Doctoral Dissertation Research: Making Sustainability Through Life Cycle Assessment of U.S. Renewable Energy Projects

该奖项支持博士论文研究，重点是决定可持续性在可再生能源系统中的意义，特别是太阳能和风能。它旨在了解如何将太阳能和风能的环境和社会效益的假设纳入可持续发展的最佳实践和政策。PI将对美国的“可持续性工程”进行广泛的概念分析，旨在了解其认识论和政治根源。他还将在加州开发两个太阳能和风能项目的案例研究。的西羚羊谷，了解可再生能源技术的生命周期评估（LCA）的政治。智力优点该项目将建立在环境科学和技术研究和工程研究的见解。它将映射专业身份形成和可持续性概念化之间的联系，因为它们反映了越来越多地挑战美国工程的规范性世界观。它将探讨LCA如何以及为什么在定义可持续性方面变得更加主导的政治，并将探讨社区，监管机构，活动家工程师和非政府组织对LCA的不同观点的潜力。最后，它引发了对更广泛问题的思考：谁是绿色工程师？更广泛的影响本研究的结果将通过在领先的STS，工程和能源政策期刊上的出版物，并通过在多学科和跨学科会议上的演讲广泛传播。通过报告和出版物，将及时向STS、工程和政策研究人员提供这项研究产生的数据。PI计划与联邦、州和地方机构合作，以有利于政策制定者的形式分析他的结果。基于这些结果，他将创建一个跨学科的互联网项目，旨在从工程角度提高对可持续性的理解。

Project OverviewThis award supports doctoral dissertation research focuses on the politics of deciding what sustainability means in renewable energy systems, particularly solar and wind energy. It aims to understand how assumptions about the environmental and societal benefits of solar and wind energy are built into sustainability best practices and policies. The PI will provide a broad conceptual analysis of "sustainability engineering" in the US that aims to understand its epistemological and political roots. He will also develop two case studies of solar and wind project development in California?s West Antelope Valley, to understand the politics of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in renewable technologies.Intellectual Merit The project will build on insights from Environmental Science and Technology Studies and on Engineering Studies. It will map the connections between professional identity-formation and conceptualization of sustainability as they reflect a spectrum of normative worldviews that increasingly challenge American engineering. It will explore the politics of how and why LCAs have become more dominant in defining sustainability, and it will explore the potential for different views of LCA to be advanced by communities, regulators, activists-engineers, and NGOs. Finally, it prompts reflection on the broader question: Who is a green engineer?Broader ImpactsThe results of this study will be disseminated broadly through publications in leading STS, engineering, and energy policy journals and through presentations in multi and interdisciplinary conferences. Through reports and publications, the data generated by this study will be made available in a timely manner to STS, engineering and policy researchers. The PI plans to partner with federal, state, and local agencies to analyze his results in formats useful to policy makers. Based on these results, he will create an interdisciplinary, internet-run project, aimed at improving the comprehension of sustainability from an engineering perspective.