Energy Transitions

Overall Project Coordinator: Prof. Cutler J. Cleveland (Geography & Environment and The Pardee Center) and Dr. Miquel Munoz (The Pardee Center)

Human history can be told in terms of the history of energy. The discovery of fire, the domestication of animals, the discovery of fossil fuels, the electrification of cities, the oil wars in the Middle East, and advances in nuclear physics are all pivotal points in human history.

An energy transition is a change in a society’s dominant energy system. Such transitions involve new primary energy sources (coal, oil, nuclear, wind) and new energy converters or “prime movers.”  These two facets of an energy transition generally go hand-in-hand. For example, the replacement of wood with coal in the late 19th century coincided with the replacement of animal power with the steam engine. Major energy transitions are accompanied by transformative cultural, economic, demographic, technological, and environmental changes.

Three interconnected forces drive civilization towards another major transition:  the impending peak in world oil production, climate change, and the struggle of developing nations to meet the energy needs of population and economic growth in a sustainable and equitable manner.

Boston University and Boston University researchers perform a wide range of research in an effort to develop more effective understanding energy transitions.  This research spans multiple disciplines, national and global scales, renewable and nonrenewable resources, and quantitative and qualitative research methods.  The major projects on energy transitions are described below.

Sawyer Seminar Series on Energy Transitions

Project Coordinators: Profs. Cutler J. Cleveland (Geography & Environment and The Pardee Center) and Adil Najam (Pardee Center)

Graduate Research Assistant: Peter O’Connor (Geography & Environment)

The Pardee Center was awarded a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a John E. Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Cultures.  This project will bring an international group of scholars to Boston University in 2010-2011 in year-long series of seminars that will address the following questions:

1. What were the cultural, social and historical forces that generated earlier energy transitions?  How did these driving forces differ between Europe and the United States, and between Europe/U.S. and developing nations such as China and India?  Why did some societies respond to and adapt to new energy systems faster and to a greater extent than others?
2. How are social and cultural conditions today the same or different than those that existed during earlier energy transitions? How will those differences affect the composition and trajectory of the next energy transition?
3. What effect has globalization had on the social and cultural determinants of energy use in developed as compared to developing nations?
4. What attitudes, behaviors, policies, and institutions are needed to manage, or perhaps even engineer, the impending energy transition? What are the cultural barriers to these changes, and how do they differ between developed and developing nations?

The Sawyer Seminar Series is also supported by the Boston University School of Management, the Department of Geography and Environment, the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, the College of Engineering, and the Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology.

Related Publications:

• Cutler J. Cleveland, Energy transitions past and future, Encyclopedia of Earth.
• Adil Najam and Cutler J. Cleveland. 2003. Energy and Sustainable Development at Global Environmental Summits: An Evolving Agenda. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 5:  117-138.
• Charles Hall, Pradeep Tharakan, John Hallock, Cutler Cleveland and Michael Jefferson. 2003.Hydrocarbons and the Evolution of Human Culture. Nature, 426: 318-322.

The Future of Energy

Project Coordinators: Prof. Cutler Cleveland (Geography & Environment) and  Prof. Adil Najam (The Pardee Center)

The Pardee Center assembled an international team of energy experts and asked them to answer the following question: What might the energy-society relationship look like in 2100?

Twenty-five distinguished experts are essays in response to that question by addressing specific issues such as

1. What cultural, social, political, economic, technological, moral and geopolitical forces will drive the energy transition that will have unfolded, or still be unfolding, by 2100?
2. What is the overall level well being – however one defines it – in 2100, and what role has energy played in supporting it? What do international differences in well being and the energy-society relationship look like in 2100?
3. How will the forces of globalization have shaped the energy/society relation that exists in 2100?
4. How will the culturally grounded practices that shape energy use – family relations, gender, relations of production, the built environment, morals, etc. – be different in 2100?
5. How will the stark differences in energy supply/use between developed and developing nations that currently exist have changed by 2100?
6. What was the role the market versus government policy in driving the energy transition?
7. What role will the environmental impacts associated with various energy systems play in producing the patterns of energy use that exist?

The essays will form a book that will be published in 2010.

The Global Oil Transition

Project Coordinators: Prof. Robert K. Kaufmann (Geography & Environment) and Cutler J. Cleveland (Geography & Environment)

The discovery and commercialization of oil in the 19th century ultimately transformed civilization.  From cheap transportation to petrochemicals, products from oil increased the mobility of people and goods, improved health, education, and generated the staggering wealth of the worlds most powerful corporations. The production, processing and use of oil has contributed to  environmental change at local and global levels, and is the center of geopolitical conflict.

The project on the global oil transition seeks to understand the drivers, timing, and impacts of the depletion of global oil resources.  Specific research questions include:

• What are the geological, technological, economic and institutional determinants of global oil production and prices?
• When will world oil production, and what policies are needed to deal with uncertainty surrounding the timing of the peak?
• Is U.S. energy/oil policy consistent with the realities of the industry?
• How has depletion affected the net energy return from U.S oil and gas production?

Related Publications:

• Robert K. Kaufmann and L.D. Shiers, 2008, The effect of resource uncertainty on the peak in global oil production and the production of alternatives, Ecological Economics.67:405-411.
• Robert K. Kaufmann, A. Bradford, L.H. Belanger, J. Mclaughlin, Y. Miki, 2008, Determinants of OPEC production:  implications for OPEC behavior. Energy Economics, 30:333-351.
• Cutler J. Cleveland and R.K. Kaufmann, 2003. Oil supply and oil politics: Deja vu all over again.Energy Policy 31:485-489.
• Cutler J. Cleveland, 2005. Net energy from oil and gas extraction in the United States, 1954-1997.Energy, 30: 769-782.