More hydrogen, more ethics
06 March 2024 16:00 till 17:00 - Location: TPM Hall B | Add to my calendar
Abstract
“Hydrogen will change the production, storage, transportation, and use of renewable energy worldwide!”. “Hydrogen will contribute to the decarbonization of industry,” “Hydrogen is a solution for power grid fallouts,” and “Hydrogen is a solution for urban heating and mobility.” Such hopes have been repeatedly expressed in the past decade. But what are the downsides of the hydrogentransition? What do we ‘win’ and ‘lose’ in developing our hydrogen economy (and who is ‘we’ exactly in this case)? These are essential moral questions for our hydrogen future. In this lecture, I give a preliminary answer to these questions by developing the “Five Unavoidables” – five difficult value trade-offs that we will be forced to address one way or the other during the hydrogen transition. I will not propose ready-made solutions to these five problems, but I will offer pluralism as a general framework within which to approach these issues systematically.
Bio
Dr. Eugen Octav Popa is Assistant Professor in Ethics and Philosophy of Technology. His work focuses on the socio-ethical aspects of the energy transition as well as societal dialogues concerning new and emerging technologies.