There is an immanent need for a structural change of the present energy supply and demand patterns, therefore the nature of an energy transition and the possibilities for managing an energy transition towards more sustainable energy systems are key challenges for science, policy, and industry. Concepts such as transition management (Kemp 1994 Kemp and Rotmans 2004), strategic niche management and reflexive governance (Voß et al. 2006, Smith et al. 2005, Berkhout et al. 2004) and the multi level concept of socio-technical change (Rip and Kemp 1998, Kemp et al. 2001, Geels 2002) lead operational discussions on how sustainable transitions can be governed.
25 The concept of ‘viability’ of technology by Georgescu-Roegen captures part of this attempt: A technology is
not viable unless it can support itself without drawing down irreplaceable stocks, and is also not viable if it impairs the ability of the fund factors to maintain the economic process. According to Georgescu-Roegen, “Fund elements are those productive agents unchanged in the process, that is, inputs that enter and exit in a form that is economically the same (e.g. labour)”. (Gowdy and Mesner 1998)
Especially for large technical systems sizeable investments are usually associated with a structural change, long-term infrastructural decisions are required and several contradictory interests, manifested in institutions and power, are involved. It will be argued in the following section that apart from the economic, infrastructural dimensions the structural change of the energy system has vast implications for the practises within society (housing, communication, life style, etc.) and also for the interactions between society and nature. The challenges of managing interacting systems from a systems theory perspective have been discussed earlier. Two main arguments are stressed at this point again, because they are relevant for the governance debate: (1) the self-referential character of the social system and the subsequent problems of reading other forms of systems logic and anticipating it within the decisions and actions taken; (2) the absence of an overall coordinated action of the social systems, ‘Total operation’, due to the existence of subsystems.
Direct steering towards a more sustainable energy system is not possible. (Polatidis et al. 2003) Anticipating the wide range of future consequences of a structural change of the energy system, e.g. towards renewable energy systems, proves extremely difficult. Due to the numerous interactions, delayed reactions, frequent indirect or unintended impacts, which are all characteristic for complex systems the degree of uncertainty when appraising energy systems of the future is very high (even without anticipating structural change) and to some extent irreducible. The diversity of actors and interests is another important social dimension of this complexity. The current energy resource problem, combined with the anthropogenic climate change, therefore qualify as so-called ‘persistent’ problems, characterised by high uncertainty, a multitude of actors and diverse interests, and by being difficult to structure. Whereas “persistent problems require transitions: fundamental changes in structure, culture, and practises of societal systems.” (Rotmans and Loorbach 2008)
Nevertheless, theories and models of change do try to anticipate general processes of change, e.g. technological change, modernisation, evolution, competition and co-evolution, etc. and work on, for example, identifying main drivers and obstacles. General models of change are developed to anticipate what the future holds for specific cases. In many respects it is asserted today that the primary driver of societal change is associated with technological advancement. Technology is often dealt with as a ‘joker’ whereas without it the Malthusian dilemma of resource scarcity and population growth is inevitable. The extent and speed of technological innovation in industrialised countries cannot be denied. Profound studies have proven, though, that in many cases the efficiency gains due to better technology are more than compensated by behavioural adaptations, known as the ‘rebound effect’. (Polimeni et al. 2009) Therefore the
social, behavioural and institutional changes (accompanied by technological innovations) do gain considerable importance as key factors of technological change.
Having elaborated in the last section on energy systems as a key factor in the interactions between social and natural systems, it is claimed here that consequently the transition of the present energy systems towards more sustainable energy systems has to take into account the interactions of societal and natural systems. Hence, the following section addresses the absence of the interaction between social and natural systems from the current understanding of technological change and transition.
In the following section, general notions of systemic change are introduced, which are relevant when differentiating between different theoretical perspectives. According to the authors Polatidis, Haralambopoulos, Kemp, and Rothman three types of technological change of the energy regime can be categorised: (1) the optimization, which involves incremental change in e.g. energy efficiency or end-of-pipe technologies, (2) the partial system redesign which includes e.g. extended renewables, and, finally (3) the system innovation. Systems innovations means a change in the system architecture e.g. decentralised electricity generation and use. (Polatidis et al. 2003)
The specific transition theory known as ‘the multi-level concept’ (Geels 2002) is elaborated here, informed by the analysis of a universal historical perspective on the transition to fossil fuel-based energy systems. This perspective is introduced here in order to present a convincing implementation of the theoretical understanding of society-nature interactions in respect of energy transitions. The specific role of feedback loops as stabilising and enhancing mechanisms of energy regimes is discussed. The overall aim is to stress the necessity of explicitly anticipating interactions between social and natural systems in technological change towards more sustainable development and to inform present understandings of energy transition.