Overview

Energy is a complex, socio-technological system whose contours profoundly shape human lives and livelihoods across the face of the planet. Over the past century-and-a-half, an energy revolution has underpinned the most productive and prosperous era in human history—yet now we must fundamentally change the way human societies produce and consume energy. Energy security has become tenuous. Energy innovation is rapidly becoming a critical source of new, high-skilled, high-wage green jobs. And the environmental risks of fossil fuel use continue to grow, from rapidly rising asthma rates around the world to the potential for dangerous, long-term shifts in the Earth’s weather patterns and sea levels.

From the basic principles that characterize the challenges facing a sustainable energy transition, ASU is producing solutions that address and promote policy engagement.

Visualize energy solutions

ASU’s Decision Theater provides a combination of visualization, simulation, and collaboration to inform energy policy issues. Through the deployment of system dynamics and agent-based tools, this facility models complex water and energy systems.

Arizona’s Solar Market Analysis and Research Tool (Az SMART) works with an array of subjects related to the deployment of solar power generation facilities in Arizona from land ownership and solar insulation mapping to environmental impact and energy storage needs. 

Engaging policy leaders

The AZ Solar Summit brings together a range of industry leadership, government policy makers, research institutions and major landowners to discuss collaborations, projects, and policies affecting the solar energy industry on a grand scale.

Engaging public imagination

Arizona Town Hall and Arizona Youth Town Hall provide opportunities to citizens of the state to explore and discuss topics that are relevant to our communities, including Arizona’s energy future.

Ensuring a just energy future

Energy, Ethics, Society and Policy Initiative is an interdisciplinary research community at ASU whose goal is to analyze the social implications of energy system transformations.

The National Academy of Engineering and ASU take a problem-oriented approach to ethics education, focused on the international issue of energy in the 21^st century. 

The National Institute on Energy, Ethics, and Society engages graduate students from energy research programs around the nation in a week-long program to prepare them for leadership in the fields of energy ethics and energy ethics education. 

Student and postdoctoral research being done at ASU includes exemplary work in energy policy, including:

• Jason O’Leary (HSD) is examining inequalities in Arizona solar energy incentives and policies.
• Tim Kostyk (HSD) is working with IEEE to incorporate social and ethical factors into the design of the Smart Grid.
• Sharlissa Moore (HSD) is studying the social sustainability of and public responses to large-scale solar energy developments in the Southwest and the Sahara.
• Travis Johnson (PSM) is developing strategies for deepening public engagement in and deliberation of energy solutions.
• Monamie Bhadra (HSD) is studying nuclear energy policy in India in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident.
• Jessica Passerelli (PSM) is examining best practices for corporate sustainability among electricity utilities.
• Jen Fuller (ESS) is studying visual representations of renewable energy designed for public consumption.
• Gretchen Gano (HSD) is researching community-based social movements gearing up for a post-oil world.
• Daniel Higgins (postdoc) studies the social and environmental sustainability of energy production in Arizona.

Acronyms:
HSD – Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology Ph.D. program
PSM – Professional Science Master’s in Science and Technology Policy
ESS – Environmental Social Sciences PhD program