Fact and Fiction in Global Energy Policy: Fifteen Contentious Questions

by Benjamin K. Sovacool, Marilyn A. Brown, Scott V. Valentine

Energy sustainability and climate change are two of the greatest challenges facing humankind. Unraveling these complex and interconnected issues demands careful and objective assessment. Fact and Fiction in Global Energy Policy aims to change the prevailing discourse by examining fifteen core energy questions from a variety of perspectives, demonstrating how, for each of them, no clear-cut answer exists.Is industry the chief energy villain? Can we sustainably feed and fuel the planet at the same time? Is nuclear energy worth the risk? Should geoengineering be outlawed? Touching on pollution, climate mitigation and adaptation, energy efficiency, government intervention, and energy security, the authors explore interrelated concepts of law, philosophy, ethics, technology, economics, psychology, sociology, and public policy.This book offers a much-needed critical appraisal of the central energy technology and policy dilemmas of our time and the impact of these on multiple stakeholders.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science

573 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 22, 2016

About the author

Dr. Benjamin K. Sovacool is Professor of Energy Policy at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex Business School in the United Kingdom. He works as a researcher and consultant on issues pertaining to global energy policy and politics, energy security, energy justice, climate change mitigation, and climate change adaptation. More specifically, his research focuses on renewable energy and energy efficiency, the politics of large-scale energy infrastructure, designing public policy to improve energy security and access to electricity, the ethics of energy, and building adaptive capacity to the consequences of climate change.

His research has been endorsed by U.S. President Bill Clinton, the Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland, and the late Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom, among others. He is a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), due to be published in 2022, and an Advisor on Energy to the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Innovation in Brussels, Belgium.

He has played a leadership role in winning collaborative research grants worth more than $28.2 million in directly managed funds, including those from the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. National Science Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program of Denmark, the Danish Council for Independent Research, the European Commission and the European Research Council. In the United Kingdom, he has served as a Principal Investigator on projects funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Natural Environment Research Council, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

He is the recipient of multiple national and international awards and honors, including the “Distinguished Graduate Alumni Achievement Award” from his Alma Mater Virginia Tech, the 2019 USERN Prize for his work on “Social Justice in an Era of Climate Change and Energy Scarcity,” the “Dedication to Justice Award” given by the American Bar Association, and a “Distinguished Visiting Energy Professorship” at the Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law School. He is also an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences in the United Kingdom.

With much coverage of his work in the international news media, he is one of the most highly cited global researchers on issues bearing on controversies in energy and climate policy.

Reviews

[Ben L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fact and Fiction in Global Energy Policy provides a comprehensive overview of a number of the major open questions in energy policy analysis and energy systems research today. It does a nice job framing each of the issues it discusses as a debate between two opposing perspectives that both contain elements of truth and sound reasoning, such that the best path forward involves reconciling the two. The book is very objective overall and it does a clear job distinguishing presentations of data and facts from the authors' opinions on energy topics. I thought the book started off very brightly, dragged a bit during the rather general, high-level chapters about climate change and energy security, then finished with a fascinating chapter titled "Can Energy Transitions Be Expedited?" This is a very important question which author Benjamin Sovacool has grappled with in his own research, and the quality of that analysis comes through in that chapter. Overall, this book is an excellent choice for college or graduate courses that intend to provide a broad survey of current issues and trends in the energy sector and energy policy.