Student: Osamu Kumasaka
Graduation date: May 2016
Type: Concentration (single major)
Date approved: October 2015
Summary
Energy is a key commodity for human economic development around the world; it allows us to heat our houses, cook our food, light our buildings, and power our electrical devices. It is crucial to our productive capacity as a species, extending our abilities to communicate, store information, and manufacture goods. Increasingly, energy policy has been a driver of “new paths” of economic growth and sectoral development for countries (Carley and Lawrence 2014). Furthermore, between 2004 to 2010, global renewable energy development increased 540% (Carley and Lawrence 2014). Global demographic analysis shows that access to energy is required in order to “sustain and improve quality of life”, and that demand for energy will continue to increase as projected population growth globally is expected to increase (Pasten and Santamarina 2012). Most developed countries, including the United States, have “reached this level [of development] through the extensive use of fossil energy” (Dale and Ong 2012). Increasing energy demand by post-industrial populations for a higher standard of living will increase carbon emissions and exacerbate anthropogenic climate change (IPCC 2007). Conversion of electric systems globally to renewable energy sources is an important part of the IPCC’s strategy for reducing carbon emissions and their attendant environmental implications. While fossil fuels are deeply ingrained in modern economies, having accelerated human industrial processes for almost two centuries, many scientific and governmental authorities have confronted the reality that the costs that they exact on global climactic systems, air quality, public health, and international power dynamics are untenable and unethical in the long run.
The United States has not passed a national renewable energy policy, but many states have individually pursued renewable energy goals. The variety between these policies, their differing scales and the amount of renewable energy proliferation they have encouraged makes the United States an interesting case study. In effect, regions of the U.S. could be considered different experiments in energy transitions. Vasseur 2014 discusses how political context in states that are driven to renewable energy action can create vastly different content although the policy structures are very similar. In some states, the presence of certain political or environmental groups can affect whether a policy actually affects their energy economy or is just symbolic (Vasseur 2014).
Surely the American utility consumer can dictate how their energy is being generated? After all, a strong majority of Americans (87%) agree that renewable energy is “important to America’s future” (Pernick 2015). Alas, energy resource decisions are rarely guided by consumer preference alone– this concentration explores how decentralized utilities in the Western United States and the boards that govern them make decisions that are heavily influenced by political and legal considerations. These considerations are rooted in the fundamental tenants of energy generation. According to Vaclav Smil (2010), there are many “requisite technical and infrastructural imperatives” of energy transitions, as well as many unintended consequences for economies, societies, and the environmental systems they function within. It would seem as if the only barrier to converting to a new resource is that the technology and technical know-how exist to push the cost of this resource down to an substitution point (i.e. energy from this resource must be as cheap and accessible as the predominant source). However, energy infrastructure is very costly to build. Both the generators themselves and the transmission lines needed to get that power to people require huge amounts of investment. This tends to give electric utilities natural monopolies over their regions. Minimizing additional costs becomes a priority for two reasons– large private utilities must, legally, find the least-cost option for consumers and also provide a return for their investors. Electric utilities are governed by an intricate morass of overlapping authorities in the United States, which makes it difficult to begin to introduce valuation of renewable energy.
Meadowcroft (2009) describes how energy transitions are messy, dynamic and conflict-heavy processes because of entrenched political interests. The differing content of renewable energy policies implemented by states and regions in the U.S. (primarily renewable portfolio standards) provide an opportunity for comparison with policies passed in other countries and the politics that underlie them. The South African Renewables Initiative (SARi), established at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is a government-led initiative managed by the South African Departments of Trade & Industry and Energy. The purpose of this initiative is to “stimulate energy-based industrial activities through export competitiveness, renewable energy development, energy security, and job growth” (Carley and Lawrence 2014). This initiative centers around a plan to increase renewable capacity to reach 15% renewable energy between 2020 and 2025. South Africa provides one example of how renewable energy policy becomes actualized to a modest degree. On the other end of the spectrum, Denmark went from being almost entirely dependent on imported fuels in 1970 to leading the world in electricity generation from wind turbines (Brown and Sovacool 2013). Their democratic structure, taxes on fossil fuels and carbon dioxide, energy export policy, and protection of their domestic wind research and manufacturing provide one approach which “paid dividends” by successfully fostering a mature renewable energy sector that has dramatically reduced their emissions (relative to GDP) and bolstered their economy (Brown and Sovacool 2013).
Sources:
Brown, M., and Sovacool, Benjamin K. 2011. Climate Change and Global Energy Security : Technology and Policy Options. Cambridge: The MIT Press. 246-252.
Carley, Sanya., and Lawrence, Sara. 2014. “Energy-Based Economic Development: How Clean Energy Can Drive Development and Stimulate Economic Growth.” Green Energy and Technology. Dordrecht: Springer.
International Panel on Climate Change. 2007. Core Writing Team, P, R.K, Reisinger, A. (Eds.). 2007 Climate Change Synthesis Report: Contribution of Working Groups I, II, and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Geneva: IPCC. 104.
Lybæk, Rikke, Thomas Budde Christensen, and Tyge Kjær. 2013. “Governing Innovation for Sustainable Development in the Danish Biogas Sector- A Historical Overview and Analysis of Innovation.” Sustainable Development. 21(3): 171-182.
Meadowcroft, James. 2009. “What about the politics? Sustainable development, transition management, and long term energy transitions.” Policy Sciences. 42(4): 323-340.
Pasten, Cesar, and Juan Carlos Santamarina. 2012. “Energy and Quality of Life.” Energy Policy 49: 468–76.
Pernick, Ron. 2015. “U.S. Homeowners on Clean Energy: A National Survey”. Clean Edge, Inc. http://www.solarcity.com/sites/default/files/reports/reports-2015-homeowner-survey-clean-energy.pdf
Rossi, Jim. 2011. “The Shaky Political Economy Foundations of a National Renewable Electricity Requirement.” University of Illinois Law Review. 2.
Smil, Vaclav. Energy transitions: history, requirements, prospects. ABC-CLIO, 2010.
Vasseur, Michael. 2014. “Convergence and Divergence in Renewable Energy Policy Among US States from 1998 to 2011.” Social Forces. 92(4): 1637-1657.
Additional Sources:
Moe, Espen., and Paul Midford. 2014. The Political Economy of Renewable Energy and Energy Security : Common Challenges and National Responses in Japan, China and Northern Europe. Energy, Climate, and the Environment Series. Palgrave MacMillan.
Moe, Espen. Renewable Energy Transformation or Fossil Fuel Backlash: Vested Interests in the Political Economy. Energy, Climate, and the Environment Series. Palgrave MacMillan.
Questions
- Descriptive: What policies have evolved in regions of the United States and how does their content differ?
- Explanatory: How do different factors (geographic, technologic, capitalistic) affect the direct substitution point of a energy resource? What did international institutions sacrifice in order to pursue their political agendas around renewable energy?
- Evaluative: What Western states were able to meet their renewable portfolio standards with out compromising energy prices and stability? What other economic and social implications might these state policies have yielded? Which structural aspects of state politics most affected renewable energy proliferation?
- Instrumental: How can legislators and regulators in American states utilize the policy lessons of other countries as they set renewable energy proliferation goals?
Concentration courses
- ENVS 460 (Topics in Environmental Law and Policy), Fall 2014. This course will help me see how environmental legislation comes into being, and could help me better understand the priorities that legislators in energy insecure countries have foremost in their minds.
- IA 340 (International Political Economy), Fall 2015. This course will help build my narrative of international political economic relations from the 19th century to the present. Renewable energy development is highly globalized, particularly in the manufacturing sector. The conditions of trade instigate or hold up energy markets. Understanding these markets requires a nuanced understanding of international tariffs, subsidies, and production relations.
- ECON 255 (Technology, Institutions and Economic Growth), Spring 2014. Economic development and GDP growth since the industrialization revolution has become increasingly reliant on a nation's access to cheap and secure energy and natural resources. Availability of coal in particular is singled out in this course as one variable which greatly affected where and how industrialization occurred.
- HIST 398 (Empire and International Development in Africa), Spring 2015. This course reveals that the concept of linear "development", colonization and natural resource exploitation are not as clear-cut as is assumed. We will learn about the implications of large hydroelectric developments for local communities as well as international business interests.
Arts and humanities courses
- HIST 261 (Global Environmental History, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.
- HIST 239 (Constructing the American Landscape), Fall 2014. This course will help me situate myself in United States' history by exploring the built environment of the past 150 years, industrialization, and the electrification of the American factory and household.