Between 1974 and 1977, the MIT professor, science organizer and Club of Rome executive committee member Carroll L. Wilson organized the international Workshop on Alternative Energy Strategies (WAES). Assembling energy experts from academia, specialized agencies and particularly oil companies, the three-year workshop series explored alternative scenarios for the future of energy demand and supply. The WAES final report, Energy: Global Prospects 1985-2000 (1977) presented scenarios that pointed to an inevitable oil shortage before the year 2000. It therefore recommended the immediate expansion of capacity to draw more power from nuclear energy wherever politically and technologically feasible. The report also promoted a sharp increase in coal consumption, in combination with emission control technology, to provide a temporary “bridge” until other synthetic fuels and renewables could take over in the 21st century. Oil companies of the 1970s, both those involved in WAES and others, invested heavily in alternative energy, particularly coal, nuclear, solar and geothermal energy. Those investment decisions were often based on expectations shaped by scenarios produced by oil firms’ own planning departments as well as by external groups such as WAES. Thus, scenarios of an alternative energy future had at least some performative effect on the real-world energy constellations of the 1970s.
Half a century later, our conference will explore the history of oil and alternative energy through the lens of scenarios. Alternative energy histories has a double meaning: we will discuss both histories of alternative energy (e.g., solar, nuclear, geothermal, etc.) as well as, and more literally, alternative energy histories (e.g. the use of scenarios and other forecasting tools, expectations of the energy future, what other energy futures were possible, etc.). As the concluding conference of the NWO-Vici project “Managing Scarcity and Sustainability: The Oil Industry, Environmentalism and Alternative Energy in the Age of Scarcity, 1968-1986,” (VI.C.191.067) this workshop seeks to discuss completed and ongoing research as well as explore avenues for further research.
Possible paper topics include (but are not limited to):
- Histories of alternative energy (e.g., coal, gas, nuclear, solar, geothermal, biofuels)
- Historical relationships between fossil fuels and alternative energy companies, technologies, research groups, etc.
- The use and influence of (energy) scenarios as a forecasting tool in business/government/ military
- Resource, climate and energy forecasting and/or modelling techniques
- The uses and abuses of counter-factual analysis in historiography
The workshop will be held in person in Maastricht over 2 days on 20-21 October 2025. Accommodation and travel expenses will be covered. We strongly encourage train travel where possible; international air travel costs within reasonable means will also be re-imbursed. We aim to publish a special issue based on the workshop papers.
Please send proposals with an abstract of 300-350 words and a short CV (in a single PDF file) to o.melsted@maastrichtuniversity.nl by 4 April 2025. For further information or practical questions, please contact the organizers: Michiel Bron (m.bron@maastrichtuniversity.nl), Odinn Melsted (o.melsted@maastrichtuniversity.nl), or Cyrus Mody (c.mody@maastrichtuniversity.nl).
See more, here.
