Accelerating mobility

Project funded by teh Danish research Council, started in 2006. Project leader: Mette Jensen

The still growing and fast accelerating mobility is the starting point of a three years' research project about the interrelations between physical travel and the comprehensive use of IT-technologies with built-in mobility, e.g. the use of mobile phones, e-mails, internet, TV etc. Still more people are travelling more often, and the uses of mobile phones, Internet etc. are becoming increasingly unavoidable in the building and maintenance of networks in modern life. This increasing mobility creates a lot of opportunities but also numerous problems concerning environment, security, congestion and land use. Some of the serious environmental problems are urban air pollution and a severe contribution to the greenhouse effect (approximately one third of the total worldwide contribution is caused by transport). With these problems as its backgrund the project focuses on how mobility in modern society is composed and how it plays a decisive role in social changes on all levels.  Read more...

Sociological perspectives on the introduction of biofuels

Work package in the integrated project Renewable Energy in the Transport Sector Using Biofuels as Energy Carriers: Scenarios for the introduction of biofuels in the transport sector, consequences for land use, health and environment, and ensuing social and ethical dilemmas. Work package leader: Mette Jensen

Over the past few months and years, biofuels - mainly bioethanol and biodiesel produced from biomass – have received increasing attention throughout Europe and the rest of the world as renewable alternatives to fossil fuels in the steady growing transport sector. In Denmark , the government has – after some hesitation – decided to endorse the EU’s binding targets for renewable energy, including a 10 % minimum share of biofuels in the overall consumption of fuels for transport by 2020. Simultaneously, however, biofuel technologies have become highly disputed in public debates, in which the introduction of biofuels is alternately presented as a solution to problems of energy supply, climate change, and regional development – or as a source of environmental and social problems in its own right. This work package studies the public’s perceptions of and attitudes towards biofuels, in light of the increasing biofuel debates as well as the complexity of the concerns involved. Read more...