Managing Scarcity

Publications

(publications by project staff related to energy and environment; not all are direct products of Managing Scarcity)

Odinn Melsted, Cyrus C. M. Mody, George Roberts, and Candida F. Sánchez Burmester, “The Limits to Growth and Development? Computer Modelling, Planetary Limits, and the Question of Industrial Development in the Global South, 1960s-1970s,” in Environment, Technology, and Development [Yearbook for the Global History of Development], edited by Ismay Milford, Corinna Unger, and Iris Borowy (De Gruyter Brill, 2026): 93-116.

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Odinn Melsted, “Finding Oil for the Developing World: Maurice Strong, the Environment, and the International Energy Development Corporation (IEDC), 1979-1983,” in Competing Perspectives of Development [Yearbook for the Global History of Development], edited by Iris Borowy and Matthias Heymann (De Gruyter Brill, 2026): 249-273.

Melsted 2026 Finding Oil for the Developing WorldDownload

Michiel Bron, “Transition in Residues: On Depleted Oil Wells, Radioactive Geophysics, and the Origins of the Twentieth Century’s Energy Mix,” Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Early View).

Ber Wissenschaftsgesch – 2025 – Bron – Transition in Residues On Depleted Oil Wells Radioactive Geophysics and theDownload

Cyrus C. M. Mody, “Taking the Marks to the Market: The Oil Industry and the Entrepreneurial Turn,” in Greedy Science: Creating Knowledge, Making Money, and Being Famous in the 1980s, edited by W. Patrick McCray and Michael D. Gordin (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025): 19-44.

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Jelena Stanković, “History of Oil and Solar Relationships: Makeups and Breakups,” Journal of Energy History/Revue d’Histoire de l’Énergie, no. 12 (2024): 1g-21, https://stm.cairn.info/journal-of-energy-history-2024-1-page-1g?lang=en.

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Michiel Bron, “Oil’s Nuclear Frames: The Oil Industry Shaping the Environment with ‘Innovative’ Nuclear Technologies since the Long 1970s,” Journal of Energy History/Revue d’Histoire de l’Énergie, no. 12 (2024): 1h-15, https://stm.cairn.info/journal-of-energy-history-2024-1-page-1h?lang=en.

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Odinn Melsted, Cyrus C. M. Mody, and Simone Schleper, “Introduction: Joining the Histories of Oil and Environment,” Journal of Energy History/Revue d’Histoire de l’Énergie, no. 12 (2024): 1a-13, https://stm.cairn.info/journal-of-energy-history-2024-1-page-1?lang=en.

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Odinn Melsted, “Geoscience Spillover: Gunnar Böðvarsson and the Adoption of Petroleum Technologies in Iceland’s Geothermal Industry, 1940s-1970s,” History and Technology, 40, no. 3 (2024): 149-172, https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2024.2408055.

Geoscience spillover Gunnar B varsson and the adoption of petroleum technologies in Iceland s geothermal industry 1940s 1970sDownload

Cyrus C. M. Mody, “The Oil Spillover: Prospecting for Oil in Innovation Studies and the History of Technology,” History and Technology, 40, no. 3 (2024): 218-249, https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2024.2403755.

The oil spillover prospecting for oil in innovation studies and the history of technologyDownload

Michiel Bron, review of Inspectors for Peace by Elisabeth Roehrlich, H-Net Reviews/H-Environment (April, 2024): https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=60031

Robert Groβ, Odinn Melsted, and Nicolas Chachereau, “Creating the Conditions for Western European Petroculture: The Marshall Plan, the Politics of the OEEC, and the Transition from Coal to Oil,” Journal of Energy History/Revue d’Histoire de l’Énergie #10 (2023): https://energyhistory.eu/sites/default/files/pdf/JEHRHE10_Gross%2C%20Melsted%2C%20Chachereau_VE.pdf.

Thomas Turnbull and Cyrus C. M. Mody, “The Schuchulik Solar System: The ‘World’s First’ Solar-Powered Village?,” in NASA and the Environment [working title], ed. Neil Maher and Brian C. Odom (under review).

Cyrus C. M. Mody, “Surveying the Landscape: The Oil Industry and Alternative Energy in the 1970s,” in Electrical Conquest: New Approaches to the History of Electrification, ed. Erik Conway and W. Bernard Carlson (Springer, 2024): 51-79.

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Cyrus C. M. Mody, “Spillovers from Oil Firms to the US Semiconductor and Computing Industries: Smudging Public-Private Distinctions and Retelling Conventional Narratives,” Enterprise & Society 24, 3 (2023): 676-701.

spillovers-from-oil-firms-to-us-computing-and-semiconductor-manufacturing-smudging-state-industry-distinctions-and-retelling-conventional-narrativesDownload

Thomas Turnbull and Cyrus C. M. Mody, “Turn and Turn Again: How Big Science Both Helped and Hindered Alternative Energy in the 1970s,” in Debating the Societal Impact of Big Science in the 21st Century, ed. Panagiotis Charitos, Theodore Arabatzis, Harry Cliff, Günther Dissertori, Juliette Forneris, and Jason Li-Ying (IOP, 2023): 31-1 to 31-21. Available OA at https://iopscience.iop.org/book/edit/978-0-7503-3631-4/chapter/bk978-0-7503-3631-4ch31.

Michiel Bron, “The Uranium Club: Big Oil’s Involvement in Uranium Mining and the Formation of an Infamous Uranium Cartel,” Historical Social Research 49.1 (2024): 55-76.

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Michiel Bron, “Utopische beloftes in de Belgische kernwetenschap (“Op weg naar een duurzame toekomst”, Vanpaemel 2022),” Wonderkamer: Magazine voor wetenschapsgeschiedenis 8 (forthcoming).

Michiel Bron, “Wretching the Atom (Hamblin, 2021),” Journal of Energy History/Revue d’Histoire de l’Énergie, 10 (forthcoming).

Michiel Bron, “Kies bij kernenergie ook voor de vergroening van uraniumwinning”, NRC (18 juli 2022), https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2022/07/18/kies-bij-kernenergie-ook-voor-de-vergroening-van-uraniumwinning-a4136727

Michiel Bron, “Kernfusie als eendenkroos”, Wonderkamer: Magazine voor wetenschapsgeschiedenis 5 (June 2022).

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Cyrus C. M. Mody, The Squares: US Physical and Engineering Scientists in the Long 1970s (MIT Press, 2022).

Michiel Bron, “Engaging the Atom (Kaijser, Lehtonen, Meyer, Rubio-Varas, 2021),” Journal of Energy History/Revue d’Histoire de l’Énergie #9 (2022): https://www.energyhistory.eu/fr/recensions/engaging-atom-kaijser-lehtonen-meyer-rubio-varas-2021.

Odinn Melsted, ‘Góð saga: sagnfræðingar mæla með bókum: Christopher Jones, Routes of Power: Energy and Modern America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014)’, Saga : tímarit sögufélags 60.1 (2022): 48-51.

Odinn Melsted, ‘Eliminating fossil fuels: Iceland’s transition from coal and oil to geothermal district heating, 1930-1980’, History and technology 37. 4 (2022): 527-547. https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2022.2033386

Michiel Bron, “Oliebedrijven en alternatieve energie: een decennia oude combinatie?” (October 2021), https://overdemuur.org/oliebedrijven-en-alternatieve-energie-een-decennia-oude-combinatie/

Michiel Bron, “Klimaatbeleid of politiek wapen: wat heeft de droom van onuitputtelijke schone energie uit kernfusie te maken met de Brexit?” (July 2021), https://overdemuur.org/klimaatbeleid-of-politiek-wapen-wat-heeft-de-droom-van-onuitputtelijke-schone-energie-uit-kernfusie-te-maken-met-de-brexit/

Jelena Stankovic, Marc Dijk, and Anique Hommels, “Upscaling, Obduracy, and Underground Parking in Maastricht (1965-present): Is There a Way Out?,” Journal of Urban History 47.6 (2021): 1225-1250.