Images of the energy future

Abstract

This letter draws attention to the aesthetic fascination for images of the energy future and the role of knowledge about the future in organizing energy policy and planning. Envisioning the energy future, once intertwined with notions of progress, has become synonymous with conceptions of risk while efforts to manage risk are an open-ended, future-oriented project. I argue that today's images of the energy future reflect a change in US energy prediction over the past 30 years that can be traced to the birth of a system of energy forecasting on the basis of a narrow organization of experience to the 1970s energy crisis.