Professor Lutzenhiser retired from teaching in 2018, but continues research, writing, public service, and advising PhD candidates. Early in his career he studied with the American Pragmatist Bruce Hackett at UC Davis and was on the faculty at Washington State University in environmental sociology, before joining the Toulan School of Urban Studies & Planning at PSU. His research on energy and households has contributed to a new holistic framework for thinking about human-technology interactions in ecological systems. A particular interest has been the differential impacts of climate change across social groups–always with a pragmatic focus on using social theory and research for the benefit of real-world communities, both human and natural. At PSU he taught courses in research design, community & the built environment, energy & society, and sustainable development.
Professor Lutzenhiser has been Principal Investigator for a number of applied interdisciplinary research projects funded by federal, state and local governments and private firms. He has authored and co-authored 100+ publications reporting research findings and advancing theory about people, energy and technology. He has served on scientific journal editorial boards, National Academy panels, and in leadership of professional societies. At PSU, he has contributed to cross-campus initiatives including as a founding senior fellow at the Center for Sustainable Solutions, Co-PI of the Green Buildings Research Laboratory, and founding Director of the PSU Graduate Certificate in Energy Policy and Management.
CURRENT INTERESTS
The question now is: “Does humanity have any real chance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that might lessen the worst effects of global warming and climate change?”
California is a particularly good place to look for answers, since that state has long been an epicenter of innovation and rapid change. In terms of energy and climate, California public investment has probably been greater than anywhere else in the world—with ambitious commitments for the expansion of renewables and decarbonization of the energy system through electrification of energy end-uses.
This would call for a fundamental transformation of the energy system—including restructuring the grid for resilient transmission and distribution networks, decentralized energy supply and storage, and completely new networked “smart” interconnections of people, buildings, devices, vehicles, and grid services (all with supporting changes to institutional, scientific, economic, and socio-political infrastructures). And in this transition California is also committed to social equity in climate and energy impacts, opportunities and outcomes.
So California’s energy system transformation policies represent a natural experiment in climate response that may offer important insights. From a sociological point of view, this involves understanding the dynamics of emerging technology movements. These are long-term historical developments, pushed forward, actively managed and evolved in real time through the interplay of people, communities, technical devices and systems, social institutions and organizations, and ecologies and geographies. And this is a knowledge domain still in its infancy. [If this seems vague, past examples of change movements on this scale might include global navigation, steam railroads, mass production, automobility, air transport, electronic communications, microbiological medicine.]
A particularly understudied area (and a very difficult policy nut to crack) involves people, technologies and energy in multifamily (MF) housing. MF residents tend to be renters and to have lower incomes than single family (SF) dwelling residents. Over the past 30+ years, utility and government residential energy efficiency programs have focused on homeowners and SF dwellings. So very little private sector technology innovation or public funding has gone to solar, high efficiency heating and cooling, advanced green and zero energy buildings, or “smart home” technologies in MF housing (all likely necessary for the transformations envisioned).
This is not really surprising, because MF housing often has absentee ownership and little management concern for energy (the bills often paid by residents using landlord-owned equipment), let alone concern for the environment. But since MF units represent about 40% of all housing in metropolitan California, Oregon and Washington, it is an important segment that warrants much closer attention if transformative goals are to stand any chance of being realized. And in this context, it is especially important to better understand how aging residents and minority households may fare in a changing environment and under different system transformation regimes.
Engineering innovation and action on the ground are needed to avoid leaving these groups behind. But knowledge about their conditions, needs and practices is thin. So, no matter how well-intentioned, policies, products and programs that aren’t informed by careful applied research (e.g., that incorporates a range of data sources, disciplines, analytic tools, and engagement) will be unable to make a significant impact.