Within disaster law, fostering social or community resilience is a key goal. In principle, the aim of resilience also applies to the energy supply, which should be built (or rebuilt) to enhance communities’ ability to cope with, and regroup from, disaster. However, resilience is a contested concept within energy law, where there is a vigorous – yet narrowly technocratic – debate over what attributes contribute to a resilient energy supply. This chapter synthesizes the conversations about resilience within disaster law and energy law to clarify the notion of resilience as it relates to energy. In particular, it argues that the rich literature on disaster law offers persuasive insights into what the goals and properties of a resilient energy supply should be, as well as how institutions might be reshaped to deliver on this potential.

This chapter provocatively argues that there is no such thing as sustainable energy. The black and white dichotomy of unsustainable versus sustainable leaves out important "colors" that reflect the complexity of the energy discussion. By reviewing the rapid developments in biofuel – which is supposedly sustainable – and the ensuing food crisis in the beginning of the century, it shows that sustainability is about much more than renewability. Sustainability is presented as a moral framework that comprises several underlying values, including safety, security, environmental benevolence, resource durability, and economic affordability. These values are presented in relation to different production methods for nuclear energy, creating an ethically nuanced picture of this energy technology. The chapter further addresses energy ethics. While sustainability and energy ethics have a great deal in common, energy ethics can provide us with a more fine-grained analysis of the broader ethical issues associated with energy, including questions of human rights, risk acceptability, and justice.

Political science does not offer a distinct subdiscipline to address the subject of energy. Insofar as political science has addressed energy, it has focused on issues often neglected by other disciplines, notably the role of geopolitics and international relations, and the domestic politics of resource-rich states. Apart from the different subfields, we examine different approaches including realism, constructivism, liberalism and Marxism. The rise and fall and rise again of academic articles on energy in leading political science journals is reviewed and linked to exogenous forces such as the price of oil. Two distinct energy topics which have received attention are nuclear power and the oil crises of 1973–79 because of their wider geopolitical ramifications. Perhaps the most prominent or consistent thread through studies of the politics of energy is the question of energy security or energy independence. Finally, in recent years, energy has increasingly emerged as a focus for study in environmental politics and climate change politics in particular.

The crafting of good energy policy raises philosophical questions with respect to the deliberative processes through which policy should be formed, and with respect to the specific content of the policies arrived at. This short essay begins with a brief account of the conceptual difficulties that arise when we think about just energy policy and the benefits and harms our energy policies bring to future generations. It moves on to focus more narrowly on questions of good deliberative process. More specifically, the essay addresses a set of issues concerning whether there is a defensible version of the ‘precautionary principle’, and the proper contributions to policy formation of technically trained experts versus laypersons. These issues are explored via illustrative examples relating to climate change, to nuclear power and to disputes over fracking.