Complexity of concern: Social acceptance of wind energy and the inevitability of dissensus

This presentation will explore the  role that social acceptance of onshore wind can play in understanding and progressing the low carbon transition in Europe. Although this is commonly perceived as arising simply from the overall level of renewable energy generated (and ‘dirty’ energy displaced), its significance goes well beyond this as it helps us understand some of the key issues facing the electricity sector as a social-technical system.  As such it is not only a matter of delivering the necessary infrastructure, but requires the long term mediation of complex multi-governmental arrangements involving a very wide range of actors. The interests of these actors engage hugely different timescales, geographic scales of concern and rationalities that make the arena of social acceptance a cauldron of complexity, mediating between overlapping and incompatible concerns. The presentation will briefly review the nature of some of these relationships and discuss what this means for how we conceive and act on the social acceptance of wind, and what this means for the long term low carbon transition

The Technology of Copper Alloys, Particularly Leaded Bronze, in Greece, its Colonies, and in Etruria during the Iron Age

L’objet de la présente étude est le développement, l’application et la diffusion de la technologie associée à divers types d’alliages de cuivre, en particulier l’alliage du plomb-bronze, en Grèce ancienne, dans ses colonies, ainsi qu’en Étrurie. Le plomb-bronze est un mélange de diverses proportions d’étain, de cuivre et de plomb. Le consensus général chez les archéométallurgistes est que le plomb-bronze n’était pas communément utilisé en Grèce avant la période hellénistique; par conséquent, cet alliage a reçu très peu d’attention dans les documents d’archéologie. Cependant, les analyses métallographiques ont prouvé que les objets composés de plomb ajouté au bronze ont connu une distribution étendue. Ces analyses ont aussi permis de différencier la composition des alliages utilisés dans la fabrication de divers types de bronzes, une preuve tangible que les métallurgistes faisaient la distinction entre les propriétés du bronze d’étain et celles du plomb-bronze. La connaissance de leurs différentes caractéristiques de travail permettait aux travailleurs du bronze de choisir, dans bien des cas, l’alliage approprié pour une utilisation particulière. L’influence des pratiques métallurgiques du Proche-Orient a produit des variations tant dans les formes artistiques que dans les compositions des alliages de bronze grecs durant les périodes géométrique tardive et orientalisante. L’utilisation du plomb-bronze dans des types particuliers d’objets coulés montre une tendance à la hausse à partir de la période orientalisante, culminant dans la période hellénistique tardive, lorsque le bronze à teneur élevée en plomb est devenu un alliage commun. La présente étude analyse les données métallographiques de la catégorie des objets coulés en bronze et en plomb-bronze. Elle démontre que, bien que l’utilisation du plomb-bronze n’était pas aussi commune que celle du bronze d’étain, il s’agissait néanmoins d’un mélange important d’anciennes pratiques métallurgiques. Les ères couvertes sont comprises entre les périodes géométrique et hellénistique.

"Lancea", Lusitanian Word, and the "Lancienses" Ethnogenesis

Analysis of the word lancea, of Hispanic origin after Varro, and of place names, people´s names and personal names derived from it. It confirms that the spear was the most important weapon in the Bronze Age, belonging to the iuventus and used as heroic and divine symbol. This analysis confirms also the personality of the Lusitanians, a people related to the Celts but with more archaic archaeological, linguistic and cultural characteristics originated in the tradition of the Atlantic Bronze in the II millennium BC. It is also relevant to better know the organisation of Broze and Iron Age societies and the origin of Indo-Europeans peoples in Western Europe and of pre-Roman peoples of Iberia.

U-Pb geochronology and Nd isotope contributions to the interpretation of a peculiar ring massif: the Santa Eulália plutonic complex (SW Iberia, Portugal)

The Santa Eulalia plutonic complex (SEPC) is a late-Variscan granitic body placed in the Ossa-Morena Zone. The host rocks of the complex belong to metamorphic formations from Proterozoic to Lower Paleozoic. The SEPC is a ring massif (ca. 400 km2 area) composed by two main granitic facies with different colours and textures. From the rim to the core, there is (i) a peripheral pink medium- to coarse-grained granite (G0 group) involving large elongated masses of mafic and intermediate rocks, from gabbros to granodiorites (M group), and (ii) a central gray medium-grained granite (G1 group). The mafic to intermediate rocks (M group) are metaluminous and show wide compositions: 3.34–13.51 wt% MgO; 0.70–7.20 ppm Th; 0.84–1.06 (Eu/Eu*)N (Eu* calculated between Sm and Tb); 0.23–0.97 (Nb/Nb*)N (Nb* calculated between Th and La). Although involving the M-type bodies and forming the outer ring, the G0 granites are the most differentiated magmatic rocks of the SEPC, with a transitional character between metaluminous and peraluminous: 0.00–0.62 wt% MgO; 15.00–56.00 ppm Th; and 0.19–0.42 (Eu/Eu*)N ; 0.08–0.19 (Nb/Nb*)N [1][2]. The G1 group is composed by monzonitic granites with a dominant peraluminous character and represents the most homogeneous compositional group of the SEPC: 0.65–1.02 wt% MgO; 13.00–16.95 ppm Th; 0.57–0.70 (Eu/Eu*)N ; 0.14–0.16 (Nb/Nb*)N . According to the SiO2 vs. (Na2O+K2O–CaO) relationships, the M and G1 groups predominantly fall in the calc-alkaline field, while the G0 group is essencially alkali-calcic; on the basis of the SiO2 vs. FeOt/(FeOt+MgO) correlation, SEPC should be considered as a magnesian plutonic association [3]. New geochronological data (U-Pb on zircons) slightly correct the age of the SEPC, previously obtained by other methods (290 Ma, [4]). They provide ages of 306  2 Ma for the M group, 305  6 Ma for the G1 group, and 301  4 Ma for the G0 group, which confirm the late-Variscan character of the SEPC, indicating however a faintly older emplacement, during the Upper Carboniferous. Recent whole-rock isotopic data show that the Rb-Sr system suffered significant post-magmatic disturbance, but reveal a consistent set of Sm-Nd results valuable in the approach to the magmatic sources of this massif: M group (2.9 < Ndi < +1.8); G1 group (5.8 < Ndi < 4.6); G0 group (2.2 < Ndi < 0.8). These geochemical data suggest a petrogenetic model for the SEPC explained by a magmatic event developed in two stages. Initially, magmas derived from long-term depleted mantle sources (Ndi < +1.8 in M group) were extracted to the crust promoting its partial melting and extensive mixing and/or AFC magmatic evolution, thereby generating the G1 granites (Ndi < 4.6). Subsequently, a later extraction of similar primary magmas in the same place or nearby, could have caused partial melting of some intermediate facies (e.g. diorites) of the M group, followed by magmatic differentiation processes, mainly fractional crystallization, able to produce residual liquids compositionally close to the G0 granites (Ndi < 0.8). The kinetic energy associated with the structurally controlled (cauldron subsidence type?) motion of the G0 liquids to the periphery, would have been strong enough to drag up M group blocks as those occurring inside the G0 granitic ring.