Energy fables: challenging ideas in the energy sector

This short delightful collection of essays aimed at challenging ideas in the energy sector is an essential addition to any scholar’s library, regardless of whether they teach or work in or adjacent to issues around energy. This is for two reasons – firstly, the sheer number of clear, concise and critical explanations of key concepts in energy studies, and secondly as an example of how a critical introductory primer ought to be done in any intellectual field where phrases have entered common usage and concepts become taken for granted.

In their short introduction, the editors explain that the volume has two purposes – to introduce and simultaneously problematise these familiar concepts, and to enrich the repertoire of concepts in circulation so that disciplines and approaches beyond the realm of energy research per se might be able to make useful contributions.

To this end, eleven chapters follow on energy demand, energy services, efficiency, rebound, elasticity, picking low hanging fruit, keeping the lights on, smart homes, the energy trilemma, flexibility and non-energy policy. These are grouped into four sections – ‘what is energy for?’ ‘characteristics,’ ‘injunctions’ and ‘policies.’

The ‘fables’ (and the temptation to Aesop is resisted throughout, sometimes perhaps too rigorously) are self-contained, but obviously readers will benefit from comparing, contrasting and entangling the concepts, which are rarely seen on their own in the wild.

The writing throughout is pithy, but simultaneously profound. Each chapter comes with its own references and also suggested further readings. All chapters are of high quality, but three in particular stand out for mention. Readers will never hear or respond to injunctions that societies should self-evidently pick ‘the low hanging fruit’ after reading Elizabeth Shove and Noel Cass’s chapter of the same title which surfaces questions such as ‘what are the fruits?’, ‘what kinds of tree do they grow on’ and ‘what does the picking involve’, while acknowledging the topic is hardly new.

They write (p. 63)

“ … the language of low hanging fruit emphasises two seemingly common features. One core assumption is that members of all these different ‘picking communities’ have the capacity to act: in other words, each is able to reach up, grab a fruit and reap the benefit. A second uniting factor is that the basis for selecting one fruit rather than another is essentially the same. In all cases, picking strategies are assumed to depend on bounded (individualised) forms of cost-benefit analysis in which the efforts of climbing and harvesting are weighted against the gains that follow. One further feature is that imagined pickers implicitly act alone, and of their own volition. In other words, there is no collusion in the orchard, no jumping up to bend the branches down for someone else, and no conscripted labour either.”

Jenny Rinkinin and Elizabeth Shove similarly bring occluded issues to the fore in a bravura chapter on the energy trilemma (the policy challenge of simultaneously providing affordable, reliable and ‘environmentally-friendly’ energy), proposing a three-dimensional rather than two-dimensional conceptualisation. Finally, Sarah Royston and Jan Selby provide useful framings in discussing non-energy policy, pointing out that ‘energy policy’ is often used to mean energy supply policy and that ‘demand-side’ policy often simply means energy efficiency policy. They ask (and provide suggestive answers) to the question ‘what other policies matter for energy demand?’ and make suggestions on mobilising non-energy policy to reduce demand.

A post-script skilfully brings the threads together and points to future work around how energy is represented and known, how energy demand is made and not simply met, how technologies and practices shape each other, and finally on whether energy researchers and policymakers can ‘change their spots’.

As the editors note themselves, there are many other topics which could have been covered, but there is surely scope for an edited and expanded second edition. This volume will be of great interest and use to energy scholars, political science scholars, students, think tankers, activists and citizens wanting to think more deeply about energy. Given the brevity of the individual chapters, those teaching undergraduates will find the volume of particular use. However, this is no superficial introductory work – students will be fruitfully discombobulated by this slender tome.