"On a national level, questions of energy or fuel poverty – the inability to afford to keep one’s home adequately heated – tend to focus on the cost of energy" (90)
"Keeping energy systems working and avoiding failure is important, but we need to look at how to achieve this beyond building more supply to meet an unquestioned demand. Starting with asking what in fact energy systems are working for would be a good first step, opening up a question that is systematically ignored by classic ‘keeping the lights on’ thinking."
(72)
"In other words, the shift to service-based business models does not inherently challenge ‘meta-services’ or reduce levels of energy service demand"
"To conclude, policies and strategies that focus on energy as a resource are inherently limited" 23
"Much of this literature supposes that basic needs (for nutrition, shelter, clean water, education, thermal comfort, a non-threatening environment, etc.) are universal. Exactly how these needs are met changes over time, but the contention is that there are certain unwavering requirements and that these account for some, but perhaps not all, energy demands (de Decker, 2018)" (9)
There are quite a few arguments that I noticed during this piece, but one that sticks out to me is The Energy Trilemma, or more accurately pyramid, as it exemplifies the interconnected nature of energy problems. We have often discussed how energy poverty (or as the piece calls it, fuel poverty), is connected to other forms of energy problems and poverties. Perhaps we could make our own pyramid of poverty.
Also, their argument against "keeping the lights on" is also useful for us. It rethinks the goals of conservation as questioning why we "keep the lights on." In search of efficiency, energy organizations often do not consider if what they are making more efficient is as necessary as it is being used. We can discuss this in terms of energy vulnerability by looking at what is kept necessary for houses that drives up prices when it may not need to be.