IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0227369.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How the public imagines the energy future: Exploring and clustering non-experts’ techno-economic expectations towards the future energy system

Author

Listed:
  • Lukas Braunreiter
  • Michael Stauffacher
  • Yann Benedict Blumer

Abstract

Various countries have pledged to carry out system-wide energy transitions to address climate change. This requires taking strategic decisions with long-term consequences under conditions of considerable uncertainty. For this reason, many actors in the energy sector develop model-based scenarios to guide debates and decision-making about plausible future energy systems. Besides being a decision support instrument for policy-makers, energy scenarios are widely recognized as a way of shaping the expectations of experts and of influencing energy policy more generally. However, relatively little is known about how energy scenarios shape preferences and expectations of the public. We use an explorative research design to assess the publics’ expectations of future energy systems through an online survey among Swiss residents (N = 797). We identified four significantly different clusters of people with distinct expectations about the future energy system, each seeing different implications for the acceptability of energy policies and the compatibility with projections of techno-economic energy scenarios. Cluster 1 expects a system-wide energy transition towards renewable energy sources that is similar to the policy-relevant national energy scenario. Cluster 2 also expects an energy transition, but believes it will lead to a range of technical challenges, societal conflicts and controversies with neighboring countries. Cluster 3 is the only cluster not expecting significant changes in the future energy system and thus not anticipating an energy transition. Cluster 4’s expectations are between cluster 1 and 2, but it anticipates a huge increase in per capita electricity demand while prices are expected to remain low. The study at hand offers some initial insights into the interdependencies between energy transition pathways outlined in techno-economic energy scenarios and the energy system expectations of the public. These insights are essential for gaining a better understanding of whether and how energy scenarios can contribute to informed public debates about energy futures and how desirable pathways towards them might look like.

Suggested Citation

  • Lukas Braunreiter & Michael Stauffacher & Yann Benedict Blumer, 2020. "How the public imagines the energy future: Exploring and clustering non-experts’ techno-economic expectations towards the future energy system," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(3), pages 1-20, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0227369
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227369
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0227369
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0227369&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0227369?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pfenninger, Stefan & Keirstead, James, 2015. "Renewables, nuclear, or fossil fuels? Scenarios for Great Britain’s power system considering costs, emissions and energy security," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 83-93.
    2. Joeri Rogelj & Michel den Elzen & Niklas Höhne & Taryn Fransen & Hanna Fekete & Harald Winkler & Roberto Schaeffer & Fu Sha & Keywan Riahi & Malte Meinshausen, 2016. "Paris Agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep warming well below 2 °C," Nature, Nature, vol. 534(7609), pages 631-639, June.
    3. Christina Demski & Alexa Spence & Nick Pidgeon, 2017. "Effects of exemplar scenarios on public preferences for energy futures using the my2050 scenario-building tool," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 2(4), pages 1-7, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marina Virginia Stefan & Simona-Vasilica Oprea & Adela Bara, 2024. "Understanding Citizens’ Attitudes Towards Energy and Climate Issues. A Comprehensive Survey Analysis," Ovidius University Annals, Economic Sciences Series, Ovidius University of Constantza, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 0(1), pages 328-338, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhao, Ning & You, Fengqi, 2020. "Can renewable generation, energy storage and energy efficient technologies enable carbon neutral energy transition?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    2. Wang, Bingzheng & Lu, Xiaofei & Zhang, Cancan & Wang, Hongsheng, 2022. "Cascade and hybrid processes for co-generating solar-based fuels and electricity via combining spectral splitting technology and membrane reactor," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 782-799.
    3. Lukas Kriechbaum & Philipp Gradl & Romeo Reichenhauser & Thomas Kienberger, 2020. "Modelling Grid Constraints in a Multi-Energy Municipal Energy System Using Cumulative Exergy Consumption Minimisation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-23, July.
    4. Sapkota, Krishna & Gemechu, Eskinder & Oni, Abayomi Olufemi & Ma, Linwei & Kumar, Amit, 2022. "Greenhouse gas emissions from Canadian oil sands supply chains to China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    5. Rong Li & Brent Sohngen & Xiaohui Tian, 2022. "Efficiency of forest carbon policies at intensive and extensive margins," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 104(4), pages 1243-1267, August.
    6. Alt, Marius & Gallier, Carlo & Kesternich, Martin & Sturm, Bodo, 2023. "Collective minimum contributions to counteract the ratchet effect in the voluntary provision of public goods," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    7. Hobley, Alexander, 2019. "Will gas be gone in the United Kingdom (UK) by 2050? An impact assessment of urban heat decarbonisation and low emission vehicle uptake on future UK energy system scenarios," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 695-705.
    8. Sanzana Tabassum & Tanvin Rahman & Ashraf Ul Islam & Sumayya Rahman & Debopriya Roy Dipta & Shidhartho Roy & Naeem Mohammad & Nafiu Nawar & Eklas Hossain, 2021. "Solar Energy in the United States: Development, Challenges and Future Prospects," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-65, December.
    9. Thananya Janhuaton & Vatanavongs Ratanavaraha & Sajjakaj Jomnonkwao, 2024. "Forecasting Thailand’s Transportation CO 2 Emissions: A Comparison among Artificial Intelligent Models," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-23, June.
    10. Child, Michael & Breyer, Christian, 2017. "Transition and transformation: A review of the concept of change in the progress towards future sustainable energy systems," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 11-26.
    11. Joseph L.-H. Tsui & Rosario Evans Pena & Monika Moir & Rhys P. D. Inward & Eduan Wilkinson & James Emmanuel San & Jenicca Poongavanan & Sumali Bajaj & Bernardo Gutierrez & Abhishek Dasgupta & Tulio Ol, 2024. "Impacts of climate change-related human migration on infectious diseases," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 14(8), pages 793-802, August.
    12. Yang, Shenyao & Hu, Shilai & Qi, Zhilin & Qi, Huiqing & Zhao, Guanqun & Li, Jiqiang & Yan, Wende & Huang, Xiaoliang, 2024. "Experiment and prediction for dynamic storage capacity of underground gas storage rebuilt from hydrocarbon reservoir," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    13. Liu, Jing-Yue & Lei, Quan & Li, Ruojin & Zhang, Yue-Jun, 2024. "Resistance or motivation? Impact of climate risk on corporate greenwashing: An empirical study of Chinese enterprises," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    14. Carl-Friedrich Schleussner & Joeri Rogelj & Michiel Schaeffer & Tabea Lissner & Rachel Licker & Erich M. Fischer & Reto Knutti & Anders Levermann & Katja Frieler & William Hare, 2016. "Science and policy characteristics of the Paris Agreement temperature goal," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(9), pages 827-835, September.
    15. Nikolaos Margaritis & Christos Evaggelou & Panagiotis Grammelis & Roberto Arévalo & Haris Yiannoulakis & Polykarpos Papageorgiou, 2023. "Application of Flexible Tools in Magnesia Sector: The Case of Grecian Magnesite," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-30, August.
    16. Federica Cucchiella & Idiano D’Adamo & Massimo Gastaldi, 2018. "Future Trajectories of Renewable Energy Consumption in the European Union," Resources, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-13, February.
    17. Ghomian, Taher & Kizilkaya, Orhan & Choi, Jin-Woo, 2018. "Lead sulfide colloidal quantum dot photovoltaic cell for energy harvesting from human body thermal radiation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 230(C), pages 761-768.
    18. Chepeliev, Maksym & Osorio-Rodarte, Israel & van der Mensbrugghe, Dominique, 2021. "Distributional impacts of carbon pricing policies under the Paris Agreement: Inter and intra-regional perspectives," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    19. Georgios Varvoutis & Athanasios Lampropoulos & Evridiki Mandela & Michalis Konsolakis & George E. Marnellos, 2022. "Recent Advances on CO 2 Mitigation Technologies: On the Role of Hydrogenation Route via Green H 2," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-38, June.
    20. Garaffa, Rafael & Gurgel, Angelo & Cunha, Bruno & Lucena, Andre & Szklo, Alexandre & Schaeffer, Roberto & Rochedo, Pedro, 2018. "Climate finance under a CGE framework: decoupling financial flows in GTAP database," Conference papers 332939, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0227369. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.