This book discusses how people can come together to address current energy justice and access poverty problems by examining the relationship between energy systems and society in diverse energy sources. The novelty of this book is that this is the only complete guide for readers who wish to understand the status of Indonesia’s energy transition and renewable energy development. Energy programs that are explored are the ones prioritized by government administrations, including coal, nuclear power, solar energy, green electricity, and geothermal energy. Based on extensive fieldwork and empirical data, the book combines insights from historical data on energy subsidies and economic diversification, current empirical data on social acceptance of new energy technologies, and contemporary studies that forecast the implications of the transition to the coal industry and fossil fuel subsidies. It asks how Indonesia has enacted policies that support energy transition. How do the public and civil society view those policies? What are the implications for broader themes and discussions on energy sources, technology, systems, policies, and service? Strategies are suggested to advance a sustainable transition in the developing world that will mitigate developmental risks associated with the transition away from fossil fuels while encouraging decision making in a sustainable and socially just manner. This book is an informative and engaging read for a general audience as well as a valuable resource for scholars, researchers, and students in environmental and energy studies.

At a time when climate-change deniers hold the reins of power in the United States and international greenhouse gas negotiations continue at a slow crawl, what options are available to cities, companies, and consumers around the world who seek a cleaner future? Scott Victor Valentine, Marilyn A. Brown, and Benjamin K. Sovacool explore developments and strategies that will help fast-track the transition to renewable energy. They provide an expert analysis of the achievable steps that citizens, organizational leaders, and policy makers can take to put their commitments to sustainability into practice. Empowering the Great Energy Transition examines trends that suggest a transition away from carbon-intensive energy sources is inevitable—there are too many forces for change at work to stop a shift to clean energy. Yet under the status quo, change will be too slow to avert the worst consequences of climate change. Humanity is on a path to incur avoidable social, environmental, and economic costs. Valentine, Brown, and Sovacool argue that new policies and business models are needed to surmount the hurdles separating the current consumption model from a sustainable energy future. Empowering the Great Energy Transition shows that with well-placed efforts, we can set humanity on a course that supports entrepreneurs and communities in mitigating the environmental harm caused by technologies whose time has come and gone.

The world is currently undergoing an historic energy transition, driven by increasingly stringent decarbonisation policies and rapid advances in low-carbon technologies. The large-scale shift to low-carbon energy is disrupting the global energy system, impacting whole economies, and changing the political dynamics within and between countries. This open access book, written by leading energy scholars, examines the economic and geopolitical implications of the global energy transition, from both regional and thematic perspectives. The first part of the book addresses the geopolitical implications in the world’s main energy-producing and energy-consuming regions, while the second presents in-depth case studies on selected issues, ranging from the geopolitics of renewable energy, to the mineral foundations of the global energy transformation, to governance issues in connection with the changing global energy order. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers in energy, climate change and international relations, as well as to professionals working in the energy industry.

Since nearly 50 % of Europe's energy demand is in the heating and cooling sector, it is expected that geothermal energy will play an important role in the transition to a decarbonized energy system. However, deep geothermal energy is currently harvested mainly from areas with very favorable geothermal conditions. As these areas are geographically limited, the use of geothermal energy in less favorable regions is essential for unleashing the full potential of geothermal energy, since they make up the majority of the total geothermal potential in Central Europe. Motivated by the growing interest in deep geothermal energy among, e.g., energy companies and communities, this text reviews the state of the art in deep geothermal energy with focus on direct heating in geothermally less favorable regions. It provides an overview of technologies used to generate heat from the deep underground and discusses main technical and non-technical risks associated with deep geothermal projects. The text addresses readers with an interest in geothermal energy but does not require a background in geoscience or engineering sciences. It is suitable as textbook for Geothermal Energy courses for undergraduate students from different disciplines.

Funding low-carbon transitions to address climate change is one of the major challenges of our time. Green bonds have emerged as a powerful tool to enlist institutional investors’ wealth for these transitions. But despite exponential growth in many parts of the world, the green bond market in South Africa has been stalling. This book project grapples with this puzzle. Firstly, it debunks some of the promises underpinning green bond markets and traces the manifold practices undergirding its promotion. Secondly, it identifies some barriers prohibiting the expansion of green bonds in emerging markets and zooms in on the depoliticizing tendencies a transition premised on financial innovation produces. Thirdly, this work discloses the idiosyncratic political economic challenges of a fossil-based economy in transition and shines a light on the competing elements of a ‘green’ and a ‘just’ transition. It argues that the limited uptake of green bonds can best be explained by the instrument’s inability to adequately incorporate the various demands levied on South Africa’s contested transition trajectory. In so doing, this book contributes important new qualitative insights into green bond markets-in-the-making and extends political economic scholarship on finance-led transition endeavors in emerging markets. Chapters 3 and 6 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This outlook highlights climate-safe investment options until 2050, policies for transition and specific regional challenges. It also explores options to eventually cut emissions to zero.