 State interest as an explanatory factor in the failure of the soft-path energy visionDouglas Macdonald Energy Policy, 2012, vol. 43, issue C, 92-101 Abstract: Despite its prominence in the policy discourse, countries of the world have not adopted soft-path energy policy. Current explanations of this failure look to the nature of different fuels, various barriers in the market and political opposition by hard-path energy industries. Such factors provide only partial explanation. The explanation is incomplete because those factors cannot explain the larger subject of the evolution of fuel types during the past two hundred years. For that, we must add the role of the state, through ownership and regulation, in energy generation. That role has expanded regularly with the evolution of fuel types from coal to oil, electricity and nuclear power, but not with the introduction of new renewables in the 1970s. That pattern is explained by the inherent interest of the state in the use of energy for physical, military force and the fact that new renewables have not had immediate military applications. Although renewable energy is increasing, unless the state is motivated for military reasons to play a greater role, the soft-path vision will continue to languish. Keywords: State; Interest; Energy (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:43:y:2012:i:c:p:92-101 DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2011.12.035 Access Statistics for this article Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier |
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