Electric Futures

Boyer’s Academy project, “Electric Futures,” inaugurates a collaboration of Rice, the Humboldt Universität, and the NUMIES energy and society research group, in Chile. Together they will focus attention on global efforts to design and enact new models of electrical infrastructure and “electrical democracy.” In Germany, he plans to study the stakeholders in the wave of energy cooperatives (over 800) and remunicipalization initiatives (over 120 efforts) that have taken place since 2005. Boyer notes that virtually every scenario for the rapid decarbonization of the global economy to address climate change features an expanded role for electricity. From transitioning automobile fleets to electric vehicles or making better use of renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydropower, greater societal investment in electricity appears to promise the conveniences of modern life while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, scholars are questioning the social and environmental impacts of expanded electricity use, as well as energy equity and climate justice, especially in the global South. “Whether operating in the register of aspiration or caution,” Boyer writes, “what seems clear is that imagining how electricity will be provided, to whom it will be accountable, and to what uses it will be put, will be key cultural, political, and technical debates of our century.”