Technology Assessment in der Weltgesellschaft NTA2 - Zweite Konferenz des „Netzwerks TA“ 22. - 24. November 2006, Berlin, Neue Mälzerei des Umweltforums

Kerstin Schäfer / Dr. Holger Braun-Thürmann

Some localizing footnotes to a global vision: A socio-technical study on the avenues and impediments to a "hydrogen economy"

Abstract zum Vortrag
Freitag, 24. November 2006, Sektion 3 „TA in der Globalen Welt“, 09:00 Uhr

In his book "the hydrogen economy" Jeremy Rifkin (Rifkin 2002) unfolds a vision how modern societies can diminish their "addiction to oil" (George W. Bush) that is widely regarded as reason for many severe political and ecological problems like the "global climate change", the vulnerability of our economy due to the scarcity of fossil resources, not talking about political dependencies on hardly democratic nations. Rifkins statements about a "hydrogen economy" suggest not only technical solutions (critically: Goldstein 2003) but are also concerned with the interplay of the energy infra- and the sociopolitical structure of a society that produces and uses hydrogen. According Rifkin, a transformation to an economy powered by hydrogen, will inevitably change many social institutions. The hydrogen economy shares similarities with the so called Internet society as users can also play the role of decentralized providers generating and delivering hydrogen peer-to-peer.

Since Rifkin’s vision is hardly based on empirical findings and evaluated by scientific model it would be comprehensible to lay this idea aside as useful for selling books to a mass audience but without any influence on the technological development within the world society. Sharing a skeptical attitude towards this kind of "visions", we take the idea of a ’hydrogen economy’ seriously for several reasons:

• Studies on technological and institutional change point to the phenomenon that "visions", "stories", "promises" should not be regarded as irrelevant "talk" (Rip 1995; van Lente and Rip 1998a; van Lente and Rip 1998b). It proved to be the case that the engagement, commitment and involvementof political, economic and civil actors can be motivated and influenced by this kind of "ideas". "Stories" and "vision" can propel a certain innovation as they enable the actors to coordinate their expectations, to align their outlook on a common future and, finally, formulate strategies.
• The conditions for realizing a hydrogen economy have continuously shifted. In the business sector several global corporations recently alter their priorities by investing in alternative energy. Governments of the US, European Commission, Germany (Weider, et al. 2003) have earmarked freehanded endowed research grants to pave the way for hydrogen technologies like fuel cells.

In our study on "hydrogen cars" (Braun-Thürmann, et al. 2006), still in progress, we are attempting to assess the possibilities of realizing "hydrogen mobility", a possible facet of a hydrogen economy. In doing this, we reconstruct the whole "sociotechnical system" (Geels 2004) that is necessary to establish and stabilize an alternative technology within a niche market. After mapping the large sociotechnical system we try to localize all the "obstacles" – political or technical – that have to be overcome, provided a society intends to alter its energy policy in direction of a hydrogen economy.

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