@article{9dd49a5eb43d441bb4330998ad6b008e,
title = "Politics of Energy Transitions: A decade after Nigeria's biofuels crusade, a tale of non-commercialization and lost opportunities",
abstract = "There is a growing literature on the politics of sustainability transitions and its correlation with policy changes at the national level. This paper contributes to this debate by taking stock of energy transition processes in Nigeria's biofuels sector. It explores the socio-economic externalities that influenced the biofuels policy, how this policy process was negotiated and why it failed. Based on expert interviews and document analysis, it was observed that a drop in oil production and the need for economic diversification (GDP growth) created a favourable condition for the development of biofuels in 2005. However, the biofuels policy was insufficiently articulated when the window of opportunity opened. In the last 10 years, fluctuations in oil prices and changes in government have closed the window of opportunity for biofuels. Taken together, the results suggest that to successfully engineer transition, policy processes of this nature require a re-articulation of vision based on emerging externalities.",
keywords = "biofuels, energy transitions, multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions, Nigeria, politics",
author = "Olufolahan Osunmuyiwa",
note = "Funding Information: The policy created an arena for coordinating common agendas, as new niche actors such as research institutes and universities (Osunmuyiwa and Kalfagianni, 2017), largely excluded from the earlier phases of the policy development, began to carry out research on biofuels while also mobilizing support for the sector. Examples of such higher institutions include the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan, the University of Agriculture Makurdi and the University of Agriculture Abeokuta. By developing shared visions and coalitions, these scientific institutions were able to demonstrate the viability of the biofuels industry. Nonetheless, most of their work consisted of pilot-scale projects that were independent of governmental support. Most of these pilot initiatives were sponsored either by the research institutes/universities as trial research (e.g. trial production of biodiesel from palm kernel) (Alamu et al., 2008) or by international organizations.4 A typical example of such collaboration is the pilot-scale Jatropha project conducted by the Centre for Energy Research and Development (CERD) financed by the World Bank. One of the experts interviewed on this project, however, concluded that: “ … although the project suffered a huge setback due to financial difficulties, it, however, led to the first scientific conference in Nigeria on the use of Jatropha as an alternative to food crops (Kano Biofuels Conference 2009). The aftermath of the Kano conference led to the initiation of three pilot scale projects on Jatropha in three states across Nigeria; namely Kano, Enugu, and Kwara{\textquoteright} (extract from interview).5 Publisher Copyright: Copyright {\textcopyright} 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Copyright: Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",
year = "2017",
month = nov,
doi = "10.1002/eet.1783",
language = "English",
volume = "27",
pages = "632--646",
journal = "Environmental Policy and Governance",
issn = "1756-932X",
publisher = "John Wiley and Sons Ltd",
number = "6",
}
