Energy futures: Diversity and the need for assessment

In energy policy and energy research, decisions have to be made about the technologies and infrastructures that may be used to provide and distribute energy in future times, some of which are very distant. Frequently, energy futures such as predictions of the energy demand or energy scenarios are used for decision-support in this field. The diversity of energy futures, however, threatens any possibility for orientation, could lead to disorientation instead of helping more rational decision-making and could be used for ideological purpose. In this paper, we investigate concepts and approaches for scrutinizing, comparing and assessing the various energy futures from an epistemological point of view. Following the analysis of the structure of (energy) futures we will conclude that comparisons and assessments of energy futures should be made through processes of scrutiny and assessment, looking into the ingredients which have been used in constructing the respective futures, and into the process of their composition. Providing much more insight into the cognitive and normative structure of energy futures is required for allowing a more transparent and deliberative societal debate about future energy systems. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.