Life Cycle Assessment of Energy Systems : Closing the Ethical Loophole of Social Sustainability

This groundbreaking work is the most in-depth and state-of-the-art study on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of energy systems, the only volume available on this critical subject. Energy and sustainability are two of the most important and often most misunderstood subjects in our world today. As these two subjects have grown in importance over the last few decades, interest in the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) model has grown as well, as a potentially crucial tool in understanding and striving towards sustainability in energy systems. Not just wind and solar systems, but all energy systems, need to be understood through this model. Wind and solar power have the potential to decentralize the U.S. energy system by offering local communities electricity and economic support, depending on the scale and design of projects. Nevertheless, every energy technology potentially faces environmental costs, lay and expert opposition, and risks to public health. Engineers play a central role as designers, builders, and operators in energy systems. As they extend their expertise into electrical, mechanical and chemical fields, from fossil fuel-based systems to renewable energy systems, "sustainability" is steadily becoming one of the key criteria engineers apply in their work. This groundbreaking new study argues that engineering cultures foster sustainability by adopting assumptions and problem-solving practices as part of their identities when designing and building engineering projects. This work examines the politics of creating, utilizing, and modifying Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in the construction of renewable energy systems. The only volume of its kind ever written, it is a must-have for any engineer, scientist, manager, or other professional working in or interested in Life Cycle Assessment and its relation to energy systems and impact on environmental and economic sustainability. Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Part I ENGINEERING AND SUSTAINABILITY -- 1 Engineering Sustainability, Sustaining Engineering -- Introduction -- The Sustainable, Yet Invisible, Engineer -- What Prompts the Sustainability Engineer? The Ideologies of Technological Change and Technopolitics -- Recasting Engineering Progress as the Golem-Like View of Sustainability -- The Rationalities of Engineering Ideologies of Sustainability -- Conclusion -- 2 A Critical History of Sustainability Engineering -- Common Departures -- Sustainability's Technological Change Roots -- Familiar Ideological Bases for Engineering Theories of Sustainability -- Speaking to the Converted: Institutional and Ideological Alliances -- Development Institutions and Corporations Ratifying Sustainability Engineering -- Sustainability and Technological Change in the 1995 US National Security Strategy -- Engineers Going for Sustainability (1985-1997) -- Engineering Groundwork (1985-1991): The Institutions and Metrics of Sustainability -- From Invisible Engineers to Facilitators of Global Stewardship -- The Turn to Quantifying Sustainability -- The US-Led World Engineering Partnership for Sustainable Development -- Meeting the Challenge to not be Left Behind (1998-2003) -- WFEO's ComTech and Engineering Sustainability Through Public Private Partnerships -- Claiming Technology's Territory, Stretching Sustainability's Boundaries: US Engineers and the Earth Charter -- Conclusion -- 3 Resisting Sustainability -- Negotiating Ideas about Self and Nature: the Case of American Engineers for Social Responsibility (AESR), 1988-1994 -- Conclusion -- Part II LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS -- 4 When Social Values Make an Entry -- Introduction -- Targeting the Social Risks: Fitting the Life Cycle Perspective into Corporate Social Responsibility Engineering sustainability, sustaining engineering -- A critical history of sustainability engineering -- Resisting sustainability -- When social values make an entry -- Social life cycle assessment (SLCA) rationalities -- Life cycle sustainability, renewable energy project development, and the exclusion of local knowledge in California's western Antelope Valley (WAV) -- Through an ethnographic lens : local-regional politics of utility solar and wind siting in California