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The Institutional Lock-out of Sustainable Transport Technologies: Inherent, Intentional, Invertible?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2020

Stephen Bi
Stephen Bi*
Affiliation:
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Wissenschaftpark ‘Albert Einstein’, Telegrafenberg, 14473Potsdam, Germany. Email: stephen.bi@pik-potsdam.de
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Abstract

The worldwide transportation sector remains 93% dependent on the oil industry. While other economic sectors in developed nations have begun to decarbonize in recent decades, greenhouse gas emissions from transportation have continued to rise. This article examines how automobiles came to be so dependent on a finite and socially detrimental resource when electric and ethanol-powered vehicles have always offered distinct performance advantages, and how the latter vehicles fell from socio-political favour to technological lock-out.

Type
Focus: Mobility – A Bridge Between the Past and the Present
Information
European Review , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 83 - 94
Copyright
© 2020 Academia Europaea

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