Abstract:In recent years, several tools and models have been developed and used for the design and analysis of future national energy systems. Many of these models focus on the integration of various renewable energy resources and the transformation of existing fossil-based energy systems into future sustainable energy systems. The models are diverse and often end up with different results and recommendations. This paper analyses this diversity of models and their implicit or explicit theoretical backgrounds. In particular, two archetypes are defined and compared. On the one hand, the prescriptive investment optimisation or optimal solutions approach. On the other hand the analytical simulation or alternatives assessment approach. Awareness of the dissimilar theoretical assumption behind the models clarifies differences between the models, explains dissimilarities in results, and provides a theoretical and methodological foundation for understanding and interpreting results from the two archetypes.

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Current environmental problems increasingly call for research -as well as education -which crosses the traditional divides between well-established scientific disciplines and between the natural sciences, technical sciences, social sciences and the humanities. This paper addresses the issue of what interdisciplinarity, at the interface between the natural and human sciences, entails and the theoretical problems and obstacles interdisciplinarity encounters. A number of attempts to institutionalize interdisciplinarity, at the Human-Environment interface, in 'fields of study' or even 'disciplines', are briefly discussed, including Geography, Human Ecology, Environmental Studies, Environmental Management, Ecological Economics, Sustainability Science and Earth System Science. Key problems of carrying out interdisciplinary research are identified, including differences of both an ontological, epistemological and methodological nature. Particular attention is paid to differences between disciplines in the way they 'explain' and 'interpret' phenomena and regularities, and in 'world-views', pre-analytic assumptions and in time scales.

In industrialized countries,

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