Negotiating contested visions and place-specific expectations of the hydrogen economy

Eames, M; Mcdowall, W; Hodson, M; Marvin, S

Abstract

This paper explores the role of the `hydrogen economy' as a guiding vision encompassing multiple contested technological futures, value judgements and problem framings. Hydrogen visions draw upon six overarching and competing narrative themes: power and independence; community empowerment and democratisation; ecotopia; hydrogen as technical fix; inevitability and technical progress; and `staying in the race'. In other words the hydrogen economy possesses great interpretive flexibility. This, it is argued, is the key to hydrogen's rhetorical power, allowing it to become a space in which divergent interests and agendas are promoted. Turning to issues of scale and place, the case of London is used to document the dynamics of expectations: how the open flexible guiding vision of a hydrogen economy must inevitably be re-invented and grounded in local agendas and contexts if its promise is to become realised.

Citation

Eames, M., Mcdowall, W., Hodson, M., & Marvin, S. Negotiating contested visions and place-specific expectations of the hydrogen economy. Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 18(3-4), 361-374. https://doi.org/10.1080/09537320600777127

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Deposit Date: Jul 22, 2011
• Journal: Technology Analysis & Strategic Management
• Print ISSN: 0953-7325
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 3-4
• Pages: 361-374
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09537320600777127
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09537320600777127