Energy Technology and Society: Risk and Novelty in Energy Scenarios (2002 - 2003)

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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