Background
This lab began our series of labs we will be conducting around the framing question of “what motivates countries to utilize renewable energy?” We plan to approach this question by researching Iceland and Burundi, two countries with some of the highest rates of renewable energy consumption over nonrenewable energy consumption. The focus question we chose to situate our project is “What motivates the use of renewable energy in Burundi and Iceland?” We are interested in this due to the fact that Iceland is a high income country that utilizes less renewable energy than Burundi, a very low income country. To do our research, we had to collect sources and background on both countries to compare how and why they have such high amounts of renewable energy consumption. For our comparison, it is imperative to gather key sources for both countries so that we may analyze their physical, cultural, ideological, and governmental perspectives on renewable energy consumption. Procedure To begin our research, we created a shared Zotero group library for our sources by selecting “New Group,” and “New Library” with the public and closed membership option and added all of our lab members. We then began searching for sources to use in our bibliography. We chose to use Google Scholar and Jstor as our two main search engines when conducting our research. The criteria we used to determine whether or not to use the source was based on how cited it is as well as how relevant it was too our research. We used sources that were accessible and peer-reviewed or generated by national or international-sponsored organizations, such as the World Bank. We also tried to include sources that provide background information for each country as well as info on each country’s energy consumption and social/cultural ideologies. Results Here is the link to our annotated bibliography: https://www.zotero.org/groups/2255337/220_burundi In our references, we utilize several sources concerned with the nature of energy consumption and its relationship to other factors we are interested in for our research: Energy Consumption and Growth (Nondo and Kahsai, 2009), Renewable Energy Markets in Developing Countries (Martinot et al., 2002), The Role of Renewable Energy Consumption and Trade: Environmental Kuznets Curve Analysis for Sub-Saharan Africa Countries (Jebli et al., 2001), What drives the development of renewable energy technologies? Toward a typology for the systemic drivers (Darmani et al., 2014), and “Understanding Energy and Energy Policy (Braun et al., 2014). These sources, among some others, focus primarily on energy, its relation to capital, and drivers for nations to utilize renewable energies. We also included sources more focused on socio-political aspects of the countries that we are studying: Modern Folklore, Identity, and Political Change in Burundi (Kadenske-Kaiser and Kaiser, 1997), Ethnicity and Power in Burundi and Rwanda: Different Paths to Mass Violence (Uvin, 1999), Drivers of Ecological Restoration: Lessons from a Century of Restoration in Iceland (Aradóttir et al., 2013), and This Changing World: Preserving wilderness versus enabling economic change: Iceland and the Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Project (Newson, 2010). These sources focus more on the values of each country and in some cases, how it relates to their perspective on environmentalism or ecological restoration. Other sources we included focus on specific case studies of renewable energy research and implementation in Iceland as well as the importance of renewable energies and why renewable energy is utilized. Discussion In doing our research, I realized how many intricacies there are within approaching perspectives and drivers of renewable energy consumption in how economic status, national values, and history can be involved in why countries choose to utilize renewables. Through doing this stretch of research, it appears that Iceland is more focused on environmental remediation and sustainability and it is possible that Burundi utilizes renewable energy because it is the most abundant and perhaps only what they have access to. To further our research, I believe that we should maybe look back to our previous lab where my lab group and I looked at the relationships between economic statuses of countries and their renewable energy consumption to re-examine our results in relation to our project. In terms of research, we should look deeper into when Burundi’s renewable energy systems were developed and perhaps what came before their industrialization to see what events led to their use of renewable energy. Additionally, we should collect more information on Icelandic perspectives on environmentalism and possibly Burundi’s if that information is available. We also need to look more into the geography of Burundi and Iceland to see how abundant the resources for their renewable energy systems are as well as the technology that is available to those nations.
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December 2018
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