Uselessly squaring the circle!

Apparently we must reduce CO2 emissions. This requirement seems to have become a higher true and immutable dogma.

In parallel, following the fears felt after Chernobyl and Fukushima, countries such as Germany and Switzerland are now committed to phasing out nuclear power. This has also become an almost moral imperative .

Yet I’m taking on the immeasurable task to put these issues on the table, what heresy!

It is in this context that alternative energies are the subject of much attention, subsidies, and hope for the salvation of the planet. Being good by definition one would think that they lead to positive externalities. This remains to be seen.

Two kinds of – at least at human views – endless energy sources shall be considered for these alternatives: geothermal and solar.

Read more by downloading the following document: Énergies intermittentes (so far only in French).

The findings are that:

• Geothermal will remain a niche
• Being intermittently in production, wind and solar cannot cover all demand all the time.
  Thus for 1 kW installed with such technology another kW stand-by capacity must be made available at any time; or storage systems must be built.
• These additional investment needs must be composed into the production cost of the alternative energies (negative externality).
• The grid must be adapted to intermittences beyond 25-30% of the total load. So far no solution is in place.

Alternative energies must be viewed at best as a useful complement to other sources, at worst as a waste of resources