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Even a short breakdown in fuel supplies can have profound and dramatic consequences for modern economies. This paper explores a major coal shortage in Central Europe after WWI which shook local societies for two years. The dissolution of the Habsburg Empire in 1918 provides a narrower context to this study, while its immediate focus lies upon the development of diplomatic and economic relationships between Czechoslovakia – a WWI victor and an important coal exporter, and Hungary – a war losing state that was a net coal importer. This paper underlines the scale of the Hungarian reliance on fuels from Czechoslovakia, and suggests that this dependency was one of the chief arguments that motivated Budapest to cede Slovakia to Prague’s control and, more generally, to accept the peace terms proposed at the Paris conference. It is safe to conclude that economic considerations played a much greater, if not dominant, role in the adoption of the peace treaty of Trianon of 1920 in Hungary. Overall, the paper demonstrates that cross- border energy interdependence substantially influenced diplo-matic relations in Central Europe immediately after WWI, privile-ging coal-exporting states over coal-importing states. QC 20230607

Shooting societies organized by town citizens (burghers) were considered the traditional guardians of many autonomous settlements in Central Europe from the Middle Ages up to the late nineteenth century. In seeking to identify the causes of their decline in late Habsburg Hungary, this article draws attention to a variety of modernizing drives that undermined the stability of burgher marksmanship. One was the emerging Hungarian nation-state, which hindered the development of paramilitary citizen groups by limiting local self-governance and freedom of association. Another was the modern appeal to ethnic homogenization in the form of Magyarization. It aroused hostility towards the burgher riflemen because of their frequent use of the German language and loyalty to the Habsburgs, and not to the Magyar nation. Although the surviving burgher shooting societies had espoused Magyar nationalism by the early 1900s, they nonetheless maintained their elitism, excluding the growing urban populations from membership. At the same time, the burgher riflemen failed to engage sufficiently actively in rifle training to secure the support of the Defence Ministry and the radical Magyar nationalists. Instead, they remained traditional venues for socializing and networking for the increasingly isolated ennobled petty bourgeoisie. This created a situation where the burgher marksmen became marginal players not only in urban political life but also in Hungary's rapidly developing paramilitary culture. The story of the decline of the burgher shooting societies sheds new light on the ambiguities of modernization, but also demonstrates the weakness of societal militarization in pre-1914 Central Europe. Research for this article was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (G.A. 677199 – ERCStG2015 ‘The Dark Side of the Belle Époque: Political Violence and Armed Associations before the First World War’)QC 20230608

This article discusses David Lowenthal's last book, Quest for the Unity of Knowledge, which was published posthumously by Routledge in 2019 (available in print from November 2018). The book is based on a series of lectures that he gave while a visiting fellow with the KTH Royal Institute of Technology’s Environmental Humanities Laboratory in Stockholm in 2012. Aimed at a general academic audience, it is an erudite and passionate overview showing how ingrained bias towards unity or diversity shapes major issues in education, religion, genetics, race relations, heritage governance, and environmental policy. Quest for the Unity of Knowledge explores the Two Cultures debate, initiated by C.P. Snow, concerning the gulf between the sciences and the humanities. It covers areas such as conservation, ecology, history of ideas, museology, landscape, and heritage studies, aligning with Lowenthal's career-long research interests, and serving as well as a meta-comment to the emerging Environmental Humanities. QC 20220808

De senaste decennierna har ”digital humaniora” nämnts i otaliga sammanhang och kommit att påverka litteraturvetenskaplig utbildning och forskning – trots att begreppets innebörd alltjämt är omdebatterad. Är det en ny disciplin eller specialisering av forskning och undervisning som redan bedrivs? På vilka sätt hänger digital humaniora ihop med samhällets och universitetens datorisering? Är det ett svar på hur litteraturen kan förstås i en digitaliserad värld, eller en fingervisning om litteraturvetenskapens framtid? För att reda i begreppen bjöd TFL-redaktionen in till ett panelsamtal via videolänk, av och med Karl Berglund (Uppsala universitet), Oscar Jansson (Lunds universitet) och Lina Rahm (KTH).  QC 20220607

The agricultural sector is the main contributor for the warming from non-CO2 gases, especially methane and nitrous oxide. Existing measures to mitigate these emissions can only reduce but not eliminate these emissions. Owing to the diffused nature of these emissions, it is hard to design a single point measure to address the emissions from the agricultural sector. In our work, we present the first-of-a-kind direct air capture-based process to mitigate these diverse emissions. The process is designed based on thermal catalytic route for the methane conversion, which is coupled to a direct air capture unit for CO2 capture. The process was modelled based on steady state assumptions to estimate the energy requirement per tonne of CO2 equivalent mitigated. Energy estimations were later compared for the two methane removal systems with and without CO2 capture unit. The energy demand per tonne CO2-equivalent removed from the system without CO2 capture unit (only CH4 removal) was found to be 16.54 GJ. For the methane removal system with CO2 capture unit (co-removal of CO2 and CH4), the energy demand is 15.42 GJ per tonne-CO2 equivalent. QC 20230120

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Biopolitical preparedness: The impact of the behavioralscience research of the Swedish National Defense ResearchEstablishment (FOA) on Swedish crisis preparedness During the post-war period, major research investments were made to improvemilitary and defense capabilities both in Sweden and abroad. Muchremains undone as to exploring the impact of the Swedish National DefenseResearch Establishment (FOA) on Swedish state and society. Historians haveprimarily explored the development and impact of technological and naturalscience research and its connections with e.g. the military industry. Thisarticle provides new insights into the societal and political significance ofSwedish defense research by studying the human sciences at FOA. At thesame time, new insights are gained on the knowledge provision in Swedishpreparedness efforts. The aim of the article is to provide new knowledgeabout the influence of Swedish defense research on the Swedish civil defenseand crisis preparedness in the late 20th century. The purpose of the article isto explore the significance of behavioral science research at the Departmentof Human Sciences (FOA 5) in relation to a process at the end of the ColdWar in which crisis and preparedness were framed as problems pertainingto population behavior and risk awareness. The analysis is inspired bythe theory and research on biopolitics, originating in the works of MichelFoucault. I examine the influence of FOA’s behavioral science research inrelation to what I call “biopolitical preparedness,” which refers to an assemblageof research or knowledge about human life, health and behavior, andpolitical governance. Empirically, the article explores Swedish governmentalcommissions (statens offentliga utredningar) and FOA reports. Humanities Knowledge in Swedish Defense Research: Human Sciences at FOA 5 QC 20220316

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) applied to biogenic CO2 (BECCS) provides an opportunity at a societal level to compensate hard-to-abate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper provides a sustainability analysis of the BECCS value chain from, CO2 separation and transport to storage, compared to a reference plant with no CCS. The impact of the value chains sustainability has been analysed based on the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and compared to a reference case with no CCS. The analysis, under the given assumptions, shows that capture, transport and storage of CO2 in connection with biomass-fired CHP plants can make significant contributions to CO2 removal (CDR), considering the entire value chain, and thus make a important contributions towards climate change objectives (SDG 13). At the same time other impacts arise with respect to a number of sustainability aspects. These include both positive impacts, such as job creation and adaptation of society in a direction towards lower climate impact, but also a negative impact on ecosystems as well as emissions of air pollutants from transport and other activities. A conventional CHP plant today produces electricity and heat as energy services. In a CHP plant with CCS, the new energy service CO2 capture will also be added to the electricity and heating services. The addition of CO2 capture as an energy service will result in reduced output of electricity and in many cases heat. This leads to a negative impact on SDG 7, Sustainable energy for all. At the same time the new service CDR is generated which is an essential part of society’s strategy to reach ambitious GHG mitigation targets. In the long run, society can meet the challenge of reduced production of electricity and heat from CHP plants through measures for increased supply- or demand-side energy efficiency (new technologies for CO2 capture with radically reduced energy needs and efficiency measures in the building stock). In a shorter-term perspective, measures for additional energy supply could be implemented to compensate for losses, e.g., supplementary heat supply systems such as solar heating systems with seasonal storage and increased biomass supply to the CHP plants. The latter, however, needs to be put in relation to ongoing discussions about the forest as an energy resource, source for raw materials in a circular economy, and as a natural environment and source of various ecosystem services for the benefit of society. The results of this study show that the sustainability assessment for the BECCS solution is largely based on underlying assumptions about what is required to meet climate objectives. The results here provide direct positive results with regard to sustainability goals for societal and industrial development. This is due to the assumption about the need to establish permanent CDR, and that BECCS is the only measure today in Sweden that can quickly deliver on this demand. QC 20231101

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