Systemic aspects of the transition to sustainable energy

Abstract

Summary. -The supply of free energy to our societies is today an intricate system comprising the regimes of technologies, regulatory frameworks, socio-economic impacts and techno-ecological interactions. As a consequence it is challenging to define clear directions or even device a master plan for the transformation of a single national energy system into a sustainable future. Even the term "sustainable" needs extensive discussion in this context that should not be defined solely in technological or ecological senses. The contribution illustrates some of the elements of the energy system and their interdependencies. It will become clear that multiple reasons exist to change the traditional generation and use of energy even when climate protection is not a sufficiently strong argument for a change.The desire to transform national energy systems into more sustainable forms is a growing global trend. The motivations behind this are, however, quite different. In Germany the dominant official driving force is the desire to contribute to climate protection. As the greenhouse gas emission (GHG) of Germany is limited (about 3%), the direct effect of national measures remains small. The German GHG emissions are of the same order of magnitude as the GHG emissions of single large industrial processes in the world

Chemical energy storage: Part of a systemic solution

“…This is a far-reaching target but has the inherent advantage of not having to rely on reduction of energy consumption, which is adverse to the trends in global population and the socio-economic pressure of all humans having the equal right of energy access. If we wish to consider such architecture for sustainable energy systems [20] then we see that we are still at the very beginning of this transformation. We should concentrate to improve the bulk productivity of solar energy converters (PV, wind) as much as possible and not be satisfied with present technologies.…”