Presentation at the BSA Climate Change Study Group event, “Energy, Climate and Society: Insights from Early Career Researchers”, held on Thursday, 18 April 2013 at the University of Westminster.

1. Getting the measure of it:
energy metrics and folk quanta
Dr Tom Roberts
18th of April 2013
Energy, climate and society:
Insights from early career researchers
University of Westminster
B

2. Outline
• Why energy metrics matter.
• What history of science tells us.
• A typology of energy and folk quanta.
• Comments on monitoring.
• Closing thoughts.

3. In science:
• Energy is always conserved. In every process,
there is always the same total amount at the
end as there was at the beginning.
• Energy is an abstract, mathematical idea, a
property of an object or system that can be
given a numerical value.
• Scientists measure energy: Joules, Calories,
British thermal units, Watts and Kilowatt-
hours etc...
• It is concerned with epistemic and technical
forms of knowledge
Energy metrics matter:
Problems with energy conservation
In everyday life:
• Energy should be conserved. It can be felt, seen
consumed and bought.
• Energy is a thing in the sense that it is used to
do things. It holds a relational value.
• Consumers measure energy using informal
measurement techniques known as ‘folk
quanta.’ (Kempton and Montgomery, 1983).
• Is concerned with phronetic and forms of
knowledge i.e. It involves practical reason and
(Flyvbjerg, 2001;)

4. Energy metrics matter:
Invisibility and equivalence
‘Double invisibility’
• An invisible and abstract force entering the
household via hidden wires. (Hargreaves et al
2010)
• Consumption part of inconspicuous routines and
habits difficult to link to specific actions (Shove,
2003).
• Difficulties of finding equivalence as multiple
practice domains with different folk quanta.
(Like Imperial and metric).

5. • Modern idea of energy masks a much richer past
• Energy, from Greek energeia, ‘activity’, from
energos, ‘being in action’
• Corporeal energy – “Labour united the human and
animal bodies” - ‘working like a horse’, ‘feeling his
oats’, and ‘working in the traces’ (Nye,1998)
• 1590s – Galileo’s experiments
• 1599 – ‘Energy’ first used to describe ‘force or
vigour of expression’.
• 1676 – Leibniz and ‘vis viva’
• 1807 – Thomas Young and ‘energy’
• 1840s – law of conservation of energy
Energy: theoretical construct to
industrial reality

6. Thinking energy otherwise:
A typology of energy and folk
quanta

7. Energy relationality
Corporeal
-energy felt
Kinaesthetic
- energy and
movement
Affectual –
energy you feel
you can affect
Fuel–
energy you
know you
have stored
Vicarious–
energy
experience
d indirectly

8. Energy relationality
Corporeal
Kinaesthetic
Affectual
Fuel
Vicarious
Engagement and
possible ‘change’ most
likely to occur closer to
the centre

9. Energy relationality
Corporeal
Kinaesthetic
Affectual
Fuel
Vicarious
Most behavioural change
agendas target.

10. In reality far more complex!

11. Corporeal
Corporeal-
energy felt
- ambient energy
-thermoception
-largely intuitive
‘If you’ve got something like a log fire,
just the sight of those flames has a
psychological effect to make you
feel warmer ...Yes, there is the
radiant heat but I think you get an
extra boost’ (U5)

12. Kinaesthetic
Kinaesthetic - energy and
movement
‘... kinaesthetic investments
orient us toward the material
affordances of the world
around us in particular
ways...(Sheller, 2005)
My relationship with my
my motion and chemical
energy on my bike is of a
very different quality to
the guy in the BMW

13. Affectual
Affectual –
Energy use you have
perceived agency over
-Purchasing and Waste decisions
‘You know, you lift the [food waste] at
the end of the week and you’ve got
15 kilos of wasted food. It makes
you... You know...that’s very tangible.
Whereas electricity, okay, it’s a bill’.
(U5)
-Explains why waste issues come up
when addressing energy
-Frugality; careful use of money,
goods, resources (i.e. avoid being
wasteful)
(Rettie and Harries, 2013; Evans
2001)
‘We only talk about things that
affect us […] we lose the bigger
picture about how things are
produced: the power stations,
nuclear, solar etc… cause we
can’t affect that stuff, can we?
(X7).

14. Fuel
Fuel–
‘potential’ or
stockpiled energy
-Stored food
-Wood
-Coal
-Gas / Oil
-Mpg and its relationship to distance
travelled

15. Vicarious
Labour saving devices
•Energy experienced vicariously
through machines (usually)
appreciated as replaces human
effort e.g. older generation and
washing machines.
•Today guilt over tumble dryer and
dishwasher
•Can we think in kettlefulls?
• £ compensates for inability to
convert energy units. (e.g., kilowatt
hours, gallons fuel, megajoules).
• Money becomes the common unit
for measuring all energy use.
(Silvis, Leighty and Karner 2007)
Energy experienced
vicariously through
technology and £
INT: Is there a reason for leaving your energy
monitor on the cost mode?
U9: It sort of makes sense, penny per hour. The energy
mode...it doesn’t mean anything.
INT: Doesn’t mean anything?
U9: Well does it? Does it mean anything to you? The
penny per hour makes sense...if we could get it…
down to say 2p an hour it would cost us, you
know... 48p a day...

16. Energy relationality
Corporeal
Kinaesthetic
Affectual
Fuel
Vicarious
Need to make energy
consuming actions more
salient – pushing them
closer to the centre

17. Increase what we can 'affect’
Affectual –
I just thought, ‘why waste
money?’
Can be applied to shower
routines e.g. The 4 minute
shower!
Gas for heating some
success?
Electricity ?a lot harder!
e.g. Use Folk quanta that
are domain specific
Washing = No of ‘wears’

18. Increase what we feel
Corporeal-
energy felt
- ambient energy
-thermoception
-largely intuitive
Thermal imaging parties
-Make energy use / loss
salient in the home

19. I’m using how much £!?
• Monitors increase salience (at least initially)
‘[...]monitor’s ability to make energy use relational’
(Hargreaves 2010)
• Need to incorporate meaningful metrics and link
with equivalent appliances and practices.
• Comparing apples and pears e.g. Kettles 90%
efficient but spike - baseline or vampire more
important!
• Also what is normal – who to compare with?

20. 1. Language of conservation of energy confusing
2. Folk quanta important to behavioural change agenda as the
units used can increase salience of energy.
3. Multiple units of measurement that incorporate meaningful
folk units should be encouraged.
4. Not just a case of more and better measurement. E.g. EV and
the search for new meaningful equivalent metrics to replace
MPG.
5. Need to understand energy qualitatively or relationally as well
as quantitatively.
6. Corporeal, kinaesthetic and affectual can be powerful ways of
rethinking an approach to engagement with this topic.
Closing thoughts and policy
implications

21. Thank you!
Dr Tom Roberts
t.roberts@kingston.ac.uk
www.smartcommunities.org.uk

22. • Community action project domestic energy reduction
• Prof Ruth Rettie, Dr Kevin Burchell and Dr Tom Roberts
• Team of local project partners
• Lots of community engagement!
• See: www.smartcommunities.org.uk
Smart Communities

23. E=MC2
FACTS...
• For traditional science educators:
• “Energy is the important bit of
mathematics that you learn about if
you ever study science at advanced
level...people who do not know
anything about it use the word ‘energy’
to mean all sorts of different things,
most of which are silly. Take no notice
of them”. (Warren, 1991:8-9)
Energy metrics and education
BUT...
• Children ‘start with ideas of energy
related to personal experiences of human
activities, vitalism and activity - “jumping
about” or “being lively”’.
• Their conceptions of energy are, ‘messy,
contradictory and obstinately persistent’.
(Solomon, 1982)
And its not just school kids that thought of
energy this way...