Relocating Energy in the Social Commons Ideas for a Sustainable Energy Utility

Authors’ Note: Address correspondence to John Byrne, Center for Energy & Environmental Policy, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716-7301; e-mail: [email protected]. I n an October, 2008 New York Times article, journalist John Tierney argued that recent discussions about energy futures “. . . have a certain vintage quality. They’ve revived that classic debate: the hard path versus the soft path” (Tierney, 2008). His reference to Amory Lovins’ dichotomy (1977) is important. Part of Lovins’ criticism of hard path energy strategies (oil, gas, coal, nuclear power) cited the likelihood of rising costs, adverse environmental impacts, safety concerns, and weapons proliferation. His and others’ predictions about the safety, cost, and polluting effects of fossil fuels have largely proved accurate. But a central feature of the soft path alternative was that it envisioned a nonnuclear future. Citing a recent pronuclear power book by Tucker (2008) advocating a rebranding strategy for the technology, Tierney rejects the nonnuclear idea, echoing instead the proposal of many in the current energy debate for society to reconsider this “proven technology that doesn’t spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere” (Tierney, 2008). Interestingly, Tierney (and all but one of the article’s 114 commenters) missed a key aspect of the soft path critique. Lovins’ (1977) soft path calls for the “rapid development of renewable energy sources Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society Volume 29 Number 2 April 2009 81-94 © 2009 SAgE Publications 10.1177/0270467609332315 http://bsts.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com Relocating Energy in the Social Commons