Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Part I Engineering and Sustainability 1

1 Engineering Sustainability, Sustaining Engineering 3

2 A Critical History of Sustainability Engineering 23

3 Resisting Sustainability 77

Part II Life Cycle Analysis 111

4 When Social Values Make an Entry 113

5 Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) Rationalities 149

Part III Case Studies 191

6 Life Cycle Sustainability, Renewable Energy Project Development, and the Exclusion of Local Knowledge in California’s Western Antelope Valley (WAV) 193

7 Through an Ethnographic Lens: Local-Regional Politics of Utility Solar and Wind Siting in California 235

8 Epilogue 303

Bibliography 317

Appendix 1: Solar Ranch One Timeline (Siting, Permitting, Financing and Pre-Construction) 346

Appendix 2: Sample of Community Concerns as Regards to the Solar Ranch One, Alpine, Wildflower and Blue

Sky RE projects 349

Index 355

About the Author

Nicholas Sakellariou, PhD, is a lecturer at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where he teaches engineering ethics and professional responsibilities classes. He received his doctorate in Environmental Science Policy and Management from the University of California at Berkeley in 2015. He holds postgraduate degrees from the National Technical University of Athens and Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Nicholas is a recipient of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Energy Ethics and Society Scholarship and was Hennebach Visiting Scholar at the Department of Humanitarian Engineering, Colorado School of Mines in 2012. His doctoral project on Energy Systems' Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) book grant.