Source: The Conversation – in French– By Rachida Bouhid, Ph.D Scholar, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
Nuclear, hydrogen, electrification, carbon capture: the energy transition seems to offer a plurality of solutions to decarbonize our economies. But behind this apparent diversity, a more discreet phenomenon is at work. Each technological choice sustainably steers the possible trajectories, reinforcing certain options and marginalizing others. Far from being strictly a matter of innovation, the energy transition is a process of selection and locking in futures.
A transition reduced to a technical problem
In dominant political and economic discourse, the energy transition is often thought of as a problem of technological optimization. The decarbonization scenarios produced by institutions such as theInternational Energy Agencyor theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Changeidentify combinations of technologies allowing the achievement of carbon neutrality, based on their cost, maturity, and emission reduction potential.
Thus, this instrumental approach tends to present technologies as a set of adjustable variables serving a global objective. It would involve identifying the solutions considered most effective to guide the transition towards a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and then ensuring their large-scale deployment.
However, as shown by thework in social studies of sciences and policies, and as highlighted by several reports from theWorld Bankand of theOECD, energy technologies are not inserted into neutral systems. On the contrary, they integrate into existing infrastructures and help shape them, define their contours, and structure the possible responses.
In the energy sector, this dimension is particularly decisive insofar as technical systems are closely intertwinedto existing institutions, economic models, and complex social universes. From then on, the energy transition is not just about replacing “brown” technologies with “green” technologies. Rather, it is a process of conditioning and structural development of sociotechnical systems in which technological choices play a structuring role.
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Technologies as devices for guiding trajectories
Theliterature on sociotechnical transitionsemphasizes that energy systems evolve within frameworks outlined by previous models. This dependence partially results from technical constraints, as each technology requires specific infrastructures, distinct supply chains, and different actors.
For example, the development of large-scale hydrogen sectors, strongly promoted in strategiesCanadianandEuropeans, assumes significant investments in transportation and storage networks and the implementation of specific infrastructures linked to existing gas networks. This choice tends to favor continuity with certain industrial and energy models, notably in sectors that are difficult to electrify. Conversely, a strategy focused on the direct electrification of uses implies a deeper transformation of infrastructures and consumption patterns but offers significant energy efficiency gains.
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These choices, although they resemble mere technical decisions, contain a precise direction of financial flows and shape the available industrial skills. Gradually, each new infrastructure, each investment, each technical standard helps reduce the feasible alternatives.
Alternative pathways are becoming fewer and increasingly difficult to reverse even in the short term. Even more decisive, as pointed out by thereport of the United Nations Environment Programme, current investment decisions will have decisive effects on the energy landscape of the coming decades.
The construction of “technological realism”
One of the most subtle effects of these dynamics lies in the way they redefine what is perceived as “realistic” or “credible” in public debate. As a technology gains visibility and institutional support, it establishes itself as an obvious choice, pushing other options into the background.
This phenomenon can be analyzed through the concept of“social construction of expectations”(sociotechnical expectations). According to this notion, the promises associated with certain technologies play a central role in guiding investments and public policies. Technologies are therefore not only evaluated based on their current performance, but also on the futures they promise.
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In this context, certain solutions, such as carbon capture or hydrogen, benefit from strong visibility, partly because they fit intoexisting industrial and institutional frameworks. Conversely, approaches such as energy sobriety or structural demand reduction remain marginalized, not because of their inefficiency, but because they do not align with the dominant logics of innovation and growth.
However, theNet Zero Lifestyle reportemphasizes that changes in household behavior and, more broadly, energy use practices could contribute to nearly 40% of the emission reductions needed in scenarios compatible with 1.5°C.
This asymmetry reflects an implicit hierarchy between the solutions, in which the technologies involved in maintaining existing economic structures are favored. Thus, technological “realism” is constructed and helps steer the transition towards certain trajectories at the expense of others, thereby gradually reducing possible futures.
Technological neutrality and the implicit selection of futures
Taken as a whole, these mechanisms show that every technological choice implicitly commits to the configuration of the corresponding energy system (centralized or decentralized, intensive or frugal, continuous or transformative). Once these decisions are made, they tend to reinforce and limit the capacity to consider alternatives.
In thepublic policy spheres, the idea of technological neutrality is invoked as not favoring any particular technology and letting the market determine the most efficient solutions. In fact, this neutrality is largely illusory. Technological choices are always oriented, whether through public investments, tax incentives, or regulatory frameworks. And these choices have lasting effects on transition trajectories.
Recognizing this dimension is not synonymous with abandoning innovation, but rather commits us to making explicit the trade-offs underlying energy policies and to opening the debate on the futures that technologies help to build or exclude. Each technology carries within it a certain vision of the future. We are no longer faced with the question of which technologies are “green,” but with understanding what they make possible, because the energy transition is not a path to transforming our energy sources, but fundamentally constitutes an opportunity to guide the futures accessible to our societies.
Rachida Bouhid does not work for, does not advise, does not hold shares in, does not receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no affiliation other than her research institution.
–ref. Choices with heavy consequences: the hidden side of green technologies –https://theconversation.com/choices-with-heavy-consequences-the-hidden-face-of-green-technologies-281210