The term "age" is generally taken to mean something transitory, an emerging and then declining epoch that is decisively characterized by one special feature. "Solar age" means that by far the greater part of mankind's demand for resources is covered by solar energy. However, if this readily available option is realized to the fullest possible extent, everything seems to indicate that it is a durable and thus definitive way of providing energy. In this respect, the term "solar age" is accurate in the description of its goal horizon, but inaccurate in the description of its time horizon. Once it has established itself, the "solar age" will become synonymous with an economic system that truly does justice to the frequently abused word "sustainability".
In the past, a search for new energy sources only ever began when availability of the energy sources being used at the time could foreseeably no longer be guaranteed, be it due to cost, for fundamental reasons of potential, or because of unacceptable risks. The exhaustion of supplies of fossil fuels in the near future will mark the end of the "fossil age" that began to assert itself in the course of the 19th century. For reasons of cost, it will most probably come to an end at the very latest when the sources of conventional fossil energies have been fully exploited: given today's consumption levels, this means in about 40 years for petroleum, about 60 years for natural gas, and in little more than 100 years for coal. The so-called non-conventional fossil sources – oil sands and shales, or the methane bubbles in the depths of the oceans – will be so expensive to exploit that they would not withstand a comparison on a economic basis with the increasingly cheap solar energy technologies. In view of the obvious threats to the global climate, conventional fossil fuels must be replaced sooner than statistically necessary: the exploitation till their final exhaustion is ecologically irresponsible.
The "nuclear age" was already proclaimed in the 1950s, when only a handful of experimental reactors were in operation. Its promise was energy for ever. Half a century later, we know not only that this promise was premature, but also that it can hardly be kept and, above all, that it must not be allowed to be kept. The idea was initially to provide nuclear fission reactors, followed by reprocessing plants and fast breeders to prolong the availability of the nuclear fissile material, and finally to arrive at nuclear fusion in order to copy the fusion process of the Sun in reactors on the Earth. This development was aborted even while nuclear fission reactors were in use, making nuclear power stations a transitory phenomenon simply because of the limited availability of uranium ore.
The fact that, even without an abandonment decision, no new nuclear reactor has been built in the USA since 1973, and that no new one is in sight, is an even clearer indicator of the approaching demise of the nuclear energy industry than Germany's goal of abandoning nuclear energy. Even France definitively shut down its fast breeder after less than 200 days of operation. And when future generations look back, they will just shake their heads in disbelief when they see that people tried for decades, and are still trying, to develop nuclear fusion reactors, rather than making direct use of the fusion energy of the Sun at a safe distance of 150 million kilometers from the Earth. Even in the extremely unlikely event of tens of billions being made available from government budgets for another five decades, and of functional fusion reactors really being developed as a result, we still have to consider the statement made by M. L. Lidsky, the former Director of the Plasma Fusion Center of the MIT: "If the fusion program produces a reactor, no one will want it." Only dreamers or short-sighted scientists who have been living on and with nuclear energy for too long, have still not noticed that that remains of the nuclear dream is a nightmare.
Only the direct utilization of solar energy is actually capable of keeping the promise that nuclear energy made – the use of solar heat, sunlight, and their direct derivatives, wind and wave power, biomass, run-of-river power, the heat of the air, soil and water. It is inexhaustible as long as the Solar System exists, and consequently for the entire remaining lifetime of our planet. Examined from a global standpoint, it entails no risks; the new consequences could at most be the destruction of nature by large-scale hydroelectric power stations, and regionally limited emissions resulting from the use of biomass. However, when it comes to the solar element of biomass as an energy source, the essential prerequisite consist in its being utilized employing ecological cultivation and harvesting methods. Since the costs, except those for the use of biomass, arise from the provision of energy conversion technologies, the costs will steadily fall. Another characteristic of the development of solar energy technologies is that, in contrast to most conventional energy technologies, they become progressively less complex and thus easier for the user to handle.
That is why the technological solar age will replace the nuclear and the fossil age that once replaced the pre-technological solar age. Given the characteristics of renewable energies – unlimited and widespread availability of an annual potential that is equivalent to 15,000 times the annual consumption of nuclear and fossil energy, a relatively low degree of risk, and steadily declining costs – there will then no longer be any demand for further energy sources. Once it has been established, the utilization of solar energy will not be a transitory phenomenon. The time horizon of the solar age is identical with the existence of the solar energy system – meaning about another five billion years – and, consequently, to the time horizon of all natural life on Earth or all other planets within our reach.
Despite the geological proportions of this time horizon, we are today racing against time. Successfully establishing the solar age is the decisive task for this century. If it is further deferred we will be threatened in the 21st century by super-catastrophes that we have knowingly accepted. The danger of existential energy wars will already grow dramatically in the next few decades, as will that of expanding social catastrophes, both in our energy-gobbling mega-cities and in the energy-lacking Third World. Anyone who wants to postpone the substitution of nuclear and fossil energy sources by solar sources will have to accept responsibility for the increasing frequency, and the growing number of victims, of major ecological catastrophes. 700 were counted in 1998 alone, and most of them were causally related to energy consumption.
However, the present day is still characterized by the ideas of political and economic decision-makers and by scientific experts, who declare it "impracticable" to abandon nuclear and fossil energy sources. Their hesitation has a big impact on the media and the public mind. While the things they consider to be "practicable" include building fusion reactors, cultivating Mars, accurately destroying approaching missiles in space, cloning, implanting microelectronic chips in the human brain, and exploiting raw materials below the ocean floor, they do not think it possible to mobilize the fully functional solar technologies already available in order to cover all mankind's energy needs. That alone illustrates that the reservations regarding the feasibility of the solar age are in fact cultivated prejudices. And yet, solar technology is already capable of covering all energy needs today:
- It is generally known that 40 percent of the energy used in Germany is consumed in buildings. Houses already exist that can be supplied solely by solar energy at no extra cost. In terms of both potential and economics, there is no reason why 40 percent of current conventional energy consumption should not be replaced by solar construction over the next few decades.
- China has an electricity generation capacity of almost 300,000 megawatts, consisting of roughly two-thirds coal power stations and one-third hydroelectric power stations. Just the replacement of 200,000 MW coal power capacities by wind power would require the installation of 300,000 MW wind power. That would be the equivalent of installing one wind turbine generator per 20 square kilometers of Chinese territory. The wind turbine generator production capacities required for this purpose would equal Germany's annual car engine production. That would not be an unsolvable problem in the coming decades. And since China's energy demand is growing, it is also perfectly conceivable to expand the wind energy potential even further. It goes equally without saying that the other solar options could also be put into practice there – from photovoltaics to solar-thermal power generation or the generation of electricity from biomass and the mobilization of the use of small-scale hydropower.
- In addition to the demand for electricity, the worldwide demand for motor fuels is also growing. In this particular field, there is a wide variety of alternative options based on solar energy sources (hydrogen produced by electrolysis – not necessarily using the electricity from large-scale solar power stations, but from numerous, decentralized electricity generation plants), the synthesis of hydrogen and vegetable hydrocarbons to produce easy-to-handle biofuel, gasified biomass (methanol) or bio-alcohol (ethanol). The annual photosynthetic production of the world's flora currently adds up to 220 million metric tons of dry mass, or roughly 60 times the annual petroleum output.
These general references merely illustrate some aspects of the potential of solar-based technology. For this reason alone, they must not be confused with a real implementation program, which would take a far more differentiated approach and would, of course, have to take into account the potential savings resulting from increased efficiency and a change in energy utilization cultures – which would further accelerate the establishment of the solar age. The obstacles to realization lie neither in the availability of the energy sources, nor in one of the technologies. They are of a purely mental nature, which is why there is still a lack of sufficient information and education, and thus of creativity and imagination, among the people required as the production factor for this purpose. And they are of a structural nature, because the establishment of the solar age would put a question mark over the entire current global energy supply system with its infrastructures and corporate forms. The forms prevailing in today's energy industry are not impartial as regards the various energy sources. They are tailored to providing fossil and nuclear energy in their specific energy flows, from the mines, the oil and gas fields at a relatively small number of large deposits, all the way to the always decentralized consumption of energy. They created a global civilization in conventional energy chains and are themselves their captives. Except in the case of the large-scale power potentials that are seamlessly integrated into the established energy chains, the energy flows of solar energies are completely different.
For example, photovoltaic electricity generation means: photons go into the solar cell, electricity comes out of it – you need no mines, no primary energy transportation, no energy stores, no disposal of nuclear fuels or ash, and, presupposing the availability of new, decentralized accumulators in the future, there will also be no need to transport the electricity. They make the entire primary energy industry essentially superfluous, meaning the petroleum, natural gas, coal and uranium producers and their transporters. The establishment of the solar age will replace nuclear and fossil primary energies by technologies. These will make it possible to increasingly dispense with the conventional provision of energy and to integrate energy production directly at the places where energy is used. Industrial mobilization and the introduction of renewable energies means that the conventional provision of energy must become constantly more expensive, since the turnover that can be achieved with the infrastructure indispensably needed for it dwindles steadily – while renewable energies become steadily cheaper as a result of the mass production of the technologies needed for them. Consequently, the establishment of the solar age is equivalent to a revolution in the structures of energy provision that goes far beyond the transformation of the structures of industrial production and commercial services by microelectronics and digitization. That is also why the resistance of the established structures is far more stubborn. The change is more fundamental than just substituting high-emission, conventional energy sources by solar ones.
In order to recognize the opportunities, we therefore have to think beyond partial substitution processes. I summarized the numerous possible approaches and individual steps towards the solar age in the books entitled "A Solar Manifesto" (1993) and "The Solar World Economy" (1999). The general path leads from a small number of large-scale plants for providing energy, to countless small-scale facilities, and thus from a small number of large investments to countless small investments, from external supplies to more and more private supply, from energy imports to the utilization of domestic energies. In the industrial field, it is the path from the current division of labor between energy supplier and technical energy conversion, to the integrated provision of solar energy in buildings designed for correspondingly multifunctional operation, production facilities, agricultural production and services, for instance by recovering the energy contained in residual materials and organic waste.
Reexamining energy
Instead of illustrating the numerous individual steps, I will now state the principles that should guide our actions. Their common premise is that renewable energies compel us to reexamine the energy question, in order to be able to find new answers to it.
Maxim 1:
Target the dimension of total, not just partial, replacement of nuclear and fossil energies
The possibility of completely covering energy demands by means of solar energy sources results from the overwhelmingly rich and varied natural supply, together with technological optimism in this respect. Alongside the many energy conversion and energy utilization technologies for renewable energies that are already in use, there will be even more of them, the more designers and businesses take an interest in the subject. Even those known at present can be calculated to permit complete coverage by solar technologies by way of a simple input-output calculation based on plant production relative to the energy demand and the respective natural supply conditions prevailing regionally. Overall calculations regarding the costs are more like a glass bead game in this context: no economist is in a position to predict the future cost of photovoltaic electricity generation, for example, because he can predict neither the applications and their different impact on costs, nor the speed at which costs will decline as a result of mass production. If society and its players have their eye on the possibility of full coverage being provided by solar technologies, the political players will abandon the obsessive idea that further large-scale investments with long-term capital tie-up for conventional energy plants are still necessary in the long run. The more we rid our minds of this notion, the more room their will be for imagination and creativity in establishing the solar age.
Maxim 2:
Take off the mental blinds of energy statistics
Energy statistics, which sketch the framework of conventional energy supplies and largely ignore that of the alternatives, are essentially incomplete and, therefore, highly questionable from the scientific point of view. After all, they only include commercial energy flows. They do not, for instance, cover generated electricity that does not go through power grids, and they equally disregard the specific utilization of solar heat in buildings that is not preceded by oil or gas deliveries. Even if all existing buildings were converted to the direct utilization of solar heat, the energy statistics customary today would not show any increase in the absolute, statistical percentage of solar energy utilization. Solar energy utilization is based on solar energy flows that cannot be commercialized.
Maxim 3:
Compare the costs of energy systems, not of energy plants
The comparison usually drawn up in energy economics between the investment costs per installed kilowatt-hour is analytically unsatisfactory. Instead, energy systems need to be compared with each other, meaning the total costs for conventional energy in its long supply chain with the costs for providing solar energy with only a short supply chain, if any. This kind of comparison shows for example, that, despite the still high cost of photovoltaic technology, insular solar supplies in regions of the Third World without connection to a power grid already cost less than conventional power supplies. The latter require the installation of land lines at an enormous expense. Between 70 and 80 percent of the expenses for conventional power supplies are not attributable to the actual electricity generation costs. The economic potential of utilizing solar power lies in the elimination of these 70 to 80 percent. The cost for a photovoltaic façade that replaces a conventional façade can’t no longer correctly be based on the price per kilowatt-hour, but must be based on the price per square meter relative to conventional façade costs, plus the solar power gains.
Maxim 4:
Overcome the division of labor between existing supply sectors
The idea of substituting conventional energy sources by renewable energies must expand its thoughts beyond the supply sectors for heat, power, motor fuel and industrial process energy, which have so far been considered independently of each other. The new substitution processes operate differently, integrating all fields of energy utilization: more and more power-consuming devices will in the future be able to cover their power requirements themselves without a cable connection by means of integrated photovoltaic technology and accumulators; more and more buildings will work without being connected to the grids. Motor fuel is obtained from electricity with the help of hydrogen technology; electricity is generated from stored solar heat using Stirling motors; electricity is generated from motor fuels derived from renewable energies, such as biogas or bio-ethanol, by means of fuel cells. Solar energy utilization is becoming economical and multifunctional, and it opens up completely new methods for pricing energy, far beyond the eliminated infrastructure costs of conventional energies.
Maxim 5:
Utilize the unique efficiency potential of renewable energies
Decentralized application and utilization of renewable energies means that there will be less and less excess capacity. Energy is provided on a modular à la carte basis. Surplus energy becomes utilizable as a result of decentralization. New, decentralized storage technologies, especially for electricity, eliminate the need for reserve capacities. The local, all-loads small-scale power station is no longer a utopian vision, but can cope with all load cycles, just like an engine whose transmission can be shifted from idle to fifth gear. Electricity generation from renewable energies eliminates the need for condensation power stations, meaning that they cease to consume gigantic quantities of water and thus help conserve the increasingly scarce resource of water.
Maxim 6:
Motivate new business partners for renewable energies
Since renewable energies mean the substitution of nuclear and fossil primary energies by solar conversion technologies, the highly concentrated energy industry is a rather unsuitable partner for change. The energy industry, too, can switch from the role of energy supplier to that of technology provider. However, it is unlikely to do so with the necessary verve, so as not to create any unwanted competition for its structures and investments. Therefore, the prime candidates are the industries whose current sphere of activity is relatively close to solar conversion technologies: the engine industry, the glass industry, the electrical appliance industry, the electronics industry, mechanical and plant engineering companies, manufacturers of agricultural implements (for biomass harvesting equipment), and last but not least, agriculture and forestry.
Maxim 7:
Respect the priority of the laws of nature over the laws of the market
The liberalization of the energy markets results in the abolition of existing regional monopoly structures. Although the conventional regional monopolies with their compulsory connection and use were a key obstacle to the introduction of renewable energies by the independent operators needed for them, we must not think only of free energy markets for renewable energies. Even if the same energy conversion technology is used everywhere, renewable energies will always have different costs. Their productivity depends on the different natural supplies of energy available in each case. To be able to fully exploit their potential in the field of commercial energy supplies, they therefore need a politically defined and legitimized pricing scheme. It has to be designed on a degressive scale and must be differentiated according to geographical regions and the different technical energy sources. The priority of the given laws of nature over market laws is mandatory. Concerning renewable energies, we must not think in the category of energy markets, but rather in the category of technology markets.
Maxim 8:
Think along faster development lines
Our past experience that a new energy source takes many decades to establish itself does not apply to renewable energies. While their provision requires large amounts of human capital, it does not need the infrastructural outlay necessary for the nuclear and fossil energy chains. This means that renewable energies can be established much faster that conventional energy experts assume. And this also needs to happen faster, so as to do justice to the greatest task of this century. The more independent renewable energies are of the traditional energy infrastructure, the sooner they will achieve cost advantages compared to conventional energy supplies, also because of the low cost of providing them and their multifunctionality.
