The Energy Blog

Welcome to The Energy Blog, the CEE’s online forum for all things energy! Launched in 2020, the Blog is an open and interdisciplinary space featuring short reflection pieces informed by the latest energy research from the Centre and beyond. We explore key energy issues of contemporary relevance: from legacies of energy industries to the future of nuclear power, from the politics of gas infrastructures to the potential of hydrogen. Our contributors include geographers, historians, social anthropologists, ecologists, physicists, and even astronomers. We are always keen to hear from new contributors, so if you have an idea to pitch, please write to us at [email protected].

Grangemouth: A Story of Unjust Transition?

Grangemouth: A Story of Unjust Transition?

by Riyoko Shibe

Scotland has a proud – and extensive – energy history. For much of the 20th century, the refinery at Grangemouth was a major hub around which a community not only formed but flourished. However, this was not to last. After decades of stagnation, the refinery is set to close in 2025. What lessons can we learn from Grangemouth’s history? Can this Scottish town help inform the nation’s transition away from fossil fuels?

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What I learned biking to work in Texas

What I learned biking to work in Texas

by Andy Guido Eskenazi

I don’t drive. Having lived in cities with robust public transportation systems and extensive bike lane networks, this was never an issue. However, my choice not to get behind the wheel was to be tested from December 2022 when I took a job in Austin, Texas.

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Understanding Domestic Energy Practices as Situated Phenomena in Kenya

Understanding Domestic Energy Practices as Situated Phenomena in Kenya

by Serena Saligari

The process of transitioning to cleaner fuel sources is often portrayed as a simple linear progression. In the promotion of such transitions, economic factors regularly take priority. This piece, based on fieldwork in rural Kenya, challenges this singular approach. Energy sources, especially those relating to domestic use, may be socially embedded, making the decision to transition to alternative sources more complex than a simple economic choice.

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New York City’s War on Pizza? Pollution and Politics in the Age of Outrage

New York City’s War on Pizza? Pollution and Politics in the Age of Outrage

by James Crooks

Outrage discourses have become increasingly commonplace in all forms of media. Recently, proposed regulations in New York City regarding wood- and coal-burning cook stoves – dubbed by some ‘New York’s War on Pizza’ – have been the focus. What can we learn from this and how can this episode inform our own communications strategies when promoting complex or nuanced climate or energy-related actions?

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Tehran: The Petroleum Capital

Tehran: The Petroleum Capital

by Roya Khoshnevis

Since the beginning of the 20th century, Tehran’s development has been closely linked with the oil industry. However, this connection to oil and petroleum culture has created its own set of challenges for the country’s ability to moving toward renewable energy practices.

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From the Roots Up: A Summer of Research on the St Andrews Forest  

From the Roots Up: A Summer of Research on the St Andrews Forest  

by Victoria Lee

With concrete goals and a focus on community planning, the St Andrews Forest is shaping up to be a great climate action initiative. But one vital next step in its development is identifying specific data that need to be collected from forest locations in order to quantify progress towards its goals of carbon sequestration, supporting biodiversity, and ecosystem services. Through the University’s 2022 Summer Teams Enterprise Programme (STEP), a team of seven St Andrews undergraduate students from across degree programmes and with diverse backgrounds were brought together to create a draft protocol for assessing the benefits of the Forest programme.

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Natural Gas in the UK, Part 2: Potential Winter Blackouts and the Grid

Natural Gas in the UK, Part 2: Potential Winter Blackouts and the Grid

by Sean Field

In Part 2 of this series, Dr Field explains how the UK’s energy crisis is a dual predicament: an energy price crisis, and an energy supply crisis. The UK’s electrical grid is balanced on the wholesale market for natural gas; as wholesale prices rise, people are pushed into energy poverty. Building on Part 1, he demonstrates how natural gas dependency and insufficient UK natural gas storage capacities are threatening electricity blackouts this winter (as well as a crisis of heating), concluding that this crisis was foreseeable and avoidable.

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Energy Harvesting, Internet of Things and Sustainability: A Fascinating Trio

Energy Harvesting, Internet of Things and Sustainability: A Fascinating Trio

by Lethy Krishnan Jagadamma

The energy trilemma describes the difficulty in achieving a coherent balance of clean, affordable, and secure energy. Improvements in one factor in the triangle distorts the other components. In this blog post, I explore how ‘smart technologies’, connected by the internet and powered by new ambient energy harvesting devices, can be vital to overcoming the energy trilemma and to achieving energy sustainability.

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