Fantastic Futures and Three American Energy Transitions

• Published in: Science as culture Vol. 22; no. 2; pp. 204 - 212
• Main Authors: Sovacool, Benjamin K., Brossmann, Brent
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 01.06.2013
• Subjects: Electric power; Electricity; Energy; Energy industry; Energy planning; energy technology; Energy transition; energy transitions; fantasy; rhetorical construction; Science; Science and technology; Sociological analysis; sociology of expectation; Technology; U.S.A
• ISSN: 0950-5431; 1470-1189
• DOI: 10.1080/09505431.2013.786999

During the formative years of the electric power industry, electric technologies were deeply intertwined with human expectations and fantasies relating to safety, employment, health, military superiority, food, politics and excitement. Yet many of the downsides to electricity were its expensive nature at the time, the threat of electrocution, its reliance on fossil fuel combustion, its ability to displace labor were given less attention. The situation provokes some important questions: how do fantasies form around certain energy systems? Do these display common features across different technologies and over long periods of time? And what might these mean for contemporary discussions about energy? To provide some answers, this article explicates the historical fantasy themes connected to three energy technologies with different attributes, configurations, services, and operators used in different times. By using the term fantasy, we do not mean to imply that it is pejorative. Instead, our use of the term fantasy is particular, and it refers to the way that communities of people share their social reality, how they create interpretations of events to fulfill some psychological or social need (Sovacool and Brossmann, 2010). This makes our conception of fantasy similar to rhetorical visions arising from psychology and communication studies (Bormann, 1972) and socio-technical imaginaries arising from the discipline of science and technology studies (Jasanoff and Kim, 2009). Reprinted by permission of Carfax Publishing, Taylor & Francis Ltd.