Transitions in Energy History. History in Energy Transitions

Articles

Lost in transition. The world’s energy past, present and future at the 1981 United Nations Conference on New and Renewable Sources of Energy

Ca' Foscari University of Venice

duccio.basosi@unive.it


After four years of preparations, in the summer of 1981 Nairobi hosted the United Nations Conference on New and Renewable Sources of Energy. A diplomatic exercise bringing together more than one-hundred governments from North and South and East and West, the conference did not produce either…

Toward histories of saving energy: Erich Walter Zimmermann and the struggle against “one-sided materialistic determinism”

Research Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin


While energy use has appeared historically consequent for most of human history, it now seems energy non-use may determine our future. It is clear that the worst effects of climate change can only be averted if vast quantities of fossil fuels go unburnt. Accordingly, this paper argues…

Reconfiguring technologies by funding transitions: Priorities, policies, and the renewable energy sources in the European Community funding schemes

Department of History and Philosophy Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
nakopoul[at]phs.uoa.gr

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Department of History and Philosophy Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
arapost[at]phs.uoa.gr


The article examines the changes in the European Community (EC) research funding priorities and how they determined the character of the photovoltaic and wind technologies developed between 1975 and 2013. We address two research questions: What role has the EC’s energy policy played in directing…

The energy transition in the Swedish iron and steel sector, 1800 – 1939

Department of Economic History, Lund University, Sweden
cristian.ducoing@ekh.lu.se 

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Unit of Economic History, Umeå University, Sweden
fredrik.olsson-spjut@umu.se


Cet article analyse la transition énergétique du secteur sidérurgique suédois, entre 1800 et 1939. Leader dans le contexte européen au 19e et 20e siècles, l’industrie sidérurgique suédoise est un cas intéressant à analyser au prisme de la transition énergétique et de la composition et de l’…

The impossible transition? The fatality of coal in the United Kingdom

Université Bordeaux Montaigne, CEMMC, EA 2958, F-33607 Pessac, France
charles-francois.mathis[at]u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr


This article seeks to understand the reasons for Victorian fatalism towards coal dependency – which led to in an inability to abandon this energy – in an effort to better understand what an energy transition would actually entail. The article depicts a providential form of thought in relation to…

Black gas, blue gas, green gas: In search of gas-related transitions

Sorbonne Université, Faculté des Lettres, UMR Sirice 
jpwilliot@wanadoo.fr


Exploring the notion of an energy transition by way of specific energy calls for reconsidering the history of each energy individually, with gas being no exception over the long term. Three sequences have been observed since the early 19th C., which can be represented by three colors…