Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality,
and to see the links to virtual rooms.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Robert Lifset
(University of Oklahoma)
Mogens Rudiger (Aalborg University)
Frank Zelko (University of Hawaii at Manoa)
Send message to Convenors
- Chair:
-
Robert Lifset
(University of Oklahoma)
- Discussant:
-
Mogens Rudiger
(Aalborg University)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Energy and Infrastructure
- Location:
- Room 10
- Sessions:
- Monday 19 August, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
This panel will explore the relationship between energy and the environment in the 1970s. It is open to a wide range of disciplinary perspectives in seeking to examine both the environmental impacts of energy policies as well as the influence of environmental concerns in energy politics.
Long Abstract:
The energy crisis of the 1970s touched every country on the planet. But the 1970s simultaneously witnessed the emergence of an environmental consciousness and politics in many countries. This panel seeks to explore the connections between these two historical developments.
The energy crisis of the 1970s transformed the energy policies of many countries. Since how we produce and consume energy is among the most environmentally intensive activities we engage in, the energy crisis produced enormous environmental change.
This panel will explore the environmental history of the energy crisis of the 1970s. This might take the form of investigating environmental activism, politics, or policy. It might think about the environmental impacts of different energy policies. It might in turn examine how energy policy and politics were affected (or not) by environmental concerns. It could also extend to examining how energy or environmental culture was formed and transformed in this time. The panel is open to a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and welcomes submissions from scholars working in history, political science, anthropology, geography, biology and the energy and environmental humanities.
In the 1970s the relationship between energy and the environment was transformed in many nations. This panel seeks to examine this transformation for the insight in might provide into understanding both the past and the present.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 19 August, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
In the mid-1970s, the problem of nuclear decommissioning laid open the environmental and economic aspects of managing the back end of the nuclear power cycle. This talk examines public and expert debates on early nuclear facility decommissioning experiences and their socioecological implications.
Paper long abstract:
What happens when a nuclear power plant becomes obsolete and needs to be shut down? The problem of nuclear decommissioning—the complex and lengthy process of safely dismantling nuclear facilities and disposing of the radioactive waste—emerged dramatically at the beginning of the 1970s, when both in the US and over Europe many weapon program facilities, early research reactors, uranium mills, fuel reprocessing plants, and first-generation commercial power reactors came to or were approaching the end of their useful life. After the Oil Crisis of 1973, the US and several European countries embarked on a comprehensive reassessment of their energy policies. In this context the back end of nuclear power generating stations came to close attention of legislators, public utilities, regulators, and concerned citizens. How much would it cost to dismantle a nuclear power plant? Was it technically feasible? And who would pay for it? What about the environmental, and safety implications of dismantling operations? In the face of an unprecedented problem riddled with many uncertainties, demonstrating that nuclear decommissioning was safe, technically doable, and financially sustainable became crucial for the future of the industry (and it is still today). In this article I document how US, European, and international expert agencies (including the IAEA and the NEA-OECD), public authorities, and concerned citizens approached the problem of nuclear decommissioning and produced environmental assessments, technical guidelines, and cost estimates based on an exiguous number of small-scale decommissioning experiences.
Paper short abstract:
When the previous energy transition took place in Finland, the Finnish Parliament served as a forum for public debates on energy. The aim of this presentation is to shed light on the environmental concerns and tensions in the parliamentary debates on energy during the First Oil Crisis.
Paper long abstract:
The energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables is widely considered essential to achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and the European Green Deal. The European Union and many of its member states have committed to phasing out fossil fuels in the near future. As an industrialized welfare state in Northern Europe, Finland has set as its goal to implement the transition by 2035.
The energy transition is not only a technical but also a thoroughly political, social, and cultural issue. Thus, researchers in Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) are well equipped to offer novel understandings of the features of energy transitions to the current debate. For example, historical research can provide a long-term perspective and understanding of the influence and significance of context to the discussions on potential energy futures. The need for a temporal lens can also be justified by the fact that energy transitions are understood as phenomena that often take place over several decades or centuries.
Like today, political power, agency, and changes in the historical and geopolitical context have played a pivotal role during past energy transitions. When the previous energy transition took place in Finland, the Finnish Parliament served as a forum for public debates on energy, related technologies, and infrastructure. The aim of this presentation is to shed light on the environmental concerns and tensions in the parliamentary debates on energy during the First Oil Crisis.
Paper short abstract:
In my paper, I examine the importance and socio-technical consequences of energy imported from Russia to Finland from the oil crises of the 1970s, leading to increased imports of fossil fuels and electricity from the east, to the energy crisis of 2022, culminating in decoupling from Russian energy.
Paper long abstract:
In my paper, I examine the importance and socio-technical consequences of energy imported from Russia to Finland from the oil crises of the 1970s, leading to increased imports of fossil fuels and electricity from the east, to the energy crisis of 2022, culminating in decoupling from Russian energy. The response of energy policy makers to the oil crises was to diversify the energy system, which was sought by increasing the use of domestic fuels (peat, forest energy), supporting nuclear power construction, and increasing the imports of relatively inexpensive Soviet oil, natural gas, and electricity. The reliance on the energy imports from the east continued after the collapse of the Soviet Union and was tied to long-term contracts. In 2021, a year before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the share of energy imported from Russia (oil, coal, natural gas, fuelwood, electricity) accounted for 34 per cent of total energy consumption in Finland. The questions arising from this trajectory are as follows: What kind of socio-technical system did increasing reliance on Soviet and Russian energy imports create? What factors were emphasized in relying on energy imports from the Soviet Union and Russia over a long period of time? Did the paradigm and line of reasoning behind policies based on energy imports from the east change as the world around us changed? Methodologically, my research is based on historical analysis, and the sources I employ include historical statistics, committee reports, minutes of committee meetings, and media material (newspapers, television).
Paper short abstract:
The impact of the energy crisis of the 1970s in Ireland has been under examined in energy history discourses. Despite an increased global awareness of the environmental value of wetlands, the crisis prompted a renewed enthusiasm for the large-scale extraction of peat.
Paper long abstract:
Ireland’s peatlands throughout the twentieth century were sites of extraction and energy production. Promoted by political elites as a resource of national importance, peat mined from these landscapes was heavily subsidised with industrial practices justified by the perceived social and economic benefits to communities at the sites of extraction. Increased competition from other fuel sources for the generation of electricity significantly impacted the momentum of peat extraction over time as the energy economy became more complex. Another challenge to the peat industry was the 1971 Ramsar Convention which marked the first international consensus on the value of wetlands for water quality and ecosystems protection. Environmental consciousness was simultaneously emerging in Ireland in the movement to oppose the development of nuclear power.
Given this context, this paper will argue that despite these challenges, the energy crisis of the 1970s facilitated the increased extraction of peat in Ireland. Actors within the industry’s administration utilised the rhetoric of energy security to embed Ireland’s future in peat mining for several more decades. Through a detailed analysis of newspapers, government and scientific reports, and oral histories, this paper will further argue that the energy crisis did not catalyse a shift away from petroleum but rather an overall increase in the use of fossil energy across the island of Ireland. This complicated picture of an increased environmental consciousness emerging alongside a ramping up of the consumption of fossil energy situates Ireland within a globalised energy system based on production, consumption, and resistance.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the impact of the energy crisis on transport policy in one British city, Newcastle upon Tyne, in the 1970s. It demonstrates how funding cuts and normative attitudes to driving impeded a potentially radical response, despite lobbying from environmental groups and parents.
Paper long abstract:
The energy crisis of the 1970s is frequently discussed as a pivotal moment in Britain when an alternative future which did not centre the motor car seemed possible. Fuel shortages, the rising cost of road infrastructure and the rise of the environmental movement all contributed to this shift in public discourse. Drawing on municipal archives and local newspapers, this paper examines the impact of such changes on one city, Newcastle upon Tyne, where plans to extend an urban motorway were abandoned and new plans for a regional light rail system developed in their place. However, it complicates this well-versed narrative, which suggests a dramatic change in policy, by examining the city’s wider response to the crisis. As in other British cities, ‘environmental areas’ and play streets were implemented in the 1970s to reduce traffic on local streets, a policy strongly supported by local parents who were concerned about children’s safety. Following lobbying by a new environmental group in the city, Friends of the Earth, Newcastle City Council also made plans for a cycle network. The paper demonstrates how the potential for a more radical response to the crisis, developed from these policies, was foreclosed by government funding cuts following the energy and related economic crisis, and the continued prioritisation of motoring by national and local government. It concludes by reflecting on how environmental groups and those who campaign for safer ‘environments’ in the twenty-first century face similar obstacles in the form of restrictive traffic legislation, constrained local authority budgets and normative attitudes to driving.
Paper short abstract:
Energy dependence has been an omnipresent issue since Russia invaded Ukraine. The standard explanation usually focuses on geopolitical factors. The paper discusses how emission control in the 1970s contributed to natural gas dependence and created almost intractable challenges to decarbonization.
Paper long abstract:
Energy dependence has been an omnipresent issue in Central Europe since Russia invaded Ukraine. The standard explanation for Central Europe usually focuses on geopolitical factors: energy carriers enabled change through trade during the Cold War. After the collapse of the USSR, this dependence was further strengthened against all warnings. This approach, however, ignores the role of fossil fuel corporations and utilities in creating demand.
The paper discusses how the energy crisis of the 1970s and environmental awareness of the 1980s allowed for natural gas (NG) to become a cheap and critical weapon against (a) oil dependence and (b) sulfur emissions, acid rain, and forest dieback. Using examples from Austria, which signed Europe's first NG contract with the USSR in 1968, I will discuss how the 1970s opened a window of opportunity for oil companies to position themselves as actors in environmental protection by selling NG. I will also show how local governments, industries, and utilities used the narrative of supposedly green NG to open up new markets. Even cities like Vienna switched their entire town gas production to imported NG in just a few years to eliminate air pollution. The mere switch to a less dirty fuel without questioning the underlying growth dynamics forced the federal government to conclude new import contracts with the USSR/Russia continuously. Or, to put it another way, the short-sighted clean air policies of the 1970s contributed to a massive path dependence on NG-based energy systems that is now an almost intractable problem.
Paper short abstract:
In France as elsewhere the 1970s energy crisis generated an intensive search for ‘alternatives’ to oil. Among other effects, this search enabled incineration to become the dominant waste treatment method. This led to the exclusion of material recycling of waste and deleterious environmental impacts.
Paper long abstract:
In France, during years following the WW2, the incineration of household waste was limited by the need and the will to maintain agricultural recycling of organic residues. In some areas, such as the Paris region, recycling was even enjoying a revival through the industrialisation of traditional uses (composting). Up until the end of the 1960s, this material recycling, which was undoubtedly ecological regarding biogeochemical flows and planetary boundaries, was encouraged by local authorities because of these environmental benefits. In the 1970s, the energy crisis suddenly reversed this situation. Waste incineration in large plants, until then regarded as an expensive technique that was confined to very dense urban areas, was given a big boost allowing it to spread and conquer new territories (the periurban and rural areas) : the energy crisis meant that recovering the energy from destruction by fire became profitable almost everywhere. District heating systems or electricity production based on waste are then encouraged. Public authorities, planners, private companies producing furnaces or plastic waste gathered to structure a huge and powerful 'waste-to-energy' sector. Public subsidies, accommodating legislation and 'ecological' rhetoric and falsifications were produced to support this technical choice. This dynamic had a major adverse effect on environment : it marginalized material recycling, which is just as interesting, if not more so, in terms of energy savings (it avoids the high and expensive energy costs of synthetic fertilizer production or mining, for example). Nevertheless, waste incineration is still praised for this type of energetic "virtues" acquired during this period.
Paper short abstract:
The paper examines the socio-ecological dimensions of the everyday life, experiences, and practices of British households living in “fuel poverty” and locates their daily lives within the broader framework of environmental consciousness formation in the 1970s.
Paper long abstract:
Under the impression of two energy crises and a deep recession, a new public awareness of the social costs of energy consumption emerged in Western industrialised societies in the 1970s. In Britain and other parts of Western Europe, the massive, albeit temporary, increase in energy prices meant that an increasing number of British households could no longer afford the energy needed to satisfy their basic needs (like warmth). Driven by voluntary organisations, politicians, and social scientists in Britain, the term "fuel poverty" was coined for this phenomenon during the same period. This development was parallel by forming a new environmental consciousness in the 1970s, most notably seen in the emergence of a global environmental movement.
The paper examines the everyday experiences, practices, and perceptions of those dealing with "fuel poverty" in Britain, contextualising their lives within the broader framework of environmental consciousness formation in the 1970s. It highlights how the coping strategies employed by households in "fuel poverty", often unwittingly, either supported or opposed the prevailing environmental policies and regulations of the time. These strategies, ranging from the potentially harmful, such as the excessive use of paraffin stoves, to resource-conserving behaviours, became embedded in contemporary discourses on energy conservation. The latter phenomenon, the "environmentalism of the poor", is still largely unexplored in environmental history (esp. for the Global North). Examining the ecological dimension of the everyday life of households in “fuel poverty” makes it possible to examine hitherto underexposed aspects of the "ecological revolution" of the 1970s.