Bio

Rune Korgaard is an MA in history from UCPH with supplementary studies in political and social science. He is currently working as a PhD-Fellow affiliated with the Center for Sustainable Futures at the SAXO-Institute, University of Copenhagen. His PhD project investigates the history of pro-nuclear environmentalism in Europe and beyond.

Abstract

One of the most challenging aspects of current attempts to combat climate change is the commonly held a view that global demand for energy will continue to grow. Particularly global demand for electricity is set to grow at unprecedented rates according to the International Energy Agency, whose yearly World Energy Outlook guides investment decisions of western political and industrial elites. But how did we come to view the globe as a common unit of energy consumption in the first place? This presentation unearths the history of global energy demand as an object of foreknowledge – from its infancy in the US Atomic Energy Commission in the early 1950s to its contested place in the energy-climate modelling infrastructure today. The presentation will depart from Jasanoff’s dictum that scientific knowledge is co-produced with visions of societal orders. It will describe a shift from econometric modelling to complex, and thus more sensitive, systems approaches to the representation of future global energy demand during the post war period and highlight some connections to contemporary modelling. It argues that this transformation was not simply a linear process of methodological refinement but a result of political conflicts over the global energy system – particularly the future role of nuclear power in it – that lead to a fragmented, and perhaps incongruent, landscape of projective and teleological modelling approaches. Foregrounding these struggles adds new perspectives to the history of the vast machines informing energy-climate action today and may inspire alternative global energy futures.

Tea/coffee, cake and fruit will be served @2pm.