Experimenting with earth. Geothermics, non-knowledge and energy transitions as experiments in the wild

Abstract

Non-renewable fossil fuels made possible what has been called the modern world. Given that non-renewable resources are increasingly becoming more and more difficult and costly to extract, the transition to renewable energy sources is a crucial task. In order to frame possible avenues towards responsible innovation and transition in democratic societies, this paper will built on the concept of “earthly experiments” to highlight some of the conditions and processes that may foster responsible innovation and learning processes. This is done by building on empirical examples from the establishment of geothermal energy systems. The paper will then unfold the sociological notion of earthly experiments in order to critically highlight on what this could mean to democratically constitute citizens as part of “science” thus conceived. The paper will show how such experimental processes deal with questions of acceptability and democratic governance, and how the political limits of experimentality are rendered visible and manageable. We show to what extent “experiments in the wild” are able to cope with increasing uncertainty and the unavoidable ignorance that complicate conditions for the transition towards renewable energy, but that may also open up new paths towards the engagement of citizens in processes of technoscientific exploration.