District Heating Comes to Town: The Social Shaping of an Energy System by Jane Summerton

Abstract

TECHNOLOGYAND CULTURE Book Reviews 415 footnotes); a select bibliography; and some discussion of how Russians greeted and experienced applications of electric power (cf. Wolfgang Schivelbush’s Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century [Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988]), Coopersmith’s book does tell an important story. If there are those who still doubt that technology is not everywhere the same or that “socialism in one country” began with Lenin, not Stalin, they should read Coopersmith’s erudite and insightful account of Russia’s road to electrification. Douglas R. Weiner Dr. Weiner is associate professor of history at the University ofArizona, Tucson. District Heating Comes to Town: The Social Shaping of an Energy System. By Jane Summerton. Linkoping: University of Linkoping, Department of Technology and Social Change, 1992. Pp. 319; illustrations, notes, bibliography. SKr 220.00 (paper). The study of sociotechnical systems is one challenge that historians and sociologists of technology have successfully met. Most notably, this interdisciplinary discussion manifested itself in the now classic anthol­ ogy The Social Construction ofTechnological Systems (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987), which brought historians like Thomas P. Hughes together with sociologists like Michel Calion andJohn Law. That volume contrib­ uted to making Hughes a historian who has received considerable attention from social scientists interested in technological development. Jane Summerton is one of these social scientists. Although a sociolo­ gist, she draws heavily on Hughes’s work—both theoretically and thematically. As Hughes did in Networks of Power (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), she studies how determined actors build energy systems. Unlike Hughes, she focuses on the formation of a district-heating system in a small town, not on the construction of electricity systems in large cities. This focus on a seldom-studied field of technology and an obscure Scandinavian town makes Summerton’s book particularly interesting. The author brings the reader into a world where the messy and “seamless” character of technology becomes clearly visible. The instal­ lation in the 1980s of a district-heating system in Mjolby, Sweden, becomes a microcosm which reflects processes that are continuously unfolding everywhere technologies are developed or installed. To succeed, the “system builders” could not concentrate solely on solving problems relating to heat-plant design and piping; they also had to attract customers, deal with regulatory bodies, and undertake political lobbying. They had to form what Summerton calls an unofficial “multiorganization” that included representatives of the municipal council, local apartment companies and industries, and suppliers of primary energy sources. 416 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Summerton describes in great detail the administrative, legal, eco­ nomic, and political hurdles that had to be passed in order for the project to materialize. The meticulous character of her account makes it sometimes intriguing, sometimes tedious. She tells a well-documented story, but, since she has chosen a thematic rather than a chronological approach, it has not been possible to avoid repetitive passages. Among the themes or “critical issues” Summerton discusses in depth are the following: Why was such a major decision to build a district­ heating system made at all? How was a public/cooperative company organized to undertake the task? And how did this company use almost any means to gain a monopoly on the heating market in large parts of Mjolby? Summerton shows that the political decision to construct a system was made on rather loose grounds, and that it was clearly affected by the spirit of the times (in the wake of oil crises and Three Mile Island). She illustrates the tensions between profit motives and public interests that grew out of the internal structure of the company in charge of building the system, and she describes how the company was largely successful in keeping competing systems out of the district­ heating concession area. In my view the primary merit of Summerton’s case study is that it proves the usefulness of a sociological conflict perspective when analyz­ ing technological change. System building is no straightforward techni­ cal affair but includes processes of persuasion and the formation of alliances. Technological systems emerge as a result of ‘‘shared or comple­ mentary needs, interests, and concerns of a multitude of actors” (p. 258). If we want...