Seminar cancelled: Controversies and energy transitions: the value of social conflict

> This seminar will be rescheduled in 2020

In this talk I will elaborate on controversies, or social conflict, in the energy transition. Many new energy projects are faced with conflict, e.g. communities protesting against the development of an energy project (a wind park, shale gas production site, transmission line, geothermal well, and so on). These conflicts have to be dealt with in the governance of energy system change. I will show that value conflict is inherent to the wicked nature of energy issues. Rather than seeing such conflicts as a barrier for implementation, conflict can also be seen as a value in itself. After all, conflict can be a source of innovation and creativity and has democratic value in itself. Illustrated by several empirical examples, I will discuss the value of conflict, and how the empirical analysis of conflict can be used to support responsible innovation, or responsible decision-making in the energy transition.