The 7th International Sustainability Transitions (IST) Conference will take place in Wuppertal, Germany from 6 - 9 September 2016.

The conference is the annual platform to share theoretical, empirical and practical advances in the field of sustainability transitions, covering a broad range of areas (e.g. energy, water, mobility, food systems) and disciplinary approaches.

Following the theme of IST 2016 “Exploring Transition Research as Transformative Science“ we want to focus on impact- and solution-oriented research approaches enabling transitions in practice. We invite contributions that address the following questions: How can we assess the societal impact of transition research? What are common challenges, best practices and future prospects in transdisciplinary research approaches, such as real-world laboratories, LivingLabs, transition experiments etc.?

We invite contributions focusing on key issues in the field of sustainability transitions research: the role of cities and geography of transitions, governance of transitions, transitions towards a sustainable economy, global perspectives on transitions, innovation and institutional change, modeling transitions - and all issues linked to the research agenda of the Sustainability Transitions Research Network (STRN).

For more information see the attached Call for Papers, which can also be downloaded at the conference website: ist2016.org  

We want to make IST 2016 a very practical transition experience and we are pleased to welcome you to Wuppertal, our urban real-world lab with its many exciting projects and initiatives. We are looking forward to an engaging and impactful IST 2016.


Uwe Schneidewind, President of the Wuppertal Institute

Karoline Augenstein & Franziska Stelzer (IST 2016 Organizing Committee)

​

On December 4th, 2015 my favorite radio program, OnPoint from WBUR-Boston, aired a discussion about the role of nuclear power in climate change in the USA.  Guests included former NRC Chairwoman Alison Macfarlane, Josh Freed of the Third Way think tank in DC and Mark Jacobson of Stanford.

Freed made a statement that astounded me.  He claimed that, after Germany elected to discontinue its nuclear power stations, it experienced a "significant increase in carbon emissions" (his quote can be found at 16:00-16:15 in the broadcast).  This is plainly untrue, as the data below show.  In 2011, Germany decided to shut down EIGHT nuclear reactors, with total capacity of about 8 GW.  The list is available here.   Look at the bar for 2011 and compare it with 2010.  Actually, GHG emissions DECLINED.  There is a slight uptick in 2013, but no additional reactors were closed in 2012.  The remaining reactors won't close until 2019-2022.  The fact is that nuclear power has been replaced with solar and wind energy.

Macfarlane acknowledged that nuclear should remain part of the solution, but she cautioned against assuming it could play an expanded role in American's energy future. She pointed out that nuclear plants take 20-25 years to construct and make operational. Given that we need to reduce carbon significantly in the next 15 years, new plants are not likely to be part of that solution.  Mark Jacobson added that dollars tied up for 20 years would be better spent putting wind or solar energy into action.  Wind farms and solar arrays can be constructed on the order of 3 years. Furthermore, Jacobson noted that nuclear plants currently produce expensive energy - 13 cents per kWh while wind produces power at much much lower price.

Freed responded by advancing utopian technological views of the future. As so many in the nuclear field do, he suggested that new plant designs will be cheaper and safer.  Maybe so, but none of these designs have every been built or made operational.  Freed blamed the NRC, saying, the the NRC should "develop a new set of regulatory and evaluation processes built toward getting innovative new designs tested and deployed" (quote starts at 19:55 in broadcast).

Sacrificing safety for speed hardly seems like a smart thing to do, given the relatively poor record of the nuclear industry.  Mark Jacobson pointed out that 1.5% of the world's nuclear reactors have melted down.  This is a pretty poor safety record.  Sure, new technologies may be safer, but they may also be less safe.  We simply won't know until we have a few decades of experience under our belts, which is why countries with a lot of nuclear experience, such as France continue to rely on light water reactor designs.

The take home message for me is that, while we won't likely see nuclear power abandoned in places other than Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, we also are not likely to see nuclear play much of an additional role in reducing carbon emissions.