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Title: Mr. Job Title: Egenis Research Student Tel: 01392 725142 Fax: 01392 724676 Email: pb277@exeter.ac.uk Building: Byrne House Room Number: FF10
In October 2009, I started my PhD at the University of Exeter under the supervision of Dr Sabina Leonelli and Professor Brian Rappert. The project is funded by a three-year full studentship of the College of Social Sciences and International Studies(University of Exeter).
The title of my project is Fuelling Expectations: Biofuels Policy in the UK. As the title suggests, the biofuels policies in the United Kingdom constitute the case study of my research. My interests in energy policy and biomass technologies developed during my MA in Economics at the University of Bologna (Italy). My interests drove me to get in contact with the Copernicus Institute at the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands).
After having won a University of Bologna scholarship to conduct a period of research abroad, I spent six months as a visiting student at the Copernicus Institute. Under the supervision of Professor Alberto Clò (University of Bologna) and co-supervision of Assistant Professor Simona Negro (Copernicus Institute), I analysed the evolution of the Italian policies in the waste-to-energy sector. The waste-to-energy sector employs a wide range of biomass technologies which convert organic material (organic wastes) into energy. My PhD project entails the analysis of the UK policies on liquid biofuels technologies. Liquid biofuels are technologies which convert a wide range of organic material into liquid fuels such as bioethanol and biodiesel. Bioethanol and biodiesel can be used as substitutes of respectively petrol and diesel in cars and are currently supported by the UK government as sustainable solutions to mitigate climate change in the transport sector. I decided to get involved in this project because I consider this research on liquid biofuels as a natural follow up of my previous experience in biomass technologies, and the UK biofuels policies constitutes an excellent case study. One reason for that is the UK leadership position in integrating a system of sustainability standards into biofuels supporting policies (Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation – RTFO).
In my research, I attempt to examine how choices about the adoption and regulation of technologies are made where there is uncertainty and disagreement. More specifically, I investigate how public authorities come up with yes-or-no decisions about the support of emerging technologies when stakeholders disagree on the selection criteria to consider and on the attributes and performances of the technologies with respect to those criteria.
The analysis of biofuels policies in the UK implies considering the social, political, and economical aspects related to policymaking on emerging technologies in the energy sector. The main concerns herein are to examine how claims about the acceptability of a technology are justified and, more specifically, how notions of what constitutes the sustainability of a technology are negotiated. Analysing how public authorities attempt to justify contentions on the acceptability of technologies moves the focus on more theoretical considerations on the basis of knowledge claims and the politics of representation.
I consider public authorities as intermediaries of information on technologies between experts and their large audience of voters. I am investigating how the intermediation operated by public authorities with their written official publications might affect the circulation of relevant information on technologies and they way in which it is represented and proposed to the large audience of voters. More specifically, I am analysing how different authorities/actors in the biofuels case in the UK represent expectations on and relevant facts related to biofuels technologies. I am interested on how this information coming from different sources with different vested interests is finally simplified and synthesised into the official documents of the UK government.
The analysis is split into two parts:
The first part concerns the analysis of the original responses of a consultation organised by the Department for Transport from 15 October 2008 (on the RTFO amendment) (DfT 15.10.2008).
I am investigating how the different participants to the consultation and the UK Government have represented the future of biofuels technologies with respect to specific facts/risks (deforestation, food security issues and the worsening of social conditions in developing countries). This analysis aims at investigating the correlations among representations of facts/technologies, nature of the actors and the reputation that these actors publicly advertise.
The second part of the analysis consists of a document analysis of an official correspondence between the UK government and the Environmental Audit Committee (House_of_Commons 21.1.2008).
This analysis aims at shedding light on how the different level of responsibility of different public authorities over the political process might affect the way they represent information on technologies when disclosing it to their audience of voters.
My research is based on a multidisciplinary approach which extends from the fields of sociology of expectations and, more in general, science and technology studies to informational economics and energy policy.
References:
DfT (15.10.2008). Consultation on Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (Amendment) Order 2009, Department for Transport (DFT) House_of_Commons (21.1.2008). Are biofuels sustainable? - volume I - 1st Report Session 2007-2008 - Environmental Audit Committee, Environmental Audit Committee.
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