Author: admin

The risks associated with anthropogenic climate change have prompted companies to invest in technologies that mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. However, developing these products and markets presents challenges, such as points of contention arising from uncertainties about their effectiveness and their ability to scale quickly to prevent further global warming. To address these challenges, those involved in creating carbon-related markets seek support from policymakers and investors by crafting compelling narratives that moralize their technological solutions and engage in alliances with stakeholders to promote their emergence. In this paper, I examine carbon capture and removal technologies as a specific case of moral markets by using in-depth interviews with key industry informants, along with a collection of news articles about the carbon capture sector. Through thematic coding, I reveal how startups and stakeholders in this area perceive the challenges of using technologies and markets to turn carbon into a resource. The findings show that informants see carbon capture as a distinct, beneficial technology envisioned to operate like an oil company in reverse and to serve industries that would otherwise be challenging to decarbonize. This process of commodifying carbon and creating markets around it creates tensions regarding its capacity to reduce emissions at scale and the potential negative impacts of delaying the energy transition. Innovators in this field work with policy actors and investors to help reduce uncertainties. This, in turn, influences how they perceive the technology’s purpose and uncovers tensions between their vision and the wider institutional landscape. These findings are important for understanding how green technologies emerge, adding to our knowledge of the role of expectations in the social construction of markets and technology.

1. Unequal solar photovoltaic performance by race and income partly reflects financing models and installer choices

Nature Energy

(with Fedor Dokshin and Benjamin Leffel)

Residential solar photovoltaics (PV) are important for a rapid decarbonization strategy. To chart an equitable energy transition, researchers have measured inequalities in residential PV adoption and identified factors that drive group disparities. We know little, however, about people’s experiences after installing solar. Electricity generation differences among PV systems can be substantial and may contribute to inequitable outcomes even as adoption disparities wane. Here we use data measuring actual monthly generation for over 26,000 PV systems installed in Connecticut to identify significant disparities in system output by neighbourhood income and race. We show that the choice of financing model (purchase or leasing) partly explains the observed disparities. We also find that system generation varies significantly across installers, highlighting that firm behaviour contributes to inequitable outcomes. These findings underscore the importance of measuring the quality and the quantity of renewable energy projects to ensure an equitable energy transition.

2. Closing the green gap? Changing disparities in residential solar installation and the importance of regional heterogeneity

Energy Research and Social Science

(with Fedor A. Dokshin and Brian Thiede)

The push to accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources raises questions about how associated costs and benefits are distributed. The likelihood that individuals and communities benefit from access to solar photovoltaics (PV) may vary systematically, between social groups and across space. The present study leverages high-resolution and uniquely comprehensive data on nearly all residential solar PV installations in New York State to measure disparities (and their trends over time) in PV deployment across three axes: ethno-racial composition, income, and rural-urban status. We identify notable differences in solar PV adoption rates across all three dimensions and show that deployment gaps changed dramatically between 2010 and 2020. White-majority census tracts maintained a substantial advantage in PV adoption early on, but minority-majority tracts narrowed and eventually overtook White-majority tracts in terms of variable-adjusted PV deployment rates in New York. However, PV deployment gaps across income and rural-urban status have largely persisted. Finally, an analysis comparing deployment trends across three regions of New York State reveals that trends in a single region, consisting largely of New York City, account for major shifts in overall disparities. The important implication is that policies and market processes unfolding at the local level critically shape distributional outcomes in PV deployment.