Thesis

The promise of power : the power of promise: sustaining six decades of solid oxide fuel cell research and development

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Awarding institution
  • University of Strathclyde
Date of award
  • 2024
Thesis identifier
  • T17180
Person Identifier (Local)
  • 201980249
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Qualification Name
Department, School or Faculty
Abstract
  • The promise is enticing: an energy conversion “black box” that will produce electricity cleanly, silently and efficiently. This technology, known as the solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), was promised as an important bridge to a low carbon energy future. However, despite the promise, the SOFC has still to cross the boundaries from promise to realisation. Repeatedly rejected by some on grounds of cost or reliability, its hold on the imagination persists. This persistence raises an interesting question: how have fuel cells managed to maintain validity as such a promising technology over decades of repeated false starts? In this thesis I follow historical pathways of SOFC development and find a device repeatedly reframed around the promise of new materials and processing, with expectation constructed around these promissory materials and designs. These offered new applications, which when facilitated by reorganisations of R&D management and changing energy markets, sustained sponsorship. Drawing on my 25 years as an SOFC researcher and augmenting documentary records with oral history, I also argue that the reframing of the SOFC reflected changing public policy imperatives around energy and the environment, from energy crises in the 1970s, pollution worries in the 1980s and climate concerns in the 1990s. Furthermore, my research adds to the evidence that the narratives and expectation around fuel cells have played a social role, providing plausible keystones for the technological optimism prevalent in policy responses to challenges around energy. This contributed to the impression that solutions to energy and environmental crises were close at hand, allowing difficult social decisions to be postponed and perpetuating business as usual. I suggest the SOFC inhabited two worlds, one of laboratory results and experiments, the other of ideas and imaginaries. Together these worlds constructed futures were the SOFC could flourish and remind us of the need to understand technologies within the social and cultural contexts in which they are both created and exist.
Advisor / supervisor
  • Eisler, Matthew N., 1970-
Resource Type
DOI

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