I studied geography from 1997 to 2004 and completed my doctorate in sociology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in 2011. From 2007 to 2020, I was a research associate at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, GmbH in Leipzig and headed my own junior research group from 2015-2020. Since October 2020, I have held the professorship for Communication and Social Sciences at the Harz University of Applied Sciences. My research interest is the everyday nature of dealing with ignorance in processes of environmental design and technology development. Corresponding questions have occupied me in the context of the development of technologies for geothermal energy generation and will occupy me in the context of the recycling of building materials from mining waste.
Prof. Dr. Alena Bleicher
Research Project
Associate member of C03 "Wind harvesting and heat theft as indicators of new property regimes".
As part of the association, I will contribute my expertise from the research field of geothermal energy to answering the research questions on the shift in property regimes in the use of renewable energy from wind and geothermal energy.
In addition, I would like to take up questions on changing ownership in my current research focus on recycling and the circular economy. Questions of ownership could become relevant in the future in connection with questions of ignorance if waste products, which until now have tended to be inconvenient property, gain in value and become sought-after raw materials.
Activities
Publications
- Bleicher, A.; Pehlken, A. (eds.) (2020): The Material Basis of Energy Transitions, Elsevier.
- Bleicher, A.; David, M.; Rutjes, H. (2019): “When environmental legacy becomes a resource: On the making of secondary resources”, In: Geoforum, 101, 18-27. DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.02.018
- Benighaus, C.; Bleicher, A. (2019): “Neither risky technology nor renewable electricity: Contested frames in the development of geothermal energy in Germany”, In: Energy Research & Social Science 47, 46‐55. DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2018.08.022
- Bleicher, A.; Gross, M. (2016): “Geothermal heat pumps and the vagaries of subterranean geology: Energy independence at a household level as a real world experiment”, In: Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 64, 279–288. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.06.013.
- Bleicher, Alena (2012): “Decision Making in spite of Ignorance ‐ The Revitalization of Contaminated Areas [Entscheiden trotz Nichtwissen – Das Beispiel der Sanierung kontaminierter Flächen]”, In: Soziale Welt, 63 (2), 97‐115.
