional issues facing contemporary societies and their infrastructures. The turn to interdisciplinary research is seemingly at home within multidisciplinary research institutes and research projects, where industry partnerships and innovation strategies are high upon the agenda. They are locations where STS intervenes and tries to be relevant in situations at hand. Focusing on sustainable transitions this panel examines the challenges of solution centered applications. Inspired by an interest in the production of scientific knowledge and its use in interdisciplinary research, we want to create a space for practitioners and scholars to reflect upon their own concepts and practices when working in interdisciplinary teams. The panel seeks presentations that scope, for example: what type of knowledge is required by the ‘end users’ of anthropological or sociological skills? What ethnographic locations are found within interdisciplinary collaborations? How do we get to know the end user needs and does problem solving challenge STS’s own premises? Or is it rising to the challenge of solving problems posed by other disciplines and engaging in their critical debates? Which actors do we want to speak and act with and which want to speak and act with us? We welcome presentations from different geographical and research contexts, highlighting the diversity of engagement between disciplines, and professional groups involved in sustainable transitions.

Contact: ruth.woods@ntnu.no

Keywords: Applied, Interdisciplinary, Sustainable Transitions Research

Categories: Engineering and Infrastructure

Energy

Knowledge, Theory and Method

23. China, Technology, Planetary Futures: Lessons for a World in Crisis?

David Tyfield, Lancaster University; Jamie Allen, Critical Media Lab; Andrew Chubb, Lancaster University

Two issues are set to become increasingly central in coming decades. First and foremost, amidst the Anthropocene, are issues of environmental crisis at planetary scale, and what this means for a global economy and associated model of science and innovation premised upon ever-accelerating exploitation of natural resources.  Secondly, and in comparison a highly neglected issue in mainstream (still largely Western) social science, is the rise of China.  But how these two issues will come together and shape the 21st century receives even less attention, even as their conjunction is likely to prove increasingly influential.  This is both an increasingly problematic oversight and a missed opportunity for insights that do not merely confirm relatively established, i.e. Euro-Atlanticist and short-termist, readings of the state of the ‘world’.  STS has much to contribute to the development of this missing analysis, not just because the construction of new environmental, infrastructural and technological (and, in particular, digital) innovations from and in China is already evident as a key dynamic. But also because of STS’s capacity to draw on empirical exploration that does not take theoretical categories as given but pursues development of new illuminating concepts adequate to a constantly changing socio-technical landscape of uncertain futures.  This panel thus invites contributions studying Chinese socio-technical projects (in China or overseas, e.g. via the Belt Road Initiative (BRI)) for insights into how these two ‘mega-trends’ may be coming together; and what may be learned from China, positively or negatively, to confront the current apparent impasse(s) regarding global crisis.

Contact: d.tyfield@lancaster.ac.uk

Keywords: China, Anthropocene, digital technology, infrastructure, futures

Categories: Engineering and Infrastructure

Information, Computing and Media Technology

Energy

31. Cosmogrammatics. Nature(s) in planetary designs

Johannes Bruder, FHNW Academy of Art and Design; Gökce Günel, Rice University; Selena Savic, FHNW Academy of Art and Design

Since the 1960s, the ‘environmental age’ has churned out ecologies in pursuit either of technologically controlling “nature” or of loosening the modernist grip on that which is supposed to be untamed. However, one is rarely to be had without the other: even the most romantic attempts at rewilding that which surrounds us tend to involve sociotechnical imaginaries and are typically bound to the will to and practices of design. At a time where the Earth and the living environment are conceived to be in an irreversible state of crisis, all attempts at grasping the essence of, rescuing, reclaiming, reinstating or repairing the world’s natural (dis)order have become infrastructural and involve unapologetically technical concepts such as biodiversity, equilibrium and sustainability. In fact, it seems increasingly impossible to think nature independent of its enclosing and regulating architectures and technologies.

This panel is conceived to assemble an image of nature and the natural based on contemporary planetary designs. Countering the “prevailing scholarly trend of materialist critique” (Hu 2017), we seek to emphasize the imaginary aspects of those designs instead of their physical manifestations and aim at investigating how nature and the natural have been defined through what we conceive as contemporary ‘cosmogrammatics’ – technical manuals, architectural plans and diagrams, logistical patents, policy documents, post-anthropocentric exhibitions, speculative (design) fictions etc. This panel invites contributions that are topically, theoretically, and methodologically related to the intersections of ecology, design (incl. architecture) and STS; we hope to include classic academic papers as well as alternative (e.g. practice-based) contributions.

Contact: johannes.bruder@hotmail.com

Keywords: Ecology, Energy, Design, Urban Planning, Geotechnicity

Categories: Engineering and Infrastructure

Environmental/Multispecies Studies

Energy

35. Decentring datacentres: their politics, energy, waste and epistemics

Stefan Laser, Ruhr University Bochum; Estrid Sørensen, Ruhr University Bochum; Laura Kocksch, Ruhr University Bochum

Data centres have gained attention in STS for their politics of territoriality and geographic location (Vonderau 2016 & 2019, Maguire & Winthereik 2019). We seek to extend the focus to the material configurations of data centres by discussing them as situated spaces of high resource consumption and excessive waste production, of contested politics and of knowledge production.

Half of the information and communication industries’ greenhouse gas emissions comes from data centres (Belkhir/Elmeligi); roughly 1,5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Millions of gallons of water are used to keep data cool (Hogan 2015). Energy Humanities (Szeman &Boyer 2017) and Discard Studies (Lepawsky 2018) urge us to reflect on how such excesses are formed and maintained, by which actors and through which practices.

Data centres are important actors in configuring common resources: electricity, water, heat and knowledge. Nonetheless, they are hidden away and hardly accessible (Hogan &Shepard 2015). How are the politics of data centres made visible, and how can data centres be turned into a matter of democratic debate and regulation? This question is relevant both on state and industry level, as it is in workplaces where practices are increasingly shaped by the configurations of data centres.

Even though knowledge production of both corporate ‘data scientists’ as well as university scientists and researchers increasingly depend on data centres for both storage and data processing, little literature exists on the epistemic effects of data centre configurations.

We invite papers submissions addressing the political, ecological and epistemic entanglements of data centres.

Contact: laura.kocksch@rub.de

Keywords: data centres, data practices, ecologies, waste, infrastructure

Categories: Energy

Big Data

Governance and Public Policy

62. Extractivism Revisited: STS Perspectives

Giorgos Velegrakis, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, NKUA; Aristotelis (Aristotle) Tympas, National and Kapodistrian U. of Athens

Extractivism has been key to the emergence of climate change and the rest of the symptoms of the unprecedented environmental crisis. Extracting coal, oil, gas, uranium, as well as all kind of metals and other materials, from gold to all sorts of substances used in the manufacturing of, for example, electronic devices, was never so developed and, at the same time, so problematic. This open panel invites attention to the STS study of the co-shaping of science/technology and extractivism. Focusing on the politics, economics and ideologies embedded in (and advanced through) the science/technology of extractivism, it aims at a conversation with studies that have so far focused on the explicit political, economic and ideological dimensions of the various versions of extractive activities. We propose a closer look at the socialites privileged by the very design of the technologies that extractivism is based on, which are concealed/black-boxed by the way the artifacts involved in extractive activities -engines, motors, other machines, devices, machine ensembles, platforms, mechanical and other technoscientific processes and apparatuses- are constructed and communicated. In this context, we are further interested in the way the advance of this design interacts with the emergence of a special kind of an expert, one that is preoccupied with extractivist initiatives. Contributions that experiment with STS approaches to the integration of electronic computing and related technologies (automation, control, telecommunication, etc) to extractivist technologies are especially welcomed. By inviting attention to the scientific-technological materialities of extractive enterprises, and to the construction of the expertise linked to them, we aim at a critical revisiting of what we know about the complex workings of extractive explorations and operations worldwide. The panel welcomes contributions that attempt to open the “black box” of the technology of extractivism from any of the fields that contribute to STS (history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, economics, policy, etc).

Contact: gvelegrakis@phs.uoa.gr

Keywords: climate change, environment, extractive activities, extractivism, technology design

Categories: Energy

Engineering and Infrastructure

Environmental/Multispecies Studies

67. Fossil Legacies – Re-Assembling Work, Gender and Technology in the Coal Phase Out

Jeremias Herberg, Leuphana University Lüneburg; Thomas Turnbull, Max Planck Institute For the History of Science

The certainty of climate change and the availability of alternative pathways have not brought about post-fossil societies. In the Czech Republic, Australia, Germany and many other regions, coal is still continuously extracted. In this context, the prospect of a just energy transition is being disrupted by ‘fossil legacies’: Be it the technological cultures of fossil fuels, the populist distortion of worker interests, male worker pride and culture, or the corporatist alliances of democratic parties – these and other legacies jeopardize the economic livelihood of some, and the survival of others.

STS contributions to energy research have focused on transformative dynamics, innovations, and engagements. In the present context, STS can also trace and reconfigure the relational ties that fossil legacies engender. The coal phase out in particular is a process that involves re-assembling inherited technologies, businesses, worker identities, and political alliances. Transformative openings and practices are re-distributed and the role of science and technology must be re-assessed.

– How do involved actors dis-/associate themselves with/from coal-related notions of work, gender, or technology?

– What connections emerge when fossil legacies are challenged by political movements or climate diplomats?

– How does right-wing mobilization intervene in the (dis-)association of fosil-fuel associated work, gender and capitalism?

The contributions in this session historically trace, sociologically map or philosophically question the re-assembling of gender, work, technology and capitalism in the process of the coal phase out. Contributors theorize the transformation of fossil assemblages and reflect on their role in transforming fossil legacies.

Contact: jeremias.herberg@iass-potsdam.de

Keywords: coal phase out, assemblages, gender, work, populism

Categories: Energy

Environmental/Multispecies Studies

STS and Social Justice/Social Movement

161. Socializing the automation of flexible residential energy use

Sophie Adams, University of New South Wales; Declan Liam Kuch, UNSW; Sophie Nyborg, Technical University of Denmark – DTU; Marianne Ryghaug, Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU); Roger Andre Søraa, NTNU

As renewable energy generation becomes more integrated and embedded in communities, users are increasingly called upon to participate in the active planning, ownership and management of smart energy systems. A key vector of this participation is the automation of home batteries and of significant loads such as air conditioners, heat pumps, water boilers and electric vehicles, which is seen as essential to relieve pressure on the grid during high-demand events such as evening peaks and particularly hot or cold weather. Automation and digitalisation are also facilitating the emergence of new ‘energy communities’ and peer-to-peer trading of energy generated by prosumers at distributed sites. In this session we ask: How are residential energy users and prosumers imagined by incumbent energy providers, policy makers and regulators as agents of automation? What new valuations of the forms of energy use that inhibit or support load flexibility are being created through markets, regulations, technology and policy? How is automation invoking new collectives, as well as reconfiguring and diminishing current ones? What does automation mean for the increasing focus on empowering citizens and ‘energy communities’ in Europe and other parts of the world? In posing these questions we seek to move energy planning discourses beyond the terrain of atomistic economic actors operating within markets by insisting on the socio-technical character of energy systems and mapping indiscernible actors in these automated systems.

Contact: s.m.adams@unsw.edu.au

Keywords: Energy, automation, public engagement, transitions

Categories: Energy

Information, Computing and Media Technology

Economics, Markets, Value/Valuation

168. STS Underground: Locating Matter and Agency in emerging subterranean Worlds

Alena Bleicher, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, GmbH; Abby Kinchy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Roopali Phadke, Macalester College; Jessica Mary Smith, Colorado School of Mines

This panel aims to bring together international scholars whose work addresses technologies, practices, and forms of knowledge related to the Earth’s subsurface. We seek submissions on three main themes: 1) the renewable energy-mineral nexus, 2) geoethics, and 3) emerging uses of underground space.

The renewable energy-mineral nexus. Technologies for renewable energy—such as wind and solar electricity, storage systems, and electric vehicles—require a diversity of minerals, raising questions for STS scholars about ongoing and potentially intensified dependence on extractive industries.

Geoethics. Concepts such as geoethics or responsible mining have been suggested to improve relations between mining businesses and (local) societies. Papers are invited that critically discuss these concepts, their use, impacts and effects in sectors related to underground uses.

Emerging uses of underground space. The underground has a growing number of uses – capture of drinking water, urban infrastructures, waste storage, mining, geothermal energy use, energy storage, climate technologies such as carbon capture and storage, and more. These call for integrated and comprehensive planning and monitoring. Papers that address one or several of these uses and shed light on related conflicts, policies, processes of knowledge production (e.g. in underground laboratories), and that reflect on the role of STS researchers are invited to this session.

The topics of the panel link in manifold ways to the conference theme, notably to questions of continuities and discontinuities and material legacies that built into sociotechnical infrastructures and those of processes of localizing geopolitical, economic and epistemic globalization.

Contact: alena.bleicher@ufz.de

Keywords: renewable energy-mineral nexus, geoethics, undergrund space, infrastructures

Categories: Engineering and Infrastructure

Energy

Science Communication/Public Engagement

169. STS, Technoscience and How Discontinuation Matters

Peter Stegmaier, University of Twente; Pierre-Benoit Joly, Lisis; phil johnstone, SPRU, University of Sussex

Abandonment of technologies and socio-technical systems occur not infrequently. The social construction of technology, everyday use, innovation management, technical maintenance and governance of technologies and socio-technical systems have preferentially been associated with advancement and innovation. Discontinuation is, at most, discussed as regime change, innovation setback or failure—as if advancement and innovation was the only direction in which socio-technical development and its governance would go. In STS there important studies addressing the issue of ending directly, like Aramis in France (Latour 1992), or studies that can, in retrospect, be seen as descriptions of technologies that were, after all, abandoned, like the “male pill” (Oudshoorn 2003). Script analysis may offer another lead, e.g., when Akrich and Latour (1992) are referring to ‘de-inscription’, Geels and Schot (2007) to ‘de-alignment’, Kuhn (1962) to ‘paradigm shift’, or Utterback (2003) to ‘product and manufacturing discontinuities’. The empirical cases are legion, though. However, it is crucial to see how socio-technical systems, technological regimes, or technologies are (or have been) disappearing or are being brought to an end.

For the purpose of focusing more specifically on discontinuities, we invite the following angles:

1. To re-read relevant STS publications and reconstruct their insights on technology abandonment, as abrupt or incremental processes, by purposeful action or inaction (neglect), as well as rather system- or actor-network-level destabilisation.
2. It would be welcome if the more theoretical considerations were also informed by recent or historical empirical case examples.
3. Equally welcome are empirical studies showing the broad spectrum of STS scholarship that can tackle discontinuation in specific case studies.
4. The intertwining of discontinuation and operating discontinuation from a governance, public policy, corporate management, NGO, and citizenship point of view would complete the picture.

This empirical research based on the discourse analysis of policy documents, aiming at building a grounded theory of discontinuation.

Contact: p.stegmaier@utwente.nl

Keywords: Discontinuation, divestment, socio-technical systems, governance

Categories: Governance and Public Policy

Energy

Food and Agriculture