The Mind Behind The Hand on the Switch: Thoughts on The Pace and Persistence of Energy Transitions

Every technological transition affects both social and physical surroundings. Some transitions can be accomplished by changing major facilities, while others, like household energy, require millions of individual decisions. Lower-polluting choices can improve climate, air pollution, and human health; they seem attractive to researchers and technologists. Because these transitions often proceed more slowly than their benefits would suggest, Dr Tami Bond explores human elements of the energy transition landscape.

First, users take action to achieve well-being – “the pursuit of happiness” – and their experience of their own well-being is dominated by a few themes. Dr Tami Bond illustrates this idea with the example of home electrification in the United States. Second, users are more likely to adopt and adapt technological solutions that are chosen, rather than imposed, but opportunities for individuals to comment on the choices that affect them are infrequent. Dr Bond will describe a multi-year exploration in Nepal that has been seeking an appropriate nexus between self-determination and resource decisions. Finally, researchers themselves can hinder progress by emphasizing physical interventions and outcomes above the experiential factors that influence human-technical interactions.

This is a seminar with Dr Tami C. Bond, Walter Scott, Jr. Presidential Chair in Energy, Environment and Health at Colorado State University.

Speaker biography

Dr. Tami Bond is the Walter Scott, Jr. Presidential Chair in Energy, Environment and Health at Colorado State University, and a Professor in Mechanical Engineering. Her research has followed a thread from combustion to atmospheric chemistry and climate, to technology change and future scenarios, to the intimate relationship between technology choice, human needs, and infrastructure. Dr. Bond was trained as a mechanical engineer (B.S., University of Washington; M.S., University of California at Berkeley) before pursuing an interdisciplinary Ph.D. at the University of Washington and a NOAA Climate and Global Change Post-doctoral Fellowship.