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Noah Kittner is an assistant professor in energy in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Gillings School of Global Public Health and in the Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research examines the role of energy storage in the transition to low-carbon energy systems and deep decarbonization.

Considering the rapid pace of phasing out fossil fuels from the economy, Just Transitions are an essential component of any energy strategy to build acceptance and reconciliation from fossil fuel damages. However, the range of competing visions that define a “Just Transition” complicates Just Transition policymaking and evaluation. With increased application of Just Transition frameworks, academic groups should consider the role of government, financial institution, and civil society frameworks for Just Transition policies. This analysis reviews 75 non-academic Just Transition documents published by non-governmental organizations, governmental figures (intergovernmental, national, sub-national, and governmental organizations), multilateral institutions, development banks, think-tanks, and private enterprises. Just Transition frameworks are highly varied in their scope and design, demonstrating the diversity surrounding the meaning behind “Just Transition” across stakeholders. Proposed economic and social policies vary across non-academic Just Transition frameworks, particularly between types of organizations/actors. Many critical issues raised by policymakers and non-governmental organizations are not found in conceptual reviews of academic Just Transition frameworks– including prominent focus areas on circular economy, waste and water management, human rights, and decolonization strategies. Furthermore, the broader Just Transitions literature reviewed expands greatly upon topics pertaining to low-carbon transitions in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, including rights for informal workers in fossil fuel industries and small and medium-sized enterprises, that are often understudied in academic reviews. Future research studies should co-evolve local, indigenous, civil society, and private sector knowledge on Just Transitions to build stronger context-specific research contributions that ensure increased participation in the transition to a low-carbon society.

ABSTRACTRenewable energy – such as photovoltaics and wind power – is rapidly moving into the mainstream, with global solar capacity set to outproduce nuclear energy capacity for the first time. But a major holdup has been how to store the electricity produced by renewables; consequently, good, cheap, long-lasting battery storage has been the Holy Grail of R&D in this area. But how close are we in reaching this goal? To track progress, the authors have introduced a new, “two-factor” model of analyzing innovations in energy storage that accounts not only for total sales of a particular technology but also for the degree of investment in innovation, measured by looking at the number of new patents issued in energy storage technology.

A strategic mix of solar, wind and storage technologies around river basins would be safer and cheaper than building large dams, argue Rafael J. P. Schmitt, Noah Kittner and colleagues. A strategic mix of solar, wind and storage technologies around river basins would be safer and cheaper than building large dams, argue Rafael J. P. Schmitt, Noah Kittner and colleagues.

The Sarajevo Canton Winter Field Campaign 2018 (SAFICA) was a project that took place in winter 2017–2018 with an aim to characterize the chemical composition of aerosol in the Sarajevo Canton, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), which has one of the worst air qualities in Europe. This paper presents the first characterization of the metals in PM10(particulate matter aerodynamic diameters ≤10 μm) from continuous filter samples collected during an extended two-months winter period at the urban background Sarajevo and remote Ivan Sedlo sites. We report the results of 18 metals detected by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS). The average mass concentrations of metals were higher at the Sarajevo site than at Ivan Sedlo and ranged from 0.050 ng/m3(Co) to 188 ng/m3(Fe) and from 0.021 ng/m3(Co) to 61.8 ng/m3(Fe), respectively. The BenMAP-CE model was used for estimating the annual BiH health (50% decrease in PM2.5would save 4760+ lives) and economic benefits (costs of $2.29B) of improving the air quality. Additionally, the integrated energy and health assessment with the ExternE model provided an initial estimate of the additional health cost of BiH’s energy system.

Technology decline is a central element of sustainability transitions. However, transition scholars have only just begun to analyze decline. This paper uses the technological innovation systems (TIS) perspective to study decline. Our case is nuclear energy, which is at a crossroads. Some view nuclear as a key technology to address climate change, while others see an industry in decline. We examine a broad range of empirical indicators at the global scale to assess whether or not nuclear energy is in decline. We find that an eroding actor base, shrinking opportunities in liberalized electricity markets, the break-up of existing networks, loss of legitimacy, increasing cost and time overruns, and abandoned projects are clear indications of decline. Also, increasingly fierce competition from natural gas, solar PV, wind, and energy-storage technologies speaks against nuclear in the electricity sector. We conclude that, while there might be a future for nuclear in state-controlled ‘niches’ such as Russia or China, new nuclear power plants do not seem likely to become a core element in the struggle against climate change. Our conceptual contribution is twofold. First, we show how the TIS framework can be mobilized to study technology decline. Second, we explore a range of indicators to cover the multiple dimensions of decline, including actors, institutions, technology, and context.