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Paper short abstract

From the 1890s, we chart the history and relationships between society’s attempts to couple and decouple electrons and molecules in transforming our energy system over time, taking a Valuation Studies perspective on how these materials were construed as “good” and what were they good “for”.

Paper long abstract

The expanding energy transition and ambitions for sector-coupling to de-carbonise beyond the power sector puts new demands on the transformation of green electrons into new molecular substances such as hydrogen that can be further converted into e-fuels. This is e.g. evidenced in plans for large-scale energy islands, HVDC offshore meshed grids, and production of hydrogen through Power-to-X electrolysis technologies. Based on a lens of Valuation Studies in STS and founded in document analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, we chart the history and relationships between science and technology’s use of various electrons and diverse molecules, how they over time have been connected, disconnected, and current visionary attempts to connect them again. We pay attention to the struggles to tame the instability of electrons and release the energy in stable molecules, by inquiring into what forms of expertise(s) have been central to these relationships and how have these relationships have been construed as “good” (e.g. ‘green’, ‘sustainable’) and what they were good “for”. We take outset in the work of the Danish inventor and educationalist, Poul la Cour, who in 1890 implemented a system that combined the unstable electrons from wind energy generation at direct current (DC) with the production of stable hydrogen molecules though the electrolysis of water, tracing how the configuration of infrastructures either favoured or disadvantaged such coupling of green electrons and molecules over time. We conclude by discussing what methods and concepts from ethnographic and historical inquiries can help to follow the transformation of materials and substances over time.