Can solar energy help save Greece?

Anthropological analysis in 'Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy' puts perspective on solar sector's potential role in recovery

2013-08-15

(Press-News.org) WASHINGTON D.C. August 14, 2013 -- What happens to renewable energy programs in a country that gets whacked by a full-scale debt crisis, like the one that struck Greece beginning in 2009 -- do the programs whither and die in the winds of austerity? And how do people view such programs when many of them can't afford to heat their houses?

The answers to these two questions are actually linked, according to a new analysis in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, which is produced by AIP Publishing.

Renewable energy programs, particularly solar, may be more relevant than ever in Greece and could lower domestic energy costs while providing an export commodity that would help to ameliorate the economic crisis -- but only if public concerns are addressed, according to Daniel Knight of the London School of Economics, who did the analysis with Sandra Bell of Durham University in the U.K.

Knight and Bell found that one of the major unmet challenges facing the solar industry in Greece is a public that has become dubious of programs that involve international companies, foreign government and banking forces outside their borders. Addressing those public concerns is crucial to realizing solar's potential, said Knight.

"It is necessary to understand not only the role of government policy but also to think about social relations and historical consciousness among Greeks," Knight said.

Perspective on the Greek Street: What Policy Makers Need to Understand

When the global recession spilled over up into a full-scale national debt crisis in 2010, Greece was squeezed by oil and gas prices that were reaching record highs while household incomes were falling fast. Parts of the country were returned to pre-modernity almost overnight, Knight said.

The effects of the crisis as felt were also profound. Today many Greeks can no longer afford to run cars, cook dinner or heat their homes, and last winter people regularly burned old furniture, clothes and plastics to stay warm. The illegal harvesting of firewood is rampant and environmentally-destructive lignite ('dirty coal') is the primary source of energy in Greece, he added.

Applying the methods of anthropology research, Knight lived with locals in central Greece for extended periods over the past two years to understand the influence of communities on renewable energy initiatives in Greece and both he and Bell interviewed homeowners, farmers, local government officials, engineers and renewable energy entrepreneurs, scrubbed archives and tracked media stories.

Many of the people they spoke with, including some energy providers and wholesalers, acknowledge that Greek solar initiatives in their current form are unsustainable and that policy changes will be needed in the future. But they also found that the government and the European Union (EU) as a whole are very poor at communicating policy to the local level, leaving people to discover energy initiatives by word of mouth.

Historically this has caused solar power to be clouded by suspicion, as many mainstream Greeks have feared that a rapidly privatizing energy sector would come to exploit them. Some people they spoke with said that they already felt compelled to put solar panels on their agricultural land, due to strict EU, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank austerity measures.

These sorts of fears are not helped by overlapping national and EU policies that are changing constantly, Knight said, and a general failure to communicate such changes to people at the local level.

"Resistance to renewable energy programs and policies is often deeply rooted in local history and culture," Knight said, "and this context must be appreciated if solar initiatives are to be successful and sustainable in the long-term."

### The article, "Pandora's Box: photovoltaic energy and economic crisis in Greece" by Daniel Knight and Sandra Bell appears in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy. See: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4807477

ABOUT THE JOURNAL The Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal produced by AIP publishing that covers all areas of renewable and sustainable energy-related fields that apply to the physical science and engineering communities. See: http://jrse.aip.org/

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

NIH and UNC researchers define role of protein vinculin in cell movement

2013-08-15

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Researchers at the University of North Carolina and the National Institutes for Health have defined the role of the protein vinculin in enabling cell movement. In a paper published in the Journal of Cell Biology, Sharon Campbell, PhD, professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics and member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Clare Waterman of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health showed that cell mobility occurs through the interactions between the protein vinculin and the cytoskeletal lattice ...

Using fire to manage fire-prone regions around the world

2013-08-15

The Ecological Society of America's first online-only Special Issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment showcases prescribed burns around the globe, some of them drawing on historical practices to manage forests and grasslands in fire-prone regions. The Online Special Issue looks at fire practices in the United States, Australia, southern Europe, South Africa and South America. One review article focuses on the cooperative efforts of US ranchers in the Great Plains using fire to beat back juniper encroachment on native grasslands. Another features traditional ...

UT Arlington researcher finds that money motivates employees to lose weight

2013-08-15

Financial incentives can be a very effective tool in encouraging employees to lose weight at companies that offer their workers those types of programs, research from a University of Texas at Arlington economics assistant professor shows. Joshua Price, a UT Arlington assistant professor of economics, teamed with Cornell University Professor John Cawley to perform a case study on an employer-sponsored program that offered financial incentives for weight loss. The study was accepted for publication in The Journal of Health Economics and was featured recently on its website. ...

UGA researchers use nanoparticles to fight cancer

2013-08-15

Athens, Ga. – Researchers at the University of Georgia are developing a new treatment technique that uses nanoparticles to reprogram immune cells so they are able to recognize and attack cancer. The findings were published recently in the early online edition of ACS Nano. The human body operates under a constant state of martial law. Chief among the enforcers charged with maintaining order is the immune system, a complex network that seeks out and destroys the hordes of invading bacteria and viruses that threaten the organic society as it goes about its work. The ...

Children exposed to lead 3 times more likely to be suspended from school

2013-08-15

MADISON, Wis. — Children who are exposed to lead are nearly three times more likely to be suspended from school by the 4th grade than children who are not exposed, according to a new University of Wisconsin-Madison study funded jointly by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Wisconsin Partnership Program Education and Research Committee. "Students who are suspended from school are at greater risk of dropping out, twice as likely to use tobacco, and more likely to engage in violent behavior later in life," says first author Michael Amato, a doctoral candidate in ...

Potent mechanism helps viruses shut down body's defense system against infection

2013-08-15

LA JOLLA, CA ---- Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have discovered a powerful mechanism by which viruses such as influenza, West Nile and Dengue evade the body's immune response and infect humans with these potentially deadly diseases. The findings may provide scientists with an attractive target for novel antiviral therapies. Published in the August issue of the journal Cell Host and Microbe, the findings describe a novel mechanism that this group of so-called "enveloped viruses" uses to disarm the host's innate immune response. The mechanism ...

UW geographer devises a way for China to resolve its 'immigration' dilemma

2013-08-15

University of Washington geographer Kam Wing Chan is in China this week, explaining how that country can dismantle its 55-year-old system that limits rural laborers from moving to and settling in cities and qualifying for basic social benefits. It's an idea that he says makes economic and moral sense. China's "hukou" household registration system was established in 1958 as a way of maintaining cheap farm labor to grow food for urban dwellers. Ever since, rural residents wanting to move to urban areas must receive permission from the police – and with it, the right to ...

Warming climate pushes plants up the mountain

2013-08-15

In a rare opportunity to directly compare plant communities in the same area now with a survey taken 50 years ago, a University of Arizona-led research team has provided the first on-the-ground evidence that Southwestern plants are being pushed to higher elevations by an increasingly warmer and drier climate. The findings confirm that previous hypotheses are correct in their prediction that mountain communities in the Southwest will be strongly impacted by an increasingly warmer and drier climate, and that the area is already experiencing rapid vegetation change. In ...

How neurons get wired

2013-08-15

University of Arizona scientists have discovered an unknown mechanism that establishes polarity in developing nerve cells. Understanding how nerve cells make connections is an important step in developing cures for nerve damage resulting from spinal cord injuries or neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. In a study published on Aug. 12 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, UA doctoral student Sara Parker and her adviser, assistant professor of cellular and molecular medicine Sourav Ghosh, report that the decision which will be the "plus" ...

Researchers study selenium's effects on horses

2013-08-15

For a new study in the Journal of Animal Science, researchers evaluated how different levels of selenium affect the immune system of adult horses. According to the researchers, the effects of selenium supplementation on the immune system have been evaluated in other species but not extensively in horses. Dr. Laurie Lawrence, animal science professor at the University of Kentucky, said the amount of selenium in soil and forages varies across the United States. She said that they wanted to know whether horses grazing pasture that was marginal in selenium would react differently ...

Can solar energy help save Greece?

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: