Date: 27 September
Time: 15.30 - 17.00

Program

15:30: Intro (Zane Datava, William Throndsen) 
15:35: William Throndsen.   Transitioning the oil industry: renewable energy adventures on Norwegian oil and gas money 
15:50: Birgitte Nygaard. The quest for Norwegian offshore wind in the age of crisis– moving fairytale to adventure? 
16:05: Franziska Gehlmann. The mass adoption of electric cars in Norway – has the fairytale been disenchanted? 
16:20: Anna-Sophie Hobi. Expecting industrial growth and managing its impacts in a Norwegian battery town. 
16:35: Fernanda Guaselli. Imagining AI-driven energy futures: sociotechnical imaginaries of professionals in the smart tech industry.  
16:50: Sum-up, discussion (Zane Datava, William Throndsen) 

Transformations in energy regimes revolve around imagined futures, which are again made up of anticipative stories about how a desired future will be realised. An important sub-genre among these imaginaries are success stories. In Norway, the times have been marked by energy imaginaries first of hydro power, then of oil and gas, and now of renewable energy. To mention just a few of these, there is the electrification of society by way of large-scale wind farms, rollouts of solar panels fitted to housing and commercial buildings, building of battery factories, and the production of hydrogen and its implementation into industrial processes. As Battery Norway puts it in their promotional video: “If not in Norway, then where else?”  

This idea is based on characteristics of Nordic nature – the ready access to water, wind, land, and minerals, both above and under the ground. When we look back at instances where energy came together with the availability of resources and potential for jobs and economic growth, we often refer to it as an eventyr, a Norwegian word that in this context could be understood as an “adventure” but could also mean “fairy tale”.  

These processes of renewable energy transformations are built on imaginaries of sustainability and a greener future, as well as jobs and economic growth. They are based on a notion of abundance of resource and land. But as is often seen in Nordic landscapes, people who use the land already may be negatively impacted. This is not just apparent in the case of the indigenous people of the Nordic, but in urban areas as well, as we have seen controversy surrounding both the sites of battery factories as well as the Fosen wind farm project.  

For this session we invite abstracts that deal with the study of Nordic Renewable Energy Success Stories in some way, present or past, as we try to separate the fairy tales from the real adventures, an understand especially how this mode of imaginary deals with alignment of actors and management of controversy. 

Organizers

Zane Datava, Department of interdisciplinary studies of culture
William Throndsen, Department of interdisciplinary studies of culture

Contact: Zane Datava