Energy Futures: Five Dilemmas of the Practice of Anticipatory Governance

Abstract

Public participation has become standard practice in both environmental communication and science and technology studies, with such engagement increasingly moving “upstream” to the early stages of technological development. One framework for these activities is anticipatory governance, in which foresight and public and stakeholder engagement are used to reflect on—and direct—the impacts of new technology. In this essay we draw on our experience of anticipatory governance, in the shape of the “NanoFutures” project on energy futures, to present a reflexive analysis of engagement and deliberation. We draw out five tensions of the practice of deliberation on energy technologies. Through tracing the lineages of these dilemmas, we discuss some of the implications of these tensions for the practice of civic engagement and deliberation in a set of questions for this community of practitioner-scholars.

Keywords:

• Nanotechnology
• Energy
• Public Participation
• Deliberation
• Reflexivity
• Anticipatory Governance

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by National Science Foundation cooperative agreement #0531194 and #0937591. Any opinions, findings and conclusions are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Notes

1. There are, of course, overlaps with other literatures, of which that around risk communication is a key example given that many of the same discussions (one way communication versus dialogue, the role and interests of public groups) are currently occurring (see Besley & Tanner, 2011).

2. We use a number of terms to refer to these practices, largely because the literatures we are drawing on are similarly profligate (see Davies, 2009). Brulle (2010) uses the term “civic engagement” to refer to “participation in collective decision-making processes” (p. 84) in the context of environmental communication; “public participation” is used in much the same way (Webler & Tuler, 2002). “Deliberation” should be seen as the fount from which this movement ultimately springs, given that theories of deliberative democracy—including deliberation between stakeholders as well as that involving lay public actors—have provided the impetus for a turn to participation in a number of different fields (Chambers, 2003). Anticipatory governance, as we have discussed, encompasses a rather broader range of activities, all of which aim to enhance societal reflection on technological futures (Barben et al., 2008). It therefore includes both stakeholder and public deliberation, as well as activities such as lab interventions (Schuurbiers & Fisher, 2009) and foresight (Selin, 2007).

3. See www.cns.asu.edu for further information on CNS-ASU.

4. The projects we describe have all been located in the US. Our analysis therefore focuses on this context. While there will be some similarities with deliberation in, for instance, Europe or the global South, our sense is that different cultural and national contexts will produce different kinds of tensions and dilemmas.

5. The NanoFutures project aimed to understand the directions emerging energy technologies are taking and to consider the social implications of these directions in ways that can be used to feed into broader scientific and public debate. NanoFutures thus sought to populate the landscape of emerging energy technologies—to ask not just what particular technologies are being developed, but to examine how they might be received and alter lived experience.

Beginning with the articulation of a number of nanotechnological applications likely to impact the energy sector, we followed a vetting procedure (Selin & Hudson, 2010) to establish the plausibility of each emerging technology before honing in on “solar to fuel” technology as a focus for exploring key uncertainties and concerns. These research engagements took place in three phases:

Scene development. Short vignettes of possible nanotechnological futures (“scenes”) were developed based on a review of the literature on nanotechnologies and the energy sector. The final scenes were the products of an extensive vetting procedure, involving identifying relevant experts through bibliometric studies and running a survey (asking closed and open ended questions about the scene's technical plausibility, whether it captured the key issues at stake, and what its social implications might be) to assess plausibility.

Stakeholder interviews. We then focused in on one energy application currently in development at Arizona State University, solar to fuels technologies. This was the focus of an interdisciplinary workshop (see below); prior to this workshop, we carried out 15 semi-structured interviews with participants and others with related research interests.

Solar to fuels workshop. A half-day workshop was convened between key local actors—including scientists, policy experts, engineers, those with a technology transfer role, and social scientists—in emerging “solar to fuel” technologies (which aim to enable the production of fungible fuels from sunlight and accessible and sustainable raw materials). Solar to fuel systems are at the earliest stages of technological development, with many of the potential technical pathways involved not yet fully understood. The workshop brought together researchers of these pathways and of related technological platforms (such as PV) with those with research interests in energy and society, and sought to develop a deliberative conversation around the technology's implications and realization. The workshop was written up as a public report (Davies et al., 2010).

6. See http://vimeo.com/user1631907.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah R. Davies

Sarah R. Davies is a Research Fellow at the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University

Cynthia Selin

Cynthia Selin is Assistant Professor at Arizona State University, where she works with the School of Sustainability and the Center for Nanotechnology in Society