Energy

Energy is a core aspect of our research agenda. It is at the forefront of debates on climate change adaptation and socio-economic transformation. While global energy demand remains high, there is now a rush to change the way in which energy is supplied. Decarbonisation remains an imperative in the quest to keep global warming to 1.5 degree. Yet, renewable energy infrastructure also implies environmental cost and new social contradictions. Not least global and local energy relations remain highly uneven socially and cannot be thought of as abstract from the societies within which they operate.  

solar energy farm in desert

The Energy Nexus

In the Centre, we understand energy in an interdisciplinary and holistic way. Our natural science research starts from the geophysical and biological aspects of energy and its transformation, which we combine with socio-political questions of production and distribution. Energy in its various forms (power generation, hydrocarbons, nutrients) is thought of as a wider social metabolism with other parts of the ecosystem, not least climate, water, and food, but also as an aspect of human culture, from cooking to the aesthetics of hydro-engineering. 

Cutting Edge Energy Research

The centre addresses contemporary challenges of energy security, energy justice. Projects vary in scale and scope, from global energy supply chains to the local sociology of energy grids, including the past, present, and future of different energy cultures across various locales, using a variety of methods from a range of disciplines (e.g. human and physical geography, (international) energy politics and policy making, environmental history). Our members engage with local (Engine Shed) and global international partners. The centre hosts the Stirling Environment and Energy Network (SEEN) and is keen to build on its existing relations to local and global stakeholders.

coastal farm

Research projects

UN sustainability graphic

Connecting to a low carbon world

shale layers

Understanding the spatial and temporal dynamics of public attitudes and community responses to shale gas: an integrated approach

Landscape of coal

Landscape Legacies of Coal Mining

People

Current members of staff engaged with our Energy research.

Staff