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In ''[[Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power]]'' (2011) Sovacool says, following a detailed analysis, that there is a "consensus among a broad base of independent, nonpartisan experts that nuclear power plants are a poor choice for producing electricity", and that "energy efficiency programs and renewable power technologies are better than nuclear power plants".<ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/suppl/10.1142/7895/suppl_file/7895_chap08.pdf |title=Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power |author=Benjamin K. Sovacool |year=2011 |publisher=[[World Scientific]] |pages=248–250 |doi=10.1142/7895 |isbn=978-981-4322-75-1 }}</ref>
In ''[[Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power]]'' (2011) Sovacool says, following a detailed analysis, that there is a "consensus among a broad base of independent, nonpartisan experts that nuclear power plants are a poor choice for producing electricity", and that "energy efficiency programs and renewable power technologies are better than nuclear power plants".<ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/suppl/10.1142/7895/suppl_file/7895_chap08.pdf |title=Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power |author=Benjamin K. Sovacool |year=2011 |publisher=[[World Scientific]] |pages=248–250 |doi=10.1142/7895 |isbn=978-981-4322-75-1 }}</ref>

Sovacool and two coauthors purported to reach similar conclusions in the their 2016 article “Nuclear Energy and path dependence in Europe’s ‘Energy union’: coherence or continued divergence?”. <ref> {{cite journal |last1=Lawrence |first1=Andrew |last2=Sovacool |first2=Benjamin |last3=Stirling |first3=Andrew |year=2016 |title=Nuclear energy and path dependence in Europe’s ‘Energy Union’: coherence or continued divergence? |url= https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14693062.2016.1179616 |journal=[[Climate Policy (journal)|Climate Policy]] |volume=16 |issue= 5 |pages=622–641 |doi=10.1080/14693062.2016.1179616 |access-date=2020-10-06 }} </ref> However, the paper’s data and methods were quickly called into question. <ref>{{cite web |url= https://thompson.energy/2016/10/12/a-response-to-lawrence-sovacool-and-stirling/ |author=Nicholas Thompson |date=2016-10-12 |website= |access-date=2020-10-06}}</ref> In particular, the paper, although 21 pages in length, was found to contain almost no data. The time period of the data it did contain seemed to be cherry-picked in order to reach the paper’s conclusions. Likewise, the paper’s data analysis relied on highly misleading calculations that seemed to intentionally downplay the emissions reductions achieved by large countries (e.g. France) through the construction of nuclear power plants, whole exaggerating the emissions reductions achieved by small countries (e.g. Iceland) through the use of renewable energy sources. Additionally, the paper exaggerated the effects of renewable energy growth by obfuscating the impacts of preexisting renewable capacity (e.g. hydroelectric facilities). Sovacool and his coauthors were ultimately forced to retract the paper when Nicholas Thompson published these errors on his blog (see citation above). Thompson demonstrated that the paper’s math was incorrect, its method was incorrect, its starting year was cherrypicked to achieve the desired results, its results lack statistical significance, and it ignores per capita emissions. Stripped of factual and methodological validity, the paper nevertheless serves as a powerful testament to the authors’ dislike of nuclear power.

Undeterred by this thorough dismantling, in 2020 Sovacool and four coauthors published an article, titled “Differences in carbon emissions reduction between countries pursuing renewable electricity versus nuclear power”, that reached strikingly similar conclusions. <ref> {{cite journal |last1=Sovacool |first1=Benjamin K. |last2=Schmid |first2=Patrick |last3=Stirling |first3=Andy |last4=Walter |first4=Goetz |last5=MacKerron |first5=Gordon |year=2020 |title=Differences in carbon emissions reduction between countries pursuing renewable electricity versus nuclear power |url= https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00696-3 |journal=[[Nature Energy (journal)|Nature Energy]] |volume= |issue= |pages= |doi=10.1038/s41560-020-00696-3 |access-date=2020-10-06 }}</ref> This article again claimed that countries become less effective at reducing carbon emissions once they opt to build nuclear power plants. However, initial responses found that this paper, too, relied on faulty premises and made a number of highly questionable methodological choices. <ref>{{cite web |url= https://twitter.com/gilbeaq/status/1313457739612459010 |author= |date=2020-10-06 |website= |access-date=2020-10-06}}</ref> For instance, as with the retracted 2016 paper, this one chose to analyze only those specific time periods that would support its claim—-in this case, skipping the rapid buildout of nuclear power plants in the 1960s-1980s. Moreover, its results seem to ignore the fact that (A) most countries with nuclear power plants are wealthy, industrialized societies with inherently elevated per-capita carbon emissions, and (B) most countries that added large quantities of renewable energy capacity during the study period were less-developed countries building hydroelectric facilities (which, unlike nuclear power plants, can be built with support from development banks). Therefore, the paper’s dataset begins with thirty rich countries that have inherently higher-than-average per capita emissions and compares them with more than one hundred other poor countries that have inherently below-average per capita emissions. Conflating hydroelectric dams with wind and solar power, it then performs a simple regression to claim that the construction of nuclear power plants do not lead to substantial per capita emissions reductions, while the construction of renewables does. The paper’s conclusion that nuclear power can only offer inferior emissions reductions, along with its claim that we should choose renewables instead of nuclear power, stand in stark opposition to the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has found that there is no scenario under which humans can achieve our collective climate goals without expanded the use of nuclear power. <ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/ |author= |date= |website= |access-date=2020-10-06}}</ref>


===Books===
===Books===

Revision as of 07:06, 9 October 2020

Benjamin K. Sovacool
Benjamin K. Sovacool
Benjamin K. Sovacool, May 2010
Alma materVirginia Tech
Known for
AwardsDedication to Diversity and Justice Award (2015)
Scientific career
Institutions

Benjamin K. Sovacool is director of the Danish Center for Energy Technology at the Department of Business Technology and Development and a professor of social sciences at Aarhus University. He is also professor of energy policy at the University of Sussex, where he directs both the Center on Innovation and Energy Demand, one of six End Use Energy Demand Centres in the United Kingdom, and the Sussex Energy Group. His research interests include energy policy, environmental issues, and science and technology policy. He is the author or editor of eighteen books and 300 peer-reviewed academic articles and chapters and has written opinion editorials for The Wall Street Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle. Sovacool is editor-in-chief of Energy Research & Social Science, which explores the interactions between energy systems and society.

Education

  • 2006—Ph.D., Science and Technology Studies, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, United States
  • 2005—M.S./Graduate Certificates, Science Policy, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, United States
  • 2003—M.A., Rhetoric, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, United States
  • 2001—B.A., Philosophy and Communication Studies, John Carroll University, Cleveland, OH, United States

Academic experience

Sovacool is Director of the Center for Energy Technology and professor of business and social sciences at Aarhus University in Denmark.[1][2] He is also Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.[3] He was formerly associate professor at Vermont Law School and founding director of the Energy Security & Justice Program. This was located within the Institute for Energy and Environment, which aims to "expand global access to sustainable energy and craft national energy policies that adapt to climate change without worsening socioeconomic inequality".[4] The program, in cooperation with the MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Asia Research Institute, and the National University of Singapore, has published a series of case studies examining energy security in Asia.[4] Sovacool lectures on energy security, alternative and renewable energy, environmental economics, and energy policy.[5]

Sovacool is a Lead Author to the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) on "Mitigation and development pathways in the near-to mid-term". He also served in 2012 as an Erasmus Mundus Visiting Scholar at Central European University in Hungary. He has often consulted for the Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Program, and United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.[5] He was awarded the Dedication to Diversity and Justice Award from the American Bar Association in 2015.[6]

Research

Sovacool's main area of interest is energy policy. At the National University of Singapore, he led research projects supported by the MacArthur Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation about improving energy security for impoverished rural Asian communities.[5]

Publications

Sovacool has authored numerous academic articles and book chapters and has written opinion editorials for The Wall Street Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle.[5] According to Google Scholar his scientific publication has (2019) an h-index of 69.[7]

In 2007, Sovacool co-edited Energy and American Society: Thirteen Myths.[8][9] In 2008, he wrote The Dirty Energy Dilemma: What’s Blocking Clean Power in the United States which was published by Praeger and won a 2009 Nautilus Book Award.[10]

In Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power (2011) Sovacool says, following a detailed analysis, that there is a "consensus among a broad base of independent, nonpartisan experts that nuclear power plants are a poor choice for producing electricity", and that "energy efficiency programs and renewable power technologies are better than nuclear power plants".[11]

Books

  • Sovacool, BK and MA Brown (Eds.) Energy and American Society: Thirteen Myths (New York: Springer, 2007)
  • Sovacool, BK. The Dirty Energy Dilemma: What’s Blocking Clean Power in the United States (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008)
  • Mendonça, M, D Jacobs, and BK Sovacool. Powering the Green Economy: The Feed-In Tariff Handbook, (London: Earthscan, 2009)
  • Sovacool, BK (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of Energy Security (London: Routledge, 2010)
  • Sovacool, BK. Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power: A Critical Global Assessment of Atomic Energy (London: World Scientific, 2011)
  • Brown, MA and BK Sovacool. Climate Change and Global Energy Security: Technology and Policy Options (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011)
  • Sovacool, BK and SV Valentine. The National Politics of Nuclear Power: Economics, Security, and Governance (London: Routledge, 2012)
  • Sovacool, BK and IM Drupady. Energy Access, Poverty, and Development: The Governance of Small-Scale Renewable Energy in Developing Asia (New York: Ashgate, 2012)
  • Sovacool, BK and CJ Cooper. The Governance of Energy Megaprojects: Politics, Hubris, and Energy Security (London: Edward Elgar, 2013)
  • Sovacool, BK. Energy & Ethics: Justice and the Global Energy Challenge (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013)
  • Sovacool, BK, R Sidortsov, and B Jones. Energy Security, Equality and Justice (London: Routledge, 2013)
  • Halff, Antoine, J Rozhon and BK Sovacool (Eds.). Energy Poverty: Global Challenges and Local Solutions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)
  • Sovacool, BK and MH Dworkin. Global Energy Justice: Principles, Problems, and Practices (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014)
  • Sovacool, BK (Ed.). Energy Security (London: Sage, Six Volumes, 2014)
  • Sovacool, BK (Ed.). Energy, Poverty, and Development (London: Routledge Critical Concepts in Development Studies Series, Four Volumes, 2014)
  • Sovacool, BK and BO Linnér. The Political Economy of Climate Change Adaptation (Basingstoke UK/New York United States: Palgrave Macmillan and the Nature Publishing Group, 2015)
  • Sovacool, BK, MA Brown, and SV Valentine. Fact and Fiction in Global Energy Policy: Fifteen Contentious Questions (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016)
  • Van de Graaf, T, BK Sovacool, F Kern, A Ghosh, and MT Klare (Eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy (Basingstoke UK/New York United States: Palgrave Macmillan Handbooks in International Political Economy Series, 2016)
  • Valentine, SV, MA Brown, and BK Sovacool. Empowering the Great Energy Transition: Policy for a Low-Carbon Future (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019)

See also

References

  1. ^ Aarhus University. "Professor Benjamin Sovacool".
  2. ^ Aarhus University (2013). "Keynote speakers". PMA 2014 Conference. Archived from the original on 2013-09-12.
  3. ^ University of Sussex. "Benjamin Sovacool joins Sussex Energy Group".
  4. ^ a b "VT Law School Launches Energy Security & Justice Project". Vermont Law School. January 24, 2012. Archived from the original on March 13, 2012.
  5. ^ a b c d Vermont Law School (2013). "Benjamin K. Sovacool Biography". Archived from the original on 2013-05-28.
  6. ^ ABA. "Environment, Energy, and Resources Dedication to Diversity and Justice Award - Past Award Recipients". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-01-11.
  7. ^ "Benjamin Sovacool - User profile". Google Scholar. 2018-11-26. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  8. ^ Sioshansi, Fereidoon P. (2007). "Energy and American Society—Thirteen Myths (Book Review)" (PDF). Energy Policy. 35 (12): 6554–6555. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2007.08.008. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-16. Retrieved 2010-03-02.
  9. ^ Pasqualetti, Martin J. (2008). "Review of Energy and American Society--Thirteen Myths, B. Sovacool, M. Brown (eds.)". Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 8 (2): 504–505. doi:10.1080/00045600801944210.
  10. ^ Curriculum Vitae: Dr. Benjamin K. Sovacool[permanent dead link]
  11. ^ Benjamin K. Sovacool (2011). Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power (PDF). World Scientific. pp. 248–250. doi:10.1142/7895. ISBN 978-981-4322-75-1.
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