Technological Niches of Sustainable Aviation Fuel: Socio-Technical Configuration Analysis of the Dutch Socio-Technical System of Aviation Fuel
Summary
The continuously growing aviation sector is responsible for 7% of Dutch CO2 emissions and is one of the most difficult sectors to abate emissions. Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is considered as a promising pathway to reduce these CO2 emissions. SAF can be classified into synthetic kerosene and three distinct generations of biokerosene. First-, second- and third-generation biokerosene as well as the later emerging synthetic kerosene were initially developed within a technological niche, having been supported by a small network of actors and institutions in a protected space apart from the established regime.
This thesis seeks to understand how and under what circumstances technological niches of SAF can reconfigure the regime of the Dutch socio-technical system of aviation fuel. It thereby questions whether the breakthrough of a technological niche is, apart from the internal niche processes and necessary ‘windows of opportunity’ suggested by SNM scholars within existing literature, moreover depends on additional conditions.
Socio-Technical Configuration Analysis (STCA) was employed in this study. This method was utilized to study prevalent ‘storylines’ and ‘advocacy coalitions’ in three distinct phases of the public discourse of this sector. Connections between actors and concepts were discerned from actor statements recorded in Dutch public newspapers and coded in an iteratively developed coding scheme in NVivo. Co-occurrences between actor and concept codes were exported as matrices, processed through an R script and ultimately visualized as ‘concept congruence networks’ and ‘actor congruence networks’ in Visone. Both the networks and the qualitative nature of the data allowed for analysing the emerging socio-technical configurations and the established configuration, as well as the impact of institutionalized actors and shifts in field logics on the Dutch socio-technical system of aviation fuel in Phase I, Phase II and Phase III.
The analysis revealed that the successful breakthrough of the niches of second-generation biokerosene and synthetic kerosene depended on internal niche development processes and a de-stabilized regime through the occurrence of critical moments. Moreover, relational power structures of actors within the dominant field logic exerting influence on these niches through their institutional support was identified as a condition for success. Also, the alignment of these technological niche with the dynamics of the existing regime, through hybridization of old and new technology, was found to be a necessary circumstance. Furthermore, learning processes accumulated within stabilized niches could be leveraged to the newly emerging niche of synthetic kerosene, serving as a ‘springboard’ for its development.