RAISE: CET: Changing our value system for clean-energy technologies

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

This Research Advanced by Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (RAISE) award is made in response to Dear Colleague Letter 23-109, as part of the NSF-wide Clean Energy Technology initiative. Clean energy technologies provide opportunities to intentionally consider social justice impacts in ways that have not been addressed with legacy energy systems. While clean energy technologies target reducing greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change and should theoretically benefit marginalized and underserved communities, research indicates that clean energy technologies can follow the same path of social injustice unless intentional change is made in the way technologies are developed and deployed. We hypothesize that the application of social justice theory to energy systems–energy justice–can inform the development of clean energy technologies, increasing the distribution of benefits and limiting the negative impacts of clean energy technologies. The proposed research moves beyond applying energy justice as an evaluative lens on energy systems and instead uses the concept as a design lens to shape engineering research and development questions. The approach uniquely uses social science theory to inform the creation of engineering knowledge for just and sustainable futures, and the use of multiple-capitals accounting makes visible and values energy justice in the context of specific business models. This approach can generate qualitative and quantitative insights such as how energy justice increases the productive capacity and dynamic efficiency of clean energy businesses and the socioecological systems in which they are embedded. This work will enable energy justice to be applied more expansively, reliably, and systematically by integrating energy justice effects into the design of clean energy technologies, business models, and policies and processes that guide renewable energy research and development. The approach of the proposed research is to (1) uniquely develop and apply the framework of energy justice to shape the research, development and design of a clean energy system, specifically focusing on a case study of hydrothermal liquefaction of waste streams; and (2) articulate the social, economic, and environmental value generated by application of the energy justice design framework. The project is highly interdisciplinary and synergistically leverages theoretical frameworks and approaches of energy justice, chemical processing, and community capitals. The use of a targeted chemical process—hydrothermal liquefaction to create usable chemicals and feedstocks from waste streams—allows specific demonstration of the approach and the associated results. Both the process and the outcomes are important deliverables from this project. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.