Expanding Analyses of Path Creation: Interconnections between Territory and Technology

Abstract

Theoretically and conceptually, evolutionary economic geography has paid little attention to technological characteristics when explaining the emergence of new industries. Building on the literature on technological innovation systems, the article develops a framework for investigating interconnections between territorial dynamics and technological characteristics in path creation processes. The theoretical argument is operationalized in an analytical framework that is applied in empirical investigation of two green technologies and their linkages to the region of southwestern Norway, namely, carbon capture and storage and maritime battery technology. As illustrated by the empirical investigation, territorial dynamics or technological characteristics alone do not explain path creation. Rather, interconnections between the two and how interconnections play out in time and space are considered focal.

Key words:

• path creation
• EEG
• TIS
• carbon capture and storage
• maritime battery technology

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful for the assistance of editor James T. Murphy and three anonymous reviewers in developing the final version of this article. We would also like to thank the Regional Research Fund of Western Norway, who has funded this work through the research project “Drivers of regional economic restructuring: Actors, institutions and policy” [272054].

Notes

¹ Green industry is here understood as industry where “growth in income and employment should be driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services” (UNEP 2011, 2).

² This can refer to both land power, which ships without batteries also can take advantage of, and battery charging technology, which supplies ships’ batteries with electrical power when they dock.

³ See https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/energy/carbon-capture-and-storage/ccs-in-norway/id2601471/for information about the project.