“BECAUSE THE ROAD TO RENEWABLE ENERGY WOULD COMPLETELY UNRAVEL ALL ECONOMIC STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE INDUSTRIAL AGE.”
By JOACHIM BESSING

I met Dr. Hermann Scheer, winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize in 1999, Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy, and a member of the German parliament, in his office in the parliamentary assembly building on Unter den Linden not far from the Reichstag in Berlin. Scheer is a solid man, his hair bristly, and he likes to tell jokes. I wanted to know from him how we might imagine a world in which all our energy needs would be met by only sunlight and wind power. So my first question addressed the feasibility of this utopia: Would it be at all possible, given the current state of technology, to supply the world’s energy needs completely with renewable resources?

HERMANN SCHEER: Of course it’s possible. It’s also a lot easier to imagine than most of us realize. There’s a scenario for the complete supply of the world’s needs with renewable energy that was drawn up in 1978 by French scientists. There’s a scenario published in book form by American scientists, the Union of Concerned Scientists, an organization made up of 50 Nobel Prize winners, and it maps out a complete switch to renewable energy by the year 2050. And there’s a scenario for Japan and one for the European Union. All of them have only one thing in common: in all the usual discussions of energy, they are systematically ignored. What should not be realized will not be allowed to be realized.

JOACHIM BESSING: Why shouldn’t they be realized?
Because the road to renewable energy would completely unravel all economic structural development since the beginning of the Industrial Age. Because the current energy economy won’t be able to be instrumental in this development. The structures of conventional energy supply are incompatible with the structures of energy supply by means of renewable resources. This is due to two elementary conditions determined by the source of energy. And in these discussions, it’s completely forgotten that the source of energy one decides on determines all decisions to be made afterwards. The choice of the energy source with the flow of that energy from where it’s taken or derived through to the final point of its use determines what sort of infrastructure is required to transport the energy or whether any transportation is necessary at all. It also determines what refining technologies are needed to transform raw energy into useable energy. It also determines whether anything needs to be done about waste. It even determines what sort of company must take shape in order to realize such provision of energy. Seen in this light, the fundamental difference between the provision of energy from renewable resources or from the usual sources is, besides the impact on the environment, the actual flow of these energies. The flow of energy in a conventional system is necessarily a long chain. This energy system became dominant in the last century. But the sources for it can be found in only a few places in the world.

You mean oil?
Oil. Gas. Coal. Uranium. Throughout the world, that is what is being brought to and used in every last village. That means a very long flow of energy. And the more these usual sources of energy are exhausted, the longer that chain is going to become. Parts of it already span over half the globe – a chain with many links. A break at any one point can’t be allowed. The globalization of the provision of energy is pre-programmed by the source. Renewable energies function entirely differently; they’re everywhere.

Wind and sun?
Wind and sun – of course, in varying intensities. But there is an opportunity to make the long flows shorter. The conventional energy system has led to the decoupling of the place where energy is used from where it is taken. With renewable energies, there is a shot at re-coupling them. But that is not the only difference: Renewable energies have a low energy density. That is used as an argument against them. Energy density means that there is more energy packed into each volume unit. By far the greatest energy density is found in atomic energy. But with oil and coal and gas, it is also higher than it is in sunrays or wind. But that is no argument against making use of it. It only becomes impossible if we were to try to use them within our current structures. You cannot construct a thousand-megawatt wind power plant! You have to organize such power generation over a wide area – then it is constructed out of a few hundred thousand solar decks, a few hundred wind power generators. The only exceptions here are the large dams harvesting waterpower in the valleys; they can be bundled in one place. The consequence of that is that the current structure of large power plants will be part of the past. The economic consequence that cuts deeply into the structures of the current energy economy is: It is not possible to switch from the role of provider of oil, gas, coal, or uranium to that of a provider of renewable energy. Because this means a switch from commercial primary energies to the non-commercial. The sun belongs to everyone. There is no license holder for wind. These energies are free. What does cost something, though, is setting up the technology. The current primary energy economy will also disappear. Furthermore, preparing for renewable energies means mobilizing technology in order to transform these free primary energies into useable energy. All that is derived from the logic of the energy flow.

Won’t this be enormously expensive?
The costs of technology sink along with the mass production of technology – through constant improvement of the technology and its production. Conventional energies, because of the decrease in their availability, can only become more expensive. Also because it becomes increasingly difficult to attain them. And the impact on the environment is growing. It is a complicated system. Renewable energies have an uncomplicated system. But a decentralized system has to be set up. That, too, explains the entire conflict: Whoever thinks in terms of conventional structures ultimately comes to the conclusion that it will not work. We have to finally leave these structures behind us.

But even then it would still be unthinkable for Germany to decide to increase its reliance on renewable energies alone.
Why? The steam engine wasn’t introduced under the provision that all other countries would have to use it, too. It was precisely the other way around: one adopted the steam engine in order to have an advantage over the others. That’s the dynamic of a development. And only this dynamic will bring about the actual switch to other forms of energy. You can already do the math and see that the switch to renewable energies will bring about enormous economic advantages. The countries that make this decision will save on energy imports. They will save on infrastructure requirements. They will save on health costs. They will save on environmental impact. If you bet on bio-energy, then you have to set up the facilities – which in turn, leads to a revival of rural and forest economies. That produces enormous regional economic advantages, and it leads to an energy system that saves water. You need tremendous amounts of water to produce electricity conventionally. Steam is generated in large factories to run the turbines. In times of increasing water shortages, that is a great disadvantage. Not to mention the nuclear power plants which require even greater amounts of water. Water from their cooling systems evaporates and leads to a concentrated cloud build-up. The water then comes down in rapid streams. It is hardly coincidental that we are seeing more water catastrophes! It is all connected. Besides, the permanent loss of sweet water can only increase; oceans make up the largest portion of the earth’s surface. So rain, that is, potential sweet water, falls mainly on oceans. So we’re seeing a permanent transformation of sweet water into salt water. Which leads, in countries already experiencing shortages of sweet water, to the tremendous task of extracting the salt from salt water – which, in turn, drains the energy system.

When it comes to solar cells, it is easy to see how these technologies will be cheaper. But for wind power generators, an enormous amount of steel will be required – how can mass production lower manufacturing costs?
But the production technologies will be improved. Lighter means of construction are already being developed. The windmill blades will be lighter, thanks to new materials. The output increases, then, too. Individual manufacturers are already offering a gearless model. Costs for wind power have been halved in the last ten years. And that is nowhere near the end of it! This would be the first time that a newly introduced technology will have reached its optimal productivity after just fifteen years.

How should I picture this aesthetically? What would Germany look like if it were to switch all its energy use to renewable energies?
It would look more beautiful.

Does a decentralized production of energy mean solar cells on every available roof?
Under certain conditions. It depends on how each of the technologies develops. Of course, there will always be more rooftops that can produce electricity, where there are solar cells on the roof. There are now producers of such integrated solar cells. And there will be a glass architecture utilizing glass facades that produces electricity. And there will be countless gadgets with photovoltaic modules on their backs or on other surfaces so that the user can generate the electricity for these devices themselves.

Like the pocket calculators in the ’80s?
Exactly. This cell phone here could have been generating its own electricity for some time now. The technology is there, but the manufacturers are too lazy to use it. They are thinking within conventional structures and see themselves as producers of devices – the electricity always comes from somewhere else.

The aesthetic objections apply less to solar cells …
The protest against windmills comes from short-sighted thinking.

But it has been said that they make a tremendous noise – and that they are ugly.
As for the noise, that is not true. The noise of a modern windmill is no greater than that of the wind blowing through the trees. Measured by this criterion, no one would be allowed to drive a car anymore. These criticisms always presume an otherwise pure nature that the windmills are somehow spoiling.

How many of these masts would we have to erect in Germany?
That depends on technological development. For example, one could imagine new buildings in cities – tall buildings – with windmills integrated into their architecture. Such buildings would then be able to cover all their own electricity needs.

But isn’t the problem here that electricity can only be produced as long as the wind blows and the sun shines?
There is no system for the production of energy that doesn’t include a means of storage. The only case in which you don’t need storage capacity is out in the woods, when you build a fire. If you depend on coal or oil, the fuel doesn’t arrive from the source at the very moment you need it, but rather, many months ahead of time. And there is a long way between those two points. With sun and wind power, you can only store energy once it’s been transformed into electricity. That is the only difference. You can’t store wind. But there are means of storing electricity.

In fuel cells?
Oh, no, there are many other methods. In Huntdorf, near Bremen, there’s a nuclear power plant that, since 1977, has been utilizing compressed air storage – 290 megawatts of energy are stored in the form of compressed air. At times of high-energy use, they tap that storage to run turbines with the compressed air. It takes four hours to deplete that source! Why couldn’t we store wind energy in exactly the same way?

Assuming we could cover all of Germany’s energy needs with renewable energies, the users would be paying for energy only in that they would be making up for technological investment.
Right.

But that also means that at some point energy will be free.
That’s the long-term perspective.

That runs counter to our capitalist system. No one is going to want to stop earning money. Even those who run the windmills aren’t going to want only their maintenance costs covered.
Why not? Their income needs will only be lower.

But isn’t our system set up in such a way that we cannot ever get enough income?
That is why I think that renewable energies will lead to an overall cultural improvement – even in the economy. That was the great promise of technology after all, that we’ll all be better off. In matters of energy, though, this promise can only be fulfilled with renewable energies.

Gas, then, would become immeasurably expensive if oil producers could no longer find any other buyers.
Even now, many transportation companies are switching to bio-diesel. At the moment, we have a problem providing enough of this fuel because the producers cannot keep up with the rapidly rising demand. We now find ourselves in a situation in which we have got to make the switch to renewable energies very quickly because our conventional energy system only produces more and more crises – from environmental to political crises. There would have been no war in Iraq if dates were harvested instead of oil. And no first Gulf war, either. The principle of consensus – that is, that all countries have to make this change at once – presents an irreconcilable contradiction to the current need to make this switch quickly. With the principle of consensus, it is always the lowest common denominator that determines the course. This is especially difficult in questions of energy because the energy production economy depends on governments across the board. They are prisoners of their own chain. There will never be a time at which all pre-investments – new drilling licenses, pipelines, etc. – are amortized. That is why this system has been set up to carry on as long as it is at all feasible to do so. Which is why political attempts at making the energy economy responsible for structural changes within that same economy are wrong-headed. Because the only loser in the coming structural change will be the energy economy itself.

Let’s change the perspective for a moment: What does utopia for energy companies look like?
Carrying on as things are as long as possible. In the hope that the environmental problems turn out to be not as great as they seem – and that at some point a deus ex machina appears: atomic fusion. That is currently being painted in the most golden colors even though it doesn’t measure up in any way to renewable energies.

Does atomic fusion depend on uranium?
No, you use other elements that lead to nuclear meltdown.

And there are enough of these elements?
Potentially, yes.

In which countries can they be found?
They are in the oceans. They are particles of heavy, or rather, overly heavy hydrogen that are melted down in fusion plants. Helium is a byproduct and a fast neutron is released from each atom. In a magnetic cage, the plasma is then ignited at 100 million degrees. The reaction, by the way, is similar to an explosion of a hydrogen bomb. Atomic fusion produces an enormous amount of radioactive waste. And using atomic fusion would lead to an even greater centralization of the energy economy – but we cannot count on a commercially working plant going online before 2050.

To come back to cars once again, does the automobile industry support a switch to renewable energies?
It should, actually. But it is tied up in a traditional alliance with oil producers. But with the end of the age of oil, they will suffer more than the oil companies – so far, they’ve profited from every crisis. A recent declaration from Lufthansa was interesting because they appealed to the auto industry to switch to alternative fuels as quickly as possible as it will be easier to do so with cars than with planes. Fossil fuels are to be reserved for air traffic. I am presuming that the tendency in the auto industry will lead to a combination of electricity as a primary source supplemented by bio-fuels. The purely electric automobile will arrive. The hybrid is already here, but it isn’t being made by German companies. The waiting list for them already stretches to two years. Even in America! The German automobile industry is putting itself in danger.

Why isn’t America, this wide, sparsely populated country, counting more on renewable energies?
It used to be different. In the late ’70s, the US was, worldwide, the leading country when it came to investing in solar energy. That was under Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan’s campaign was financed by the American oil industry. And Reagan killed the solar program. So America lost 25 years. They are beginning to realize that now. Not the Bush administration yet, but there is a whole series of American cities and states currently working on ambitious solar programs: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York. The state of Washington has just copied our renewable energy law. California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has started his “Million Roof Program” – but the Americans have waited so long, and once you cut a development short, you leave behind a psychic desert. The doors are suddenly slammed shut again. And to motivate someone a second time is very hard.

Assuming Germany were completely supplied with renewable energy in the year 2005, do you think this structural change will bring about a different attitude among Germans towards energy use?
We would have a different approach to saving energy. If you are an energy producer yourself, you calculate these things exactly. In the cities, this change would have brought about a different traffic system; the emission-free automobile and the emission-free building would make city air breathable again. People would be riding bicycles more again. There would be fewer health problems. People would be meeting each other again.

Flying would be unbelievably expensive. So countries would be growing further apart again. Vacations in Thailand or Australia would be unthinkable.
Then there would be less air traffic. Life wasn’t any less enjoyable before the arrival of cheap airfare. On the contrary: in the last ten years, people’s fears of strangers and the other have only increased. The threat of environmental disaster resides in every mind – which means that lethargy is spreading. It doesn’t have anything to do with quality of life.

There would be a greater concentration on the private environment. The private, the provincial would again become the only world one could experience.
Yes! Regionalization, not globalization is the future. What is immediately manageable will become more attractive. But the immediate environment will in no way represent a limitation. I travel a lot. I have been to practically every country. But I have only been to Usedom on one weekend. Such a wide beach! Once you have seen Usedom, you don’t have to take any more plane trips. Such wide beaches are rare in this world. Whoever wants to see something different will simply pay a lot more to do so. Everyone should and can do only what is fundamentally needed. Not everyone can fly. Do you know this joke about a communist and a social democrat who see a Porsche drive by? The social democrat says, “In my utopia, everyone will have a Porsche.” The communist replies, “In mine, no one will have a Porsche.” Both positions are wrong.