Cities of Light: How Will Solar Energy Transform Urban Futures?
This event last occurred March 23, 2021
Tuesday, March 23
11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. AZ time, via Zoom
Please join us for a webinar celebrating the release of "Cities of Light: A Collection of Solar Futures," a new book of science fiction stories, art and reflections that explore the future of social justice in solar-powered cities. The book is the product of an exciting collaboration between ASU’s Center for Energy and Society and Center for Science and Imagination and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Written in the shadow of COVID-19, the murder of George Floyd, and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed it, the stories and essays in Cities of Light examine questions of how the future of solar energy might intersect with timely questions of social justice, political economy, democracy, coloniality, ownership and urban-rural divides—as they play out in different urban contexts and along divergent future pathways of social and technological change. They explore both how solar energy might play into existing patterns of difference and inequality, as well as how those patterns might be disrupted through innovative approaches to the socio-technical design of the post-carbon city. Ultimately, they challenge us to engage the project of building the post-carbon city not only as a project of deploying solar energy but also as a project of designing more just and equitable societies. The webinar will bring together authors and editors from the book to discuss how the book addresses these themes and the power of its methodology to help bring about thriving futures for all.
Series sponsored by:
Center for Energy and Society
School for the Future of Innovation in Society
Quantum Energy and Sustainable Solar Technologies Center
Sustainable Cities Network
 | S.B. Divya is the Hugo and Nebula nominated author of "Machinehood" (Saga), "Runtime" (tordotcom), and the short story collection, "Contingency Plans For the Apocalypse and Other Situations" (Hachette India). Divya is the co-editor of the weekly science fiction podcast Escape Pod, with Mur Lafferty. She holds degrees in Computational Neuroscience and Signal Processing and worked for twenty years as an electrical engineer before becoming an author. |
 | Patricia Romero-Lankao joined NREL's Center for Integrated Mobility Sciences in 2018 as a senior research scientist in joint appointment with the University of Chicago's Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, where she is a research fellow. Her work focuses on crucial intersections among energy and water systems, mobility, and the built environment in cities around the world and how these intersect with inequalities in income, education and decision-making power across populations and the distribution of benefits or negative impacts of transportation and energy. |
 | Yíamar Rivera-Matos is a student of decolonization, energy transitions and sustainable futures. She is a PhD student in the Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology program in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University. Her current research is on solar-energy technologies and grassroots community solar-energy projects in Puerto Rico. |
 | Angel L. Echevarria is a PhD student in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University. He works as a research associate in the Grassroots Energy Innovation Laboratory at the Center for Energy and Society. Angel studied mechanical engineering at the University of Puerto Rico where he worked at the National Institute for Energy and Island Sustainability. His research focuses on sustainability issues, energy systems and how humans relate to both of them in society. |
 | Joey Eschrich is the editor and program manager at the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University and assistant director for Future Tense, a partnership of ASU, Slate magazine, and New America on emerging technology, policy and society. He has co-edited several books of science fiction and nonfiction, including "Future Tense Fiction" (Unnamed Press, 2019) and "A Year Without a Winter" (Columbia University Press, 2019). His the co-editor of "Cities of Light." |
 | Clark A. Miller is a designer, theorist and analyst of techno-human futures. In his work as the Director of ASU’s Center for Energy and Society, he explores how societies create and inhabit new technologies and their global implications for the future of people and the planet. This work aims to redesign technology innovation as a tool for creatively imagining and constructing inclusive, thriving communities. |
Online
For more information contact:
Melissa Waite
melissa.waite@asu.edu