History vs Energy - How the history of energy transitions can inform our future

Overview:
What does the history of energy tell us about energy transition?
Can we learn from the past or will we repeat the same mistakes?
What do people get wrong when trying to extract lessons from the history of energy?

Co-hosts David, Sara, and Ed are joined by guest, Dr. Petra Dolata, to discuss data on historical transitions, including lessons of deindustrialization in the Ruhr region of Germany on Season 5, Episode 8 of Energy vs Climate.

About Our Guest:
Petra Dolada is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Calgary. A former Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in the History of Energy, who held previous academic positions at the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany and at Kings College London in the UK, her research examines the 1970s energy crises, transatlantic energy relations and the historical connections between deindustrialization and energy transitions. She is the co-convenor of the Energy In Society working group at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities.

Topics:
(00:00) Intro
(03:19) Socio-energy systems design: A policy framework for energy transitions
(05:00) The 200-year history of energy transitions
(07:20) History of Prime Movers and Future Implications
(08:34) Gauging the Role of Energy Substitution in Transitioning to Low-Carbon Economies
(12:12) The Social Dimensions of Energy Transitions
(14:00) Histories of Transitions
(16:35) Peaking: A Brief History of Select Energy Transitions
(21:00) Profitable Solutions to Climate, Oil, and Proliferation
(25:00) What we need to know about the pace of decarbonization
(35:24) World History and Energy
(40:07) The Future Role of Coal: International Market Realities vs Climate Protection?
(47:10) The Energy Transition Is a Technological Revolution — with a Deadline
(51:00) Three sides to every story: Gender perspectives in energy transition pathways in Canada, Kenya and Spain

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Transcript

Energy vs Climate S5E8 - History vs Climate

Ed: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Ed Whittingham, and you're listening to Energy vs. Climate, the show where my co host David Keith, Sir Hastings Simon, and I debate today's energy challenges, highlighting the Canadian context. On February 13th, we recorded a live webinar with Petra Dalata, an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Calgary.

Our topic was the history of energy transitions, and what lessons we can apply from past ones to our current energy transition. David, Sarah, and I really enjoyed the conversation, and we hope you do too. Here's the show. Hello everyone, and welcome to Season 5, Episode 8 of Energy vs. Climate. My name is Ed Whittingham, and as always, I'm joined by my co hosts, Sarah Hastings Simon and David Keith.

Human history is marked in part by energy transitions and that reflects our evolving relationship with different energy sources and their uses from the harnessing of fire by early humans to, uh, the industrial revolutions, command of coal and later our [00:01:00] mastery of oil and natural gas, different eras in human evolution or human civilization have been marked by shifts And technology, economic drivers and societal needs.

Now, we're in the midst of an energy transition that's born of our concerns about environmental damage and resource depletion and climate change. Of course, the end point of this transition is still very much a question mark understanding. Past energy transitions should be useful to us when trying to navigate the complexities of this current one.

Even if, as the disclaimer on your investors prospectus goes, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. So what does the history of energy tell us about energy transition? And can we learn from the past or will we repeat the same mistakes? And what do people get wrong when they're trying to extract lessons From the history of energy and energy transitions.

So today we're very excited to have Sarah's University of Calgary colleague [00:02:00] Petra Delada on energy versus climate with us to help answer those questions. So, a bit about Petra, she is an associate professor in the Department of history at the University of Calgary. Her research examines the 1970s energy crises, transatlantic energy relations and historical connections between deindustrialization and energy transitions.

She is a former Canada Research Chair in the History of Energy, and she held previous academic positions at the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany and at King's College London in the UK. She's also a co convener of the Energy and Society Working Group at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities.

Welcome, Petra. 

Petra: Thank you, and it's great to be here on Energy vs. 

Ed: Climate. Wonderful. It's great to have you. Let's get down to it. We bandy about the term energy transition very often, yet we rarely define it. So before we get into the history of it, could you help us to nail down the term first? What exactly is an energy transition?

There are 

Petra: [00:03:00] many definitions out there, and we also use it as an analytical concept. But the one thing that I would see as a core piece of any sort of definition that can be expanded and adapted is that energy systems are always social systems, and energy transitions means changes in the overall constitution of an energy system that is conceived of as a technological, economic, social and cultural way of ordering society, politics, and economics around a particular way of dealing with energy, using energy.

So it is an energy system that is changing, but the note the historian would like to always add is energy system here means also social and cultural systems. 

Ed: Great. Well, I feel like I'm a student in the history of energy transitions. 101. I'm a 1st year student. And so as a 1st year student, I'm wondering, is there a codified list of [00:04:00] energy transitions that historians like yourself generally agree upon?

And I'm going to give you a simple linear list. We mastered fire when we were hunter gatherers. And then other forms of biomass and hydro when we settled into farming communities. And then, of course, the major transition to coal to power steam engines and manufacturing processes. And then, of course, the smorgasbord of energy sources that came after that, you know, in the late 19th century through to today and oil and gas and nuclear and and renewables 1st, among them.

So, is is that a good starting list? Or is it too linear? But what are your thoughts? 

Petra: It's absolutely, absolutely a good starting list. So most historians agree that there has been over time, uh, a fundamental shift from what someone, uh, an author called Ian Wrigley has called an organic energy regime based on biofuels and anything that's organic material.

To one [00:05:00] that we call a mineral energy regime. So that's moving into fossil fuels. That's something that most historians see. It is very significant because it really has less basis on the availability of land. If you think about, you know, fossil fuels is something that is kind of in the. subterranean. And what happens from this organic system to a mineral system is that all of a sudden we are able to harness a lot more energy because it's no longer just connected to the availability of land.

If you think about, you know, forests, you can either use them for construction of houses or agriculture. If you actually, uh, clear the forest or you use the wood for energy that always limited. on how much he can sustain on the basis of energy. There are other ways to look at it. There's, for example, environmental historian J.

R. McNeill, who rather looks at somatic energy systems to extra somatic energy systems. So those [00:06:00] systems that are really based on just human power, muscle power, and then move into something that is outside the human body. There are very intricate ways of looking at this. I mean, uh, Václav Smil, who is not a historian, But it's very much influenced our discussions, the geographer, he kind of looks at energy transitions at something that combines the way that energy sources, prime movers, which convert these sources and uses.

Becomes an ever more complex system. So, uh, if we go back thousands of years, it was, you know, one energy stores, sort of a human prime mover, essentially, you know, our muscles translate that into one single use. For this, and what has happened over time is that we get more energy sources. We get more intricate prime movers, which move to animate powers, think oxen, horses, and all these to animate [00:07:00] prime movers, mechanical, wind power, water power.

even sails, these kind of thing, kinetic, to something that is much more complicated or technologically supported. And we also have multiple uses of energy where it, you know, it's very early on, it's sustaining us with food, it's heating, it becomes more and more complex as we move on. The last one that I think most historians agree is that We need to be very careful whether we talk about substitutions, additions, rather than transitions, because one of the easy things to forget is that while there might be changes in the share of particular energy sources in an overall energy mix, At the same time, we may also increasingly use energy.

So that's kind of two historical stories that you need to bring together. We move towards an [00:08:00] increasingly high energy society, while at the same time, the share of certain energy forms changes. So what this means is that we, the famous single fuel energy transition from coal to oil, Which is something that, uh, you know, in the mid 20th century, a lot of Western countries went through is, it's not really a substitution because it's not that in absolute terms, co production dipped.

What happened is that we use more and more energy for more and more uses. And at the same time, it was. More oil was used in terms of the shares, but we never really stopped producing coal or using coal. So this is the, this is the thing for a story. And that's that makes it so fascinating because at different levels of time, if you will.

That play into understanding in your very linear fashion that you proposed the way that energy transitions proceed so you can have [00:09:00] energy transitions over centuries. You can also have energy transitions that are part of a lived experience. People that are affected, for example, by the switch from coal to oil.

So this, this makes for very different histories. Got 

Ed: it. Uh, and thanks. You've given us some useful dichotomies to chew on as well. Organic, mineral, animate, inanimate, somatic to extra somatic. What I glean from that is, you know, I gave the simple linear example, but you can have a number of different transitions occurring simultaneously.

Of course. Now, how does a historian approach energy transition and and how does it differ from A historical approach that a historian would take to say other major developments in human civilization 

Petra: in the past. Um, it's been very evident that most historians who would work and research energy transitions really came either out of.

Economic history or sometimes political history. What [00:10:00] this meant is that they were much more familiar with looking at these larger time periods, at cyclical developments, say, you know, think business cycles and all this. Those are the kind of historians who will work with a lot of statistical data when it is available.

That is, uh, also the reason why we have a lot more, of course, on that sort of major switch that comes about through, uh, industrialization. But more recently, in the last 10 to 15 years, it's really important to know that many other historians are interested. In the history of energy transition, and most of them are not economic historians, so they are much more interested either and bringing the scale down to the lift experience.

So, these are questions about what do energy systems look like as social systems and how does an energy transition impact the entire social and cultural system that's [00:11:00] based and build. Around a particular way of energy informing our daily lives. So those researchers who, for example, are part of the whole petro cultures sort of movement, right?

Trying to understand how 20th century, 21st century societies, most of them are really defined. Through the use of oil, even though it's not entirely based on oil. And how is that particular culture driven by understandings and narratives and stories that are linked to that? That's 1 way. Or equally, we have other historians who are coming out of, say, environmental history, who even go further up the macro.

So, rather than looking at, you know, these kind of economic cycles and how this will, you know, even Ideas around innovation, diffusion, they are really interested in almost deep time understandings of, um, energy transitions, for example, as the Anthropocene as something that, you know, when, [00:12:00] how does this impact whole civilization?

Ancient that's right. There is this idea of, um, the use of energy really defines the kind of civilization, the possibilities that are there. It's a very long answer to your question, but it is important to realize that there are many different historical sub disciplines. That will look at energy transition in a very particular way, and they differ in the timelines.

They differ sometimes in the geographies, and they also differ definitely in the scale. And that is important because they will look at very different sources. Data, you know, statistical data is only 1 of many sources that historians are interested in. So, if you're on the micro level, what you're interested in is the lift experience.

You might do all histories. Even you might try to understand. Well, what did it look like being both the consumer and [00:13:00] producer of energy? Say, if you study coal mining and certain regions, so there is a very different way. that historians can look at this. What they all share is to look at energy transition as an analytical term.

And that's very important because we do two things with energy transition. We use it as an analytical term to kind of try and compare different time periods, different scales, but we also bring it back as what we call a source concept. So, this is the idea of where do I actually find it in my primary sources?

When do people in the past, rather than me looking at what happens in the past, when, when do people in the past themselves talk about something as energy transition? And sometimes that's confusing because you're using the same term, but in two very different ways. As analytical concepts to help you structure your research, [00:14:00] Or as a source concept, as something that you try to find in your primary sources, if it's not data, right, if it's text based, which most of us are pretty much text based, the economic historians are not necessarily the most prominent, although they seem to have been in the study of energy transition.

Sara: Yeah, and I, I just wanted to make a comment on that before we kind of move on to some questions about what lessons we can draw, but that I think that data point is interesting because the way that, you know, I hear you talking about how historians approach this, I think is very different from the way that historical information is informing the decisions that we make and the sort of trajectories that, um, you know, we are sort of the, whatever the political discourse or the, this kind of discourse around where we might be going with our energy systems, which seems to be very dominated by that data piece.

And I'm sure there's all kinds of, you know, Um, social scientists who can tell one better than I can about why that is. But at least in terms of what gets, what happens is that there seems to be this, you know, very intense focus on models and, and trying to kind of model the fast [00:15:00] and the use of that data.

And that, I think it's going to give us one type of picture around the future of, of energy. One of the things 

David: that I take from the literature on energy transitions, meaning the transitions in primary energy and prime movers, and from other literature on technology diffusion, is this persistent thing that later transitions, transitions that happen later, that is in say countries or regions that happen later, happen faster.

Do you buy that? 

Petra: To a certain extent, it depends on what kind of energy transition you actually look at. And those, those examples are often particular energy transitions that are based on technological shifts. So they're much more around those that focus in on the introduction of particular prime movers.

And so they borrow, of course, from the literature that looks generally at innovations and early adapters and late comers and the advantage of those that come in later. So in that sense, like, You can see that, but it is limited to those specific energy transitions that are studied mainly as being driven [00:16:00] by technological progress in the prime movers.

And so I think this is, this is one of the problems that we have. It's a lot easier to talk about energy transitions when you can make it along data pines, around technology, rather than something else that is, is a lot more. Intangible, if you will, because it's more about the way that societies think about certain things, what they understand as progress, um, how they see themselves as consumers.

So I'm not a 

David: technological determinist. So there's certainly obviously examples of very fast transitions that seem very tied to prime movers. I mean, horses to cars feels like the sharpest one where we had a really high energy civilization with long distance transport by rail and with. Electricity and chemical industry.

We had all that thing. But what we didn't have was a small machine that could do the last mile. So we had a long distance rail transport, but but everything within a radius in a city was by [00:17:00] horses until suddenly when cars came in, you get this transition that in some U. S. Cities has a time constant of like three years.

Just unbelievable. So that's an example that is fast. Are there good counter examples where you have much later ones going slower, where it's the same kind of transition that is in terms of coupling to long distance transport? Well, the, 

Petra: and I would come back to your first example there, because I mean, you had a lot between the horses and the cars, you know, you go from, from horse drone, tram lines to electrical tram lines, especially the example of the car.

Is one that is just so much more complex part of the story behind that very quick ascendancy of the car that's fueled by gasoline, right? As opposed to, because at the beginning we had steam powered cars, we had electric cars and we had gas power. Yeah, I understood. Yeah, we 

David: know. 

Petra: Well, I know, but that, I mean, the point that I would make as a historian is to say the reason why there was so much push from those who actually are in the oil business [00:18:00] in the early 20th century was that they were losing their one big market, which is kerosene, which is for lighting.

To electricity and yeah, I 

David: mean, the big driver was a gasoline was a waste product because this, they, they were basically the, the kerosene for lighting was the primary product. Obviously I said that there was trams and electricity, but what there wasn't was a small thing that could do delivery in cities.

And that was the thing where they had, you know, all that done by horses and there was like this one kind of in hindsight, but I think pretty strong on a whole in the energy system that we didn't have a prime mover that could do that 

Petra: job. Yeah, I mean, most the historical literature would would say that.

You still first have to create an understanding of society that is that this is the piece that is missing and that this is the thing that would make your life easier. This idea that, you know, this fits perfectly. The demand that was there is. Not often historically a lot more complex because we also know that people don't [00:19:00] necessarily quickly jump onto these changes.

So there needs to be some particular champions of that story of saying, what you're missing here is this piece, you know, it's like, This is, this is taking too much time. This is far too cumbersome because most people wouldn't not necessarily recognize this. And so there's a, there's an entire other part of the story where you need to have people who actually create, right, a whole narrative around, it would be better, it would be more efficient if we did X, Y, Z.

It's not that the technology is there and people are like, yeah, wow, this, you know, I've always worried about this. Part of my life and now here we are and this solves it. I think that's that's the problematic piece and this is why I do appreciate those who do the really, you know, very sort of over five years in a, in a very particular locality, trying to reconstruct how did actually that replacement of halls [00:20:00] drawn cards happen because also there's a whole infrastructure piece around it.

Right. It's not just given, okay, we, we replace that hall strong card by something else. All of a sudden you need room in the city for, for example, leafing that something else that normally would be somewhere in stables or, you know, there's a whole piece there that I find sometimes is, it's just forgotten about and it will be crucial to our energy transition now.

Because those are the kind of questions that people are, you know, a, not everyone might necessarily see how this would be a better way of doing things. Why should you change something that you already have and work? So there's a lot more to it that I think is hidden in this story that we can tell afterwards about, yes, of course, you know, uh, we moved from this to that.

Maybe I don't think 

David: that's excessive technological determinism. I think part of it is that people [00:21:00] And I think there's detailed research at the time that the existing technology was a problem in all sorts of ways in that particular piece of it. And there was writing at the time to demonstrate that. I think it's, it's fashion now to say there's no such thing as technological determinism and it's all just determined by people's fashions.

But I think, I think there's 

Ed: arguments on both sides. So I'd like to jump in with, with another do you buy that question if, if you don't mind, Petra. And this gets us to some of the lessons that we can draw. From looking at past energy transitions, and I think it was Amory Lovins, and I'll have to let the EBC listenership correct me if I'm wrong, but he talked about technological co evolution, and he said that you have these major energy transitions.

And they're always accompanied by a technological shift in communications technology as well. So, when we move from hunter and gather societies to settled farming communities, the writing system, farming communities and using biomass and other waste biomass products for heat, [00:22:00] then the writing system accompanied that.

With the industrial revolution and the use of coal and the telegraph company that roughly when we move to oil and gas, then we move to the telephone and then eventually the satellite communications to now in the Internet. We're moving with wind and solar battery storage and renewables. The Internet is really feeling that.

Do you buy that as well? That. You necessarily have these, these technological coal coal evolutions of communications happening at the same 

Petra: time. I'm not surprised that we have some of these cool, um, developments, because if you conceive of what's happening in energy transitions as large changes in bigger systems, right, uh, political, economic, social, and cultural, it is not surprising that it's a lot of things that are connected to it.

I mean, the way that mobility changes. Because of energy is something that will have so many other effects and equally will have to be influenced by [00:23:00] some other things. One of the main and interesting aspects of a lot of these energy transitions up to now is that around acceleration as well. Right? And so there's a, there's a whole new experience.

With a lot of these energy transitions that allows for different understandings of how the way that we interact with other people also is impacted. So the communication pieces on the 1 hand, I feel equally influenced by some of the technology that undergirds the way that these energy transitions happen, but equally that they also help us sort of create a whole new way.

of understanding of how, um, we, for example, interact and interrelate both with other people, but also with the environment. It's always difficult to comprehend what it must have been for someone who'd never been on a train, uh, on a steam train in the 19th century do that for the first time. And [00:24:00] we have all these accounts, right?

People writing about this, how this is This nauseating and, and experiencing landscape at such a speed, which was never possible before, um, just try to imagine what this does to, you know, trying to understand how you fit into that landscape. And these are, these are really closely connected, I find, to some of the communication pieces.

So I don't think they necessarily have to be there always together, but I'm not. Surprise that often they are both because of they might share some technological, uh, innovation, but equally you need that piece as well to make sense of this new world. 

David: Some pretty good counter examples. We were just talking about how it horses to cars, but there was no big communication shift at that time.

And the first transatlantic cable is in the 18 fifties, the same time as oil. So oil didn't influence it because it was earlier. And if you think of the recent transitions, In communication. It's hard to tie them to energy transition. So I think there's a lot of [00:25:00] counter examples 

Ed: to your point, Petra. I wonder if we can go back in time and identified the first kid that got car sick on a family car journey.

Sara: I wanted to come back to something I have, I have a question, but, but first, just an observation, uh, something that from the previous discussion with, between you and David around kind of this, like we're cars, you know, filling this need everybody had, or, or was the need created. And it makes me think a little bit around the discourse of my, you know, one of my favorite topics, the, the e bike or e cargo bike right now, where it feels a little bit like that.

And, you know, obviously that I think that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to, you know, have the same story there. But I do see certain similarities of like, it's this form of transportation that's really quite different. It serves a different kind of need than we're used to serving. And I guess there's a lot of debate going on now around really like, is that a need we need to be served?

Um, so kind of just a, something that popped into mind when you were talking about those. The question I have, um, also I guess in this form of, of a, you know, do you, does the historian buy this, um, is [00:26:00] there seems to be a lot of discussion around, okay, well, historically on the one hand, you know, we, we didn't so much always transition away from sources of energy as we were just adding them.

Um, and at the same time, you know, what is the pace of change of that transition? And I think those are both often brought up as like, well, that means we're not going to be able to, you know, get to net zero because obviously we are talking about having to transition away. Um, I think we're starting to see some of that, you know, in some signs, uh, on, on the coal side and, and some of these.

Um, at least in certain economies around the use of oil and others. So maybe there's a little bit of a history or I mean, a little bit of a data there on the adoption side. You know, I like to put down in my solar class that, you know, when, when do you, when do you call the starting point of solar, right?

You could go back to very long ago. And that was when, you know, Albert Einstein figured out the photovoltaic effect. So, you know, do we have maybe a long runway, but I guess. Um, yeah, maybe, maybe the question to you is sort of, how do you, how do you take that point of, well, you know, we've never done this before and certainly never at this [00:27:00] pace.

So therefore, you know, net zero is, is a, is a pipe dream. 

Petra: There's a short answer as a historian. You're just like, anything can happen because we, you know, we can think in, in centuries and Our problem is not to say, you know, if all these factors are in place, then it will happen. If you ask us, you know, could any of this?

Yeah, I mean, we have seen all sorts of things that in the past, no one thought would happen. The longer answer is there are sort of discussion amongst historians or those who are interested in energy transition, whether it is indeed a protracted affair. Or whether it is revolutionary, I think the difference here is what you're looking at.

So someone like smell would always make the point, right? That if you really look at when it was 1st introduced, and when it really becomes an important share and an energy mix. So as to change the overall energy system, that is often 50 years, 100 [00:28:00] years. So that's really a long protracted development. And that's what leads him to warn, right, about don't expect this to happen very quickly.

On the other hand, I mean, I'm thinking there, um, there's an interesting, uh, study by Kanda, Malema, and Ward on sort of European energy transitions. And they are, of course, starting more at how revolutionary though are some of these changes in terms of how society changes. Right? I mean, if we look at how specific energy transitions massively change, how we order society, even how it impacts politics and policy and government.

They are revolutionary and so that's 1 of the disagreements. The other is indeed. We don't have that many examples in the past where there's a willed energy transition, right? Where governments say we need to do this. And so it's, it's, it's kind of, it's difficult to [00:29:00] compare and to say, studying past energy transitions.

Which most of the times we're not because a state said, or a government said, or a community said, we need to change this. And now here we are talking about an energy transition where we think we have a clear plan for is really difficult to compare. There's a lot. Also, of course, that has to do with how far can a state direct some of these and that's their different answers that are given by different historians.

There are historians who believe in the power of the state and and who think that, you know, industrial policy, uh, all these things can in 1 way or another direct these changes or you don't believe in this and say, at the end of the day, you know, there are underlying things. Uh, longer term developments that will bring about the change what governments try to do.

There's so many unintended consequences. There's so many things [00:30:00] that actually go counter to what was intended that, you know, we don't know. So it is it's difficult to say, but I would not be on the side of those to say, because we see how long it took in the past. That they'll never be an energy transition that can be faster.

I'm a historian. Why would I say no? I mean, I also am a German and like, you know, this idea of there'll never be reunification. Well, the unthinkable can become 

Ed: thinkable. Yeah, if you'd ask Americans in 2004, would the United States ever elect a black president? People said they would take decades. And then look what happened in 2008, something that around energy transition, I often hear around the energy transition that we're currently in.

And I'll say it's, you know, from from folks sort of deep in, in, you know, the, the heart of oil and gas here in Alberta is. Well, we can't look to pass energy transitions because this 1, this current 1, it's voluntarily imposed upon us, [00:31:00] if you will, and that is. We're not replacing a technology that is or was clearly inferior on a range of performance metrics to the new technology that is entering the market.

And that new technology just through consumer demand is rapidly displacing the old technology. Moreover, this one is fundamentally driven by public policy, whereas in the past, other transitions from whale oil to cold oil and gas were really driven by sheer market demand and the availability of the new technology versus say, the relative unavailability or cost to the old.

What? What would you say in response to that Petra? 

Petra: Well, I would say, first of all, that most of the detailed studies of specific energy transitions will show that it's never just around one thing, like cost, technology, it's all of the above, it's always a combination of many things. And so it's really [00:32:00] difficult to make that argument that, you know, in the past, it was like this.

And so it's so different from what is here now. One of the examples that I would give is that single fuel transition from coal to oil, which actually there are so many pieces to that story. When I look at it, for example, for the case of West Germany, and a lot of these pieces have nothing to do with the market that have nothing to do with pricing that have to do all with politics that have to do all with a specific societal aspect.

So, uh, in terms of politics, you know, thinking about how Because in the United States in the late 1950s, you had a mandatory oil import quotas for oil imported by multinationals based in the U. S. from the Middle East. So they needed new markets for various cultural reasons. West Germany after 1945 was one of the most open western markets.

So this is where they would go to. The Marshall Plan. Marshall Plan essentially, right, it gave U. [00:33:00] S. dollar to Western European countries, so that they could buy again U. S. products, commodities, and whatever. That also led to the fact that a lot of oil, uh, really sort of swamped the market in Germany and created a competition for coal that they couldn't win.

But already these two examples show you that There's a lot more to that story that is not just, you know, these are sort of market forces, uh, writing this. I think one of the biggest pieces that energy historians bring to the table as well is to remind people that energy Is that the intersection of markets and politics?

It's never just the 1 or the other. So equally, you know, those who only look at the geopolitics of it for getting the market piece, but it is this intersection. So that that's the 1 thing that I would 1st give as an answer that. You may not really know as much as you think about those past energy [00:34:00] transitions before you tell us that today's ones are so different.

But the question is also, is it really just public policy and political will? Um, it's so easy to forget that. There are generational differences in what people are actually expecting and wanting from future energy systems. That is something that comes out of societies. I mean, here we are, we all love a generation that is probably not as much impacted or, you know, we don't live as long to see some of this, although we probably may, but it's easy to forget.

There's a whole, you know, Generation that's leaving this province, because, for example, they don't want to be in it. So I think it's easy. It's an easy cop out to say. This is something that comes from somewhere out there. It also comes from, you know, those people who live here and now and have certain ideas about this.

And that is something that we've seen in past transitions. [00:35:00] Never will people agree on where of those energy transition should go to and equally. We all need to remember there will always be winners and losers in energy transitions. And the difference is, is there a security net in place that either the state or communities themselves offer that deal with those things?

David: Maybe energy transition is the wrong language to use then maybe this is really better thought about as pollution. So, of course, it's not something from out there. This is a political fight about a pollutant where we're going to restrain ourselves from that pollutant. And if you think about the other, you know, really big ones, the extraordinarily rapid cleanup of air pollution, of water pollution, of some long lived metals, organic chlorines, etc.

Those are things that were all policy. The policy didn't come from outside. Thought over there were people on both sides. Society. It's not clean. It's completely politically driven sense. There was no market drive to do those things. And I think that's the way I think about this. It's more like a [00:36:00] pollution driven thing.

So I agree with you that in electricity sector. Coal versus oil had a lot of politics because it's not the differences aren't that big, but the differences in coal versus oil for land transportation are huge. And I think our technological determinism really tells you a lot there. There's very hard to imagine a world where we had coal fired cars.

Petra: Absolutely, but I mean, transport in itself, there are other ways of organizing transport, of course, but it will also mean that you massively change the way that, for example, workplaces close to you are not that, you know, uh, you're, you have certain expectations about being able to do certain things. I think that's where.

It's, I absolutely agree with you, but equally using West Germany as an example, again, car ownership was very low in the fifties. I was wrong to say 

David: cars. I just mean, uh, transportation. I mean, I mean, all the things that use liquid fuels for motors. So that's marine shipping, [00:37:00] uh, uh, where there was some coal competition, rail, um, Aviation heavy trucks and cars.

And also the thing that that in that initial transition actually was the use for internal combustion was not for what we now think of as cars. It was for delivery vehicles and vehicles inside industrial facilities. So that's that whole range of things that were enabled by liquid fuels in a way that I think is close to deterministic.

So sorry, I was wrong to see I get you. Oh, no, 

Petra: no. And I, and I think that's, that's, that's another piece that we often forget. And this is why it's important to come back to this idea of the high energy society. So how much of that energy uses residential versus commercial? Where do we see the changes? So this is, this is, I think, the problem that we have as we focus in on those energy transitions.

And I agree with you, I don't like the particularly like the term either. And historically, we also know. It really comes up in the seventies as something that we don't like to talk about energy crisis because it's so negative. So let's start talking about something [00:38:00] that, you know, brings us to the future.

And we'll talk about energy transition. Yes, there, there, there is, of course, in the long run, you can see how this is something that while not technologically determined, but you see how everything is put in place and makes sense. What is interesting for the historian, because we like, you know, we like the.

The people, the human, the individual, if we're not economic historians, um, is to really understand, well, how does this play out on a, on a sort of a lived experience and one of the, the, the really exciting things, and that might be useful for our discussions today is that we are all, you know, we are always complicit.

So, the idea of an energy system being a social system is also a reminder for us that. We are part of that system and the way that we have certain expectations and the way that we want to lead our lives makes us, right, complicit in, for example, this high [00:39:00] energy society. And sometimes we are not even aware of this, that because also energy has become so invisible.

In the early energy systems, you have to do the work. You are right beside an energy source. You see all the stuff that goes into it. Nowadays, we are often so removed, uh, when, when I ask students, right, about kind of the, in their daily lives, what kind of energy pieces are happening. Most of these we are not aware of.

And so I, I wonder as well, and discussing, you know, the new energy transition and the Anthropocene, and not to say that, you know, we should all change, but we need to be very aware of the very complicated, complex, uh, situation that we are in. As those people who live that energy system that is defined through certain things.

Ed: Yeah, Petra, the lived experience is very different if you're in Alberta and you have an acid gas pipeline crossing your land, as many rural [00:40:00] Albertans do. I want to touch upon a bit more of your research in a term that is even less liked than energy crisis or perhaps energy transition, and that's deindustrialization.

And we hear about that term. I've heard about it recently. A lot about premature deindustrialization happening in many parts of the developing world. Now, where people who had left rural areas moved to cities for factory jobs are already being. Displaced by, by AI and automation, but you've looked at, I think, not premature de industrialization, but regular de industrialization in the rural region of Germany.

I know you're touching a bit about sort of West Germany, but maybe just a minute or two on that research in particular, and some of the lessons that you've 

Petra: drawn from it. You know, it's interesting whether it's even might've been a premature de industrialization because, you know, for various. Um, and one of the reasons this already happens in West Germany in the late 1950s, um, it was essentially West German coal.

[00:41:00] Couldn't compete with, as I mentioned, the introduction of oil, but equally also with uh, imported U. S. oil, uh, U. S. coal, sorry, which, you know, is, uh, German coal is much deeper in the earth than U. S. coal. Generally the wage structure is very different than the late 1950s, still very high earners in West Germany, because they also are seen as fueling Germany's economic miracle.

So for various reasons, we have. the contraction of the industry already starting in 59. And of course, de industrialization, you can look at it in two ways. It's the contraction of industry. It's, it's kind of the loss of production, but it's also the loss of unemployment, the loss of employment. And so they don't always sort of go hand in hand.

Uh, and so what we are, what I've been looking at with some other colleagues and a project on de industrialization. Is to understand what happens with those many, many workers in the industry. If we do see the [00:42:00] industrialization in a Western context, and the example of Germany that we have, and this is why I'm so fascinated by it looking at what.

Potentially could happen to an Alberta energy industry is what happens to these people. And there are 2 things that I find really interesting that comes out of this research. First of all, you really create a political problem of people are not consulted. If people are not part of the conversation, and if people are immediately stigmatized because they stand up for their industry.

Um, we have to, whether we like that industry or not, I think we have to acknowledge there is much more related to the industry providing a job and a workplace identities are constructed around these industries, even beyond those who are, who are employed by the industry. So that's the one of the lessons that we've seen that you need to bring the pa people to the pa to the table.

You need to understand their [00:43:00] fears, and you need to acknowledge that there's much more than it's just a job. What if we give you another job, you know, would that help? The second piece is, in the West German case, but this is also a different time and a different country, both the, what would be the provincial government and the federal government stepped in and really kind of, um, smoothed That's transition.

So there was realization that there'll be a lot of people who we who will no longer have jobs in that industry. So what should happen on the macro level, for example, new industries were attracted a still a manufacturing. So, car manufacturers, uh, Nokia in the 90s, you know, the, the telephone that was brought to the region, of course, with subsidies.

Right. I mean, you're competing with other locations in the world. The 2nd piece was that education became a priority. So, our region, the rural region didn't have [00:44:00] universities. You know, that was not, it was an industrial carnivation. So, universities was founded and so that people like myself will come out of mining family 1st generations.

Actually got go to these kind of universities and take degrees. And then the third piece was, and that was a massive under, uh, taking between, um, the company and the government was to make sure that you phase out these people with a social plan. So, my dad started working at age 53, but he didn't lose his, his, you know, payment.

A lot of the younger generations were retrained, and that was all paid for by the government. So, for a lot of people, they look towards West Germany as an example that worked. Where, um, a whole industry was transitioned out, but without creating the problems that you may have seen in the northern regions of the UK, um, [00:45:00] or elsewhere.

The caveat is, it worked in Germany and it worked at the time. That doesn't mean that it will work in other jurisdictions and today, because as, as I said. There's a lot of competition, right, uh, in terms of, uh, attracting particular industries, being able to provide subsidies. Also, there's globalization.

Most of these countries entered WTO. There are certain rules with the exception of an escape clause where you can use national security arguments, but generally you can't just do, right, and, and throw all the money at those kind of industries. So it's an interesting example that Isn't necessarily transferable, but it teaches us a couple of very fundamental lessons.

And that is, you need to start planning early. You need to bring in those who will be the ones for whom lives will change. And you will have to respect. [00:46:00] Um, those kind of positions, not as, you know, as something that people don't understand what's at stake, but as something that is, this is people's identities.

That's kind of, I guess, what the historian can bring to that discussion. 

Sara: It's a really interesting story. I mean, also the general point that you're making, I take, which is that, you know, the history doesn't have all the answers for us. It's not like there's a blueprint we can, we can follow. But I mean, the one thing that jumps out at me, aside from all those other differences you just listed, is of course, the very difference.

approach that we see the province taking around that. I noted down, you said realization and planning, um, that this change is happening. And I, you know, I, I remain convinced that that is still very much not happening here in Alberta. Um, and honestly, very concerning to me as an Albertan in terms of, of, you know, trying to smooth that transition or prepare for it at least.

You can't 

Petra: expect the market. I think that's the one. Less than that we have seen. You cannot expect the market to correct that. 

Ed: Yeah, just put a plug in for a past show that we did last season [00:47:00] with DeRay Vino from Hanna, which is a cold transition affected community. If you're interested in the topic, check it out.

We had a wonderful conversation. Okay, let's get to questions. And Karen Spencer, you have a question for Petra and the rest of us. So 

Audience Member: I'm just thinking back to the major drivers for energy transitions because we started out talking about historical transitions. And really, Petra, you mentioned, you know, it's a big industrial push where you see, uh, say the oil companies or whoever, um, pushing it for, for industrial growth.

But I also see on the consumer side in the past anyways, it's been a, a real drive to change that it's not a luxury anymore. It's a need, like, like you said, we, we all decide we have to live, or it's really, really good to live at a higher level of energy consumption for, for example. And now you look at what we're doing though, and the change really going from say, fossil fuels to electricity or nuclear or whatever the case may be is, is, you know, is that in [00:48:00] the same category?

Cause we're really, the consumer's life is already pretty good. How is the sales job going? And it's tough to incent the consumer. And I know as I wrote that, I was thinking, well, we have the carbon tax here. And instead of incenting the consumer, we're kind of pounding him on the head saying, if you continue to buy this, the price of this is higher, but it's a tough job because I don't think we see it as a need or an obvious need anymore for the consumer.

Petra: That's a very good question. It also, it's one of those things that differentiates even the 19th from the 20th century, right? That there's so much more, um, disposable income that can go into these things. I mean, there's only a certain amount of things that you will need, but then once you pass that threshold into all those things that you could have, it becomes more and more difficult, right, to create this, or as you mentioned this, this idea of the sales job around specific, um, things.

But I should mention that even in the 19th century, like, um, [00:49:00] where we see, you know, of course you would want to switch from whale oil to something else because it's actually, it's a better light, uh, you know, it's, it's, it has all the advantages in terms of comfort. But even that will always take a while to convince people.

We know, for example, with the introduction of electricity, especially in the homes, a lot of women were absolutely, uh, anxious about this because it was a completely different way. Like a, they were much more visible as you can imagine, you know, before when you have that. Sort of non electricity lighting in a house and this is Victorian time period where you didn't necessarily want to be as visible as you are with electricity, but equally the standards of cleaning changed.

Because if, you know, I mean, just think about it when you, you laugh, but this is a massive thing that we see in all the diaries of these women who, you [00:50:00] know, full runner that they are introduce electricity in the homes and the biggest thing is that now you see everything. So. It doesn't even create less work.

Um, there are other things around the introduction of washing machines, dishwashers, um, where the expectation is. And I have to say very often by male advertisers that, you know, this will really sort of, um, make life of, of the housewife much more convenient. But what they don't. Consider though, is it changes certain expectations.

So actually it adds a new level of, of something. Uh, if you have a washing machine, then all of a sudden, you know, you need to do this every second day because the expectation is now a very different in terms of how clean certain things are or, uh, um, around dishwasher. So it's a really, and looking at the consumer, it's not a clear cut story because we just have so many evidence.

In the past, [00:51:00] where people and we would say, why would they be against this? But, you know, people are not, they're not rational actors, not in the way that an economic theory may make them. 

David: You're here on that. I'll jump in for one second as the son of a feminist historian who had me reading a book about that, about that.

Upselling of expectations for femininity and in households as they needed to from the male perspective needed to get women not working again after the war and kind of reestablish the social order. So yes, yes, 

Sara: I'm going to, I'm going to go turn the lights off and realize that I don't have to do any more vacuuming for the rest of the week.

I think as an answer, um, there's two things that, that I would maybe just, you know, add an addition from my perspective, as far as like consumer adoption. I think there is this barrier that comes from we're much more likely to accept kind of the inconveniences that are, you know, already, we're already used to with a given technology.

Right? So I like this example with an electric vehicle versus an internal combustion engine vehicle where, you know, people are [00:52:00] sort of used to having to change the oil or get the oil changed in their car every 6 months. And so, you know, when you sort of ask them, well, now, if you're going to have to plug your vehicle in, especially say on a road trip, Um, they're more likely to kind of see the things that are newly difficult and not kind of calculate the things that are going to actually save them time, right?

And the fact that if they're, you know, driving that hot car mostly from home and they can plug it in at home, then they may actually spend much less time fueling their vehicle than they do today. But, but, you know, there's this sort of new part to it. I think the other one in this. You know, it's an area that I think people get uncomfortable with, but it, but it comes back to again, this idea of like at a certain level using more energy undeniably improves our standard of living.

But I think that there is some ceiling to that. Right. And once you have your basic needs met and you know, your basic needs plus or whatever that is, then it's not always that more energy is going to, you know, make you better off. Right. And I think we are approaching that level in, or. You know, arguably have approached that level at least for, [00:53:00] for certain people in the population, say in a country like Canada, of course, it's, there's a lack of equality and all these kinds of things.

But I think that's also an important part of the conversation, um, that I am afraid we're running out of time of, so I'll have to hand things back over to Ed. 

Ed: Yeah. I, I, I hate to be, uh, the Grinch who's going to shut down the conversation early, but I have some vacuuming to do. So I'm afraid I need to get and do that.

So, Petra, thank you so much. I really felt that our conversation today, in addition to being a new topic that we've covered, it also helped to brought together other conversations that we've had in the past on on EBC. I mentioned our conversation with Dre Fino, I think of Greg Nemeth, University of Wisconsin, when we talked about learning curves and what can and cannot apply to future technology, innovation and commercialization from solar's rapid penetration, especially in the past 10 years.

And even thinking of the last one that we had with Kim Stanley Robinson, which if you think was not a history of energy transition, it was a forecast of [00:54:00] a potential energy transition. That's to your point around West Germany's good job of smoothing energy transitions. That one was anything but smooth.

That was a very bumpy ride, but There is a successful energy transition by the end of it. So thanks, you managed to pull together a whole bunch of themes together in one conversation. 

Petra: Thank you. 

Ed: Thanks for listening to Energy vs. Climate. The show is created by David Keith, Sarah Hastings Simon, and me, Ed Whittingham, and produced by Amit Tandon, with help from Crystal Hickey, Serena Gibson, and Talia Grinnell.

Our title and show music is The Wind Up. This season of Energy vs. Climate is produced with support from the University of Calgary's Office of the Vice President, Research, and the University's Global Research Initiative. Further support comes from the Troche Family Foundation, the North Family Foundation, and our generous listeners.

Sign up for updates and exclusive webinar access. At energy versus climate. com and review and rate us on your [00:55:00] favorite podcast platform. This helps new listeners to find the show. We'll be back in early March with a show looking at heavy oil production in Canada's oil sands. The special guest, Dr. Andrew Leach of the University of Alberta.

See you then.