Doctoral Dissertation Research: Navigating and Negotiating Multiple Energy Futures and Infrastructures

新能源的开发，加上其成本的急剧下降，正在给美国社会带来新的机会和挑战。这一变化不仅仅代表了一种技术转变，因为它影响了我国几个地区的就业和经济组织。能源运输基础设施在能源系统的设计和重新设计中发挥着关键作用，使之能够扩大这种系统的规模，从而更充分和更有效地利用新能源。由于这几个变化，关于获得新能源的最佳方式的公开对话提供了关于能源变化的影响的重要信息，特别是向消费者运输新能源的问题。该项目将分析这些公共对话，以评估它们的动态以及它们的经济和社会影响。对这些案例的分析将帮助我们理解这些价值观和未来愿景如何通过围绕哪些基础设施建设做出的决定而变得实质性地根深蒂固。该项目的调查结果将告知能源行业的转型如何演变以及如何由特定社区和我们的社会更广泛地管理，从而向负责管理能源创造、监管和使用的政策的几个级别的政策制定者提供信息。该项目调查围绕三个与能源相关的基础设施提案的公众和政策对话，这些提案涵盖能源运输。该项目依赖于一种多方法方法，结合了对关键利益攸关方的65次半结构化深度访谈、对30多家地方和国家报纸的内容分析，以及来自监管机构、行业合作伙伴和社会运动组织的关键政策和档案材料。访谈将集中于收集描述性会计和利益相关者对事件的看法、正式审查流程以及围绕每个拟议项目的后续对话，以分析为什么以及如何对每个项目进行评估、讨论，以及如何解决和发展能源创造和使用的相互竞争的愿景。通过媒体内容分析，该项目将了解每个项目是如何在区域范围内形成框架的，因此这些媒体框架是如何与各个利益攸关方和利益攸关方团体所倡导的媒体框架在时间和能源方面的情况下汇聚或背离的。档案文件内容分析将阐明联邦和州监管结构和政策制度是如何影响每一次讨论的。通过能源基础设施项目的比较案例研究，该项目将围绕当今社会中存在的不同能源制度构建新的对话和评估。调查结果将为有关能源使用、社区转型和社会变化的社会学理论提供信息。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The development of new sources of energy coupled with the dramatic decline in their costs are creating new opportunities and challenges in United States society. This change represents more than a technological shift because it impacts employment and economic organization in several parts of our country. Energy transport infrastructures play a key role in the design and re-design of energy systems by making it possible to scale up such systems, thus more fully and efficiently using new energy sources. Because of these several changes, public conversations about the best ways to access new energy sources provide important information regarding the implications of change in energy sources, particularly the issues of transporting new energy sources to consumers. This project will analyze these public conversations to assess their dynamics as well as their economic and social impacts. Analysis of these cases will help us to understand how these values and visions of the future can become materially embedded through the decisions made around which infrastructures are built. Findings from the project will inform how transitions in the energy industry evolve and are managed by specific communities and by our society more generally, thus informing policymakers at several levels who are responsible for policy governing energy creation, regulation and usage. This project investigates the public and policy conversations surrounding three energy related infrastructure proposals that cover energy transportation. This project relies on a multi-methods approach combining 65 semi-structured in-depth interviews of key stakeholders, content analysis of over 30 local and national newspapers, and key policy and archival materials from regulatory agencies, industry partners, and social movement organizations. Interviews will focus on collecting descriptive accounting and stakeholder perceptions of the events, formal review processes, and subsequent conversations around each proposed project in order to analyze why and how each project was evaluated, discussed, and how competing visions of energy creation and usage were resolved and evolved. Through media content analysis, the project will understand how each project was regionally framed and therefore how these media frames converged with or deviated from those advocated by individual stakeholders and stakeholder groups, across time and the energy cases. The archival document content analysis will shed light on how the federal and state regulatory structures and policy regimes have shaped each discussion. Through this comparative case study of energy infrastructure projects, this project will construct the emerging conversations around and evaluations of the different energy regimes present in our society today. Findings will inform sociological theories regarding energy usage, community transformation, and social change.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.