IAI-calendar of events

 
Seminar

Technology forecasting to meet future societies by constructing context scenarios

Friday, 11 January 2019, 11:00-12:30
Campus Nord, IAI, Geb. 449, Rau 140

Emerging socio-economic challenges for Europe are manifold, including urbanisation, digitalisation, a growing ageing population, changing younger generation lifestyle, single European market, etc. Development of new future and sustainable mobility forms could contribute to these needs, which have to be recognized not only by governmental bodies but also by companies. They shall provide products and services to satisfy the needs.

For this purpose, and in order to explore future technological developments, technology forecasting involves the creation of scenarios, which also include a socio-technical frame. Such scenarios must not only consider that societal framework conditions could change over time, but also that those changes interact with technological developments. We apply the method of Cross-Impact Balance (CIB) analysis to identify scenarios that support or hinder the development of certain technologies, and furthermore present a new approach to choose the relevant technology-related scenarios. Exemplarily analysed are three technologies to produce renewable gaseous fuels to replace fossil fuels – fermentation, gasification and power to gas.

We found that the three technologies succeed in different socio-technical settings. This is of utmost interest, since prima facie the required societal frames for different technologies are identical. Only for power to gas, a consistent technology-related scenario could be determined. Important combinations for market success include the resource availability and demand, the obtainable know how with regard to the technological maturity, and the environmental legislation and environmental performance of the technology. The case study reveals the relevance of interlinking the societal frame with technological parameters to analyse the possible success of a technology.

Speaker
Dr.-Ing. Witold-Roger Poganietz

KIT
Institut für Technikfolgenabschätzung und Systemanalyse (ITAS)
Organizer
Sekretariat
IAI
KIT
Karlsruhe
Mail: sekretariat does-not-exist.kit edu
https://www.iai.kit.edu
Targetgroup
Scientific Staff
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