Green Hydrogen and Social Sciences: Issues, Problems, and Future Challenges

Arturo Vallejos-Romero (), Minerva Cordoves-Sánchez, César Cisternas, Felipe Sáez-Ardura, Ignacio Rodríguez, Antonio Aledo, Álex Boso, Jordi Prades and Boris Álvarez
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Arturo Vallejos-Romero: Departamento de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco 4810101, Chile
Minerva Cordoves-Sánchez: Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Postgrado, Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco 4810101, Chile
César Cisternas: Núcleo de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco 4810101, Chile
Felipe Sáez-Ardura: Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Postgrado, Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco 4810101, Chile
Ignacio Rodríguez: Departamento de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco 4810101, Chile
Antonio Aledo: Departamento de Sociología I, Universidad de Alicante, 03009 Alicante, Spain
Álex Boso: Departamento de Medio Ambiente, Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), 28040 Madrid, Spain
Jordi Prades: Departamento de Estudios de la Comunicación, Universidad Rovira i Virgili, 43003 Tarragona, Spain
Boris Álvarez: Doctorado en Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco 4810101, Chile

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: The article presents a review of the research on green hydrogen from the social sciences, identifying its main lines of research, its problems, and the relevant challenges due to the benefits and impacts that this energy vector has on energy transitions and climate change. The review analyzes a corpus of 78 articles indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) and SCOPUS, published between 1997 and 2022. The review identified three research areas related to green hydrogen and the challenges for the social sciences in the future: (a) risks, socio-environmental impacts, and public perception; (b) public policies and regulation and (c) social acceptance and willingness to use associated technologies. Our results show that Europe and Asia lead the research on green hydrogen from the social sciences. Also, most of the works focus on the area of public policy and regulation and social acceptance. Instead, the field of social perception of risk is much less developed. We found that little research from the social sciences has focused on assessments of the social and environmental impacts of hydrogen on local communities and indigenous groups, as well as the participation of local authorities in rural locations. Likewise, there are few integrated studies (technical and social) that would allow a better assessment of hydrogen and cleaner energy transitions. Finally, the lack of familiarity with this technology in many cases constitutes a limitation when evaluating its acceptance.

Keywords: risks; social acceptance; public policies; regulation; public perception; green hydrogen; hydrogen energy; energy transition; renewable energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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