Over the last decade, many energy experts have supported carbon sequestration as a viable technological response to climate change. Given the potential importance of sequestration in US energy policy, what might explain the views of communities that may be directly impacted by the siting of this technology? To answer this question, we conducted focus groups in two communities who were potentially pilot project sites for California’s DOE-funded West Coast Regional Partnership (WESTCARB). We find that communities want a voice in defining the risks to be mitigated as well as the justice of the procedures by which the technology is implemented. We argue that a community’s sense of empowerment is key to understanding its range of carbon sequestration opinions, where ’empowerment’ includes the ability to mitigate community-defined risks of the technology. This sense of empowerment protects the community against the downside risk of government or corporate neglect, a risk that is rarely identified in risk assessments but that should be factored into assessment and communication strategies.
Isha Ray
University of California, Berkeley
Publications: Energy
The symbolic violence of debt discourse: Protesting electricity bills in Kroboland, Ghana
This paper analyzes the contested accounts of protesting and indebted electricity users in Kroboland, Ghana (2014–2022), during periods of heightened utility debt burdens. Utility debts have many causes beyond consumer nonpayment, but these debts have become normalized as economic-legal necessities, leaving the policyoriented literature focused on residential bills as the main source for cost-recovery. Bill protests are then presented as consumer unwillingness to pay or entitlement to services; this discourse is often supported by elite media and academic literature. Through examining Krobo’s electricity bill protests, we find that protests are driven by inconsistent billing practices, aggressive disconnection tactics, the transition to prepaid meters, and historical grievances. We argue that the policy-discourse of debt, whereby the Big Debts of utilities are kept in the shadow of the small debts of ordinary consumers, and the media-discourse of protests, whereby legitimate grievances are interpreted as cultures of nonpayment, can be understood as instances of Bourdieu’s symbolic violence. Our research shows that such discourse suppression has led to a way of seeing both debt and protests in an anti-poor manner. We conclude that simple accounts of complex contestations are unlikely to produce politically acceptable or economically viable energy policies.
The roles of women in cookstove intervention studies
Clean cooking fuel interventions can substantially advance Sustainable Development Goals related to health, poverty, gender equality and (possibly) climate change. Here we systematically review gender roles within cookstove randomized control trials (RCTs) with respect to (1) health and exposure; (2) time, labour, finance and behaviour; (3) climate; and (4) the research activities. We focus on RCTs because public health scholarship considers RCTs, despite limitations, to provide the highest-quality evidence to guide policy and widescale programming. Across our 123 included studies, women are frequently targeted but then not acknowledged in time, labour, finances and even health outcomes. Acknowledgement of gender norms is scarce. Using WHO gender-responsiveness categories, we find that 37% of studies were gender-unequal or gender-unaware. Women are often monitored only as proxies for their unborn children, our category of gender-unaware but sex-aware (26%). Twenty-nine percent are gender-sensitive, with only 6% gender-specific and two gender-transformative studies. We present recommendations for the field to shift to more gender-sensitive research designs, without which the field risks leaning into existing inequalities and basing future interventions on spuriously gender-neutral premises.
Affordability re-examined: beyond the health burden of safe water and clean cooking
Clean fuels and safe water have a clear role in averting devastating health outcomes, yet unaffordability remains a major barrier to their uptake and to correct and continued use. Within the global health field, we have no consistent answer to the question of how we know that something is affordable and for whom. In this Viewpoint, we draw on the literature and our own fieldwork in Tanzania, Mexico, and India to show that commonly used metrics of affordability do not represent the true burdens of affording safe water and clean cooking in low-income and middle-income countries. We discuss the explicit and implicit assumptions in existing affordability metrics and call for augmented measures to shape affordability policies for water and cooking that advance global health goals. Research and policy must be realistic about who the user is, what the user’s constraints are, and how these constraints shape any meaningful affordability metric. Unrealistic affordability metrics can only hide affordability crises and hinder progress on global public health goals.
Out of sight, out of mind? How electricity unreliability shapes residential electricity transitions.
Social norms on household energy consumption practices have been historically fostered through ideas of comfort, cleanliness and modernity, underpinned by reliable and affordable energy services. Contemporary
discourses on energy transitions require households to conform to new expectations of “sustainable” living, calling for energy users to participate in the electrification of energy end-uses, provided sufficient economic incentives. Yet, a combination of emotional and social responses to the increased frequency of power outages complicate this account. Despite expectations of consumer cooperation in the clean energy transition, limited research explores how differing capabilities and lived experiences with energy infrastructure modify perspectives on these changes. Through semi-structured interviews with sixty Northern California residents, we explore how residents cope with energy unreliability and whether—or how—they envision transitioning to higher levels of electrification of their homes. By centering users’ lived experiences, this work goes beyond formulations of “customer choices” to focus on how everyday energy practices are reimagined in the context of residential electrification policies, climate imperatives, and power outages —or the fear thereof. We argue that the emotional, social, and relational dimensions of grid reliability should complement the predominantly technoeconomic lens through which electricity reliability is studied, highlighting the implications of this framing for electricity-intensive residential energy transitions.
I am the one responsible: The gendered reality of clean cooking fuel affordability in Shirati, Tanzania.
Affordability remains one of the most significant barriers to the exclusive use of clean cookstoves and fuels, a top global health, energy, and development priority. The measurement and discussion
of clean fuel affordability is almost always based on the unitary, or single decision-maker, household as the unit of analysis, although the more realistic household disaggregated into its individual decision-makers is a well-established literature. The limited work on intra-household dynamics in clean cooking cannot reveal who is buying the stove or fuel and at what true cost. Following an experiment testing the effect of microsavings to increase clean fuel consumption in Shirati, a rural town in Mara region, Tanzania, we conducted 90 interviews and numerous focus groups/budget games with a stratified random sample of mostly female main cooks. Drawing on over two years of fieldwork, we investigate the range of household needs, the role of gender in household finances, and how these combine to determine cooking fuel purchases. We find distinct and gendered financial domains where spouses do not disclose their expenses to one another and are responsible for different categories of needs. Cooking fuel is firmly in the female domain. Thus,
liquefied petroleum gas affordability is constrained by these gendered financial domains, as women must choose between using savings for daily necessities or refilling the gas. Our extensive ethnographic evidence demonstrates the inappropriateness of the unitary model for cooking fuel affordability and the implications of ignoring separate-account household models. Our work requires new interpretations of saving for, and affordability of, clean fuels that the clean cooking literature has yet to confront. We offer recommendations for how the clean cooking literature could measure affordability and design policy for regions where cooking fuel is exclusively in the female financial domain.
Easing liquidity constraints might be insufficient for exclusive clean cooking fuel use
Clean cooking fuels can be unaffordable. A year-long randomized control trial in Tanzania finds that a lockbox with savings nudges modestly increases participants’ liquified petroleum gas (LPG) use but does not result in exclusive use. Easing liquidity constraints is insufficient to foster exclusive clean fuel use when women save alone and must choose between LPG and other household needs.
This is a summary of: Gill-Wiehl, A. et al. Deconstructing the (un) affordability of clean cooking fuels through a randomized trial in rural Tanzania.
Nat. Energy https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-025-01778-w (2025).
Deconstructing the (un)affordability of clean cooking fuels through a randomized trial in rural Tanzania
Low-income users struggle to save for clean cooking fuel costs. We test whether a lockbox intervention paired with micro-saving nudges could alleviate the unaffordability of clean fuels. In a year-long stepped-wedge randomized control trial in Tanzania (n = 511), we find that compared to savings nudges only, a lockbox and savings nudges increased annual refills of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by 1.4 (0.054 per 2 weeks ([95% confidence interval: 0.043, 0.066], P < 0.0001)) and minimally decreased firewood use but had no effect on lags between LPG refills or the frequency of LPG and charcoal use. We find that easing liquidity constraints is insufficient for exclusive LPG use when LPG is the financial responsibility of only women, who ration LPG purchases to meet other household needs and social expectations. The financial and gendered realities of low-income consumers demand clean energy policies beyond easing liquidity constraints or targeted subsidies.
Affording a clean stack: Evidence from cookstoves in urban Kenya
The unaffordability of clean cookstoves and fuels, as defined by the World Health Organization, is one of the most significant reasons for the persistent use of unclean fuels, even when “stacked” alongside a clean stove. To see health benefits, the entire cooking stack must be clean, and therefore the clean stack needs to be affordable. Using a case study of clean biomass pellet stoves in Nairobi, Kenya, we present scenario analyses to measure and evaluate the affordability of adopting a clean stack under various cooking scenarios, income ranges and affordability measures. We find that almost all clean stack scenarios are above the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program’s threshold, regardless of displaced baseline fuels. Further research should evaluate multiple measures of affordability to understand the full household budgetary context. Our results indicate a cooking fuel affordability crisis, which can undermine the achievement of multiple Sustainable Development Goals.
Is clean cooking affordable? A review
2.9 billion people lack access to clean cooking fuels and technologies. This review analyzes the literature on affordability as a barrier to adoption and consistent use of clean cooking stoves and fuels. We find diverse frameworks, definitions and metrics in use, and frequent discussions on stove price, fuel costs, microfinance, and smaller procurement quantities. We recommend that financing strategies to mitigate unaffordability be based on how low-income households actually earn, spend, and save their money, and that affordability frameworks be expanded to account for gender divides, rural/urban divides, and stove stacking behavior. Our review thus aims to reflect the nuances of a low-income household’s ability to pay for clean fuels. Affordability must make sense within the lived experiences of the poor if clean cooking is to achieve universal access.
The refill gap: Clean cooking fuel adoption in rural India
From 2016-2019, the Indian Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) distributed over 80 million Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) stoves, making it the largest clean cooking program ever. Yet, evidence shows widespread continued use of the traditional chulha, negating the potential health benefits of LPG. Here we use semi-structured interviews with female and male adults to understand the drivers of LPG usage in Mulbagal, Karnataka, the site of a proto-PMUY program. We find that respondents perceive the main value of LPG to be saving time, rather than better
health. We also find that norms of low female power in the household, in addition to costs, delay saving for and ordering LPG cylinder refills. Namely, female cooks controlled neither the money nor the mobile phone required to order a timely refill. These factors together contribute to the “refill gap”: the period of non-use between refilling cylinders, which may range from days to even months. Our work reveals how gender norms can amplify affordability challenges in low18 income households.
Power quality and modern energy for all
“Modern energy for all,” an internationally supported initiative to connect populations to electricity services, is expected to help reduce poverty-induced vulnerabilities. It has become a primary strategy for meeting sustainable development goals, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. However, when electricity is supplied by a capacity-constrained grid to a resource-constrained population, the service quality can vary both spatially and temporally. This research explores the quality of electricity services based on a case study of Unguja, Tanzania. Using 1) open-ended interviews, 2) detailed electricity-systems monitoring, and 3) household surveys, we show how voltage quality varies significantly, even within highly localized settings. Fluctuations result in dim lights at best and power outages and broken appliances at worst, denying many Unguja residents the expected benefits of access to modern energy. By combining an extensive understanding of the physical system together with interviews and surveys, this work presents a unique mapping of voltage quality in a system that is financially and physically constrained and highlights the consequences of poor-quality service for poor users.
The prepaid electric meter: Rights, relationships and reification in Unguja, Tanzania
Abstract
Sustainable Development Goal 7, with the light bulb and power button as its symbols, in effect promotes the universal right to basic electricity services. Access for all demands both affordability and cost-recovery, and utilities (and donors) increasingly require users to shoulder the greater burden of cost-recovery. We argue that the electricity system is underpinned by a set of relationships among user, provider and the service itself: these relationships are mediated by the meter, the technology of commodification. Using a constant-comparison approach, and based on a year of interviews and document analysis, we compare postpaid and prepaid meter regimes in Unguja, Tanzania. We ask: what difference does the mode of payment make to the (residential) user, the utility, and to the prospects for meeting SDG 7? We find that the prepaid meter becomes reified with its automated monitoring and measurement mechanism, rendering the once-familiar meter reader obsolete, and shutting off the flow of electricity as soon as the customer’s “units” have run down. Reification makes the utility more invisible to the customer, who now blames the meter rather than the utility for poor service or high bills. Our interviews reveal broad support for the prepaid meter, however, because economically vulnerable users expressed greater fear of debt than of the dark, and were willing to cede control of their consumption to the new meter. These findings undermine the common accusation of a “culture of nonpayment” in Africa. We also find that prepaid meters may incentivize the partial return to biomass-based fuels when cash is not available – exactly the behavior that universal access to electricity is supposed to prevent. We conclude that, if access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa becomes entirely contingent on payment prior to use, this is not fully compatible with a commitment to universal basic access.
Influencing attitudes towards carbon capture and sequestration: A social marketing approach
Abstract
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), while controversial, is seen as promising because it will allow the United States to continue using its vast fossil fuel resources in a carbon-constrained world. The public is an important stakeholder in the national debate about whether or not the U.S. should include CCS as a significant part of its climate change strategy. Understanding how to effectively engage with the public about CCS has become important in recent years, as interest in the technology has intensified. We argue that engagement efforts should be focused on places where CCS will first be deployed, i.e., places with many “energy veteran” (EV) citizens. We also argue that, in addition to information on CCS, messages with emotional appeal may be necessary in order to engage the public. In this paper we take a citizen-guided social marketing approach toward understanding how to (positively or negatively) influence EV citizens’ attitudes toward CCS. We develop open-ended interview protocols, and a “CCS campaign activity”, for Wyoming residents from Gillette and Rock Springs. We conclude that our participants believed expert-informed CCS messages, embedded within an emotionally self-referent (ESR) framework that was relevant to Wyoming, to be more persuasive than the expert messages alone. The appeal to core values of Wyomingites played a significant role in the citizen-guided CCS messages.
The role of social factors in shaping public perceptions of CCS: Results of multi-state focus group interviews in the US
Abstract
Three of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships analyzed community perspectives on carbon capture and storage (CCS) through focus groups and interviews in five communities. These perspectives were analyzed in the context of each community’s history and its social and economic characteristics. The results were considered for their insights into specific concerns within each region, as well as to assess inter-region commonalities. In all cases, factors such as past experience with government, existing low socioeconomic status, desire for compensation, and/or perceived benefit to the community were of greater concern than the concern about the risks of the technology itself. This paper discusses the findings from the joint review of the focus groups and the potential lessons for application to CCS deployment.
Community perceptions of carbon sequestration: Insights from California
Abstract
How to use technology to spur development
Merging technology and entrepreneurialism to meet the needs of the poor and improve their productivity has obvious appeal, but such efforts need more careful study and planning to deliver on their potential.
Environmental non-government organizations' perceptions of geologic sequestration
Abstract
Environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been influential in shaping public perceptions of environmental problems, their causes and potential solutions. Over the last decade, carbon capture and storage (CCS) has emerged as a potentially important technological response to climate change. In this paper we investigate how leading US NGOs perceive geologic sequestration, a potentially controversial part of CCS. We examine how and why their perceptions and strategies might differ, and if and how they plan to shape public perceptions of geologic sequestration. We approach these questions through semi-structured interviews with representatives from a range of NGOs, supplemented by content analysis of their documents. We find that while all the NGOs are committed to combating climate change, their views on CCS as a mitigation strategy vary considerably. We find that these views are correlated with NGOs’ histories of activism and advocacy, as well as with their sources of funding. Overall, most of these NGOs accept the necessity of geologic sequestration, while only a small fraction do not.