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From fire to electricity

Positive transformations have always existed. Otherwise we would still be living in trees. What is relatively new is the transformation from fire to electricity, from combustion to light. This is the super-transformation of our time.

Physics clearly states that combustion technologies have had their day. This applies to the combustion engine, gas boilers, oil heating systems and coal-fired power plants. Combustion is simply not efficient. In a combustion engine car, 80 per cent of the energy is simply wasted. We have known for a long time that electricity is better and more efficient. Combustion has made people’s lives easier for thousands of years. But the future belongs to electricity, which is far more efficient.

In this regard, Axel Kleidon from the Max Planck Society writes in ‘Terra X – the ZDF science column’:

  • “Heat pumps heat living spaces by simply building up a temperature difference between indoors and outdoors – just like in a refrigerator.
  • In terms of electricity generation, photovoltaics is booming and is now unbeatable in terms of efficiency.
  • Heat pumps can save electricity by improving the insulation of living spaces.
  • And if less mass per person is moved in city traffic, then enormous amounts of energy can be saved here too.

By using modern technologies, Germany could reduce its primary energy consumption by more than half. The energy transition is therefore ‘not an ideology, but the consistent use of more energy-efficient technologies that avoid combustion…’

The fundamentalist and nationalist progress pessimists around Donald Trump and the AfD must be confronted with the fact that the main task of the globalising world is not for us to ‘globalise’ ourselves. The main problem is that we have not yet recognised the true significance of the only global and almost infinitely available source of energy, the sun: The sun with its abundance for all people, the sun with its price advantage as an energy source and the sun with its chance for eternal peace and for more security and independence.

The infinite riches of the sun are immediately apparent to us when we consider what would happen if the sun did not shine for just two weeks: we would have to live on a planet with 170 degrees of cold and all life would be dead. After just two weeks without sunshine! The Gulf Stream, warmed by the sun, pumps huge masses of water from the Gulf of Mexico to Europe’s coasts, supplying Europe with the energy of a million nuclear power plants – for free! Only because of this can we live here in relative prosperity.

The sun as a whole permanently supplies the energy of several hundred million nuclear power plants to the earth through its mere existence – for free! We have always obtained well over 99 percent of our energy consumption from the sun, as a matter of course. Now we just have to learn to organise the small remainder of less than one percent from the sun as well. That is the whole energy problem, which we worry about so much that we even wage wars over energy instead of finally opening ourselves to the energy from above. In reality, it is an easily solvable problem if we become aware of the connections between our lives and our fixed star, the sun.

The destruction that the old energy industry continues to wreak is staggering today and will be even more so tomorrow, and it is ruthless to people and nature: every day, species disappear, deserts expand, forests burn, sea levels rise, and the rise in temperature becomes incalculable.

The use of fossil and nuclear energy has been and continues to be a growing promoter of global injustice, while the use of solar energy promotes global justice. The use of fossil and nuclear energy destroys the basis of economic development because the follow-up costs become unaffordable, while the use of solar energy causes fewer economic follow-up costs and therefore promotes human development on the entire planet. The ubiquitous solar resources open up the opportunity for what Ludwig Erhardt once dreamed of for Germany at the beginning of the Federal Republic and thus also won elections with: ‘Prosperity for all.’ I wrote about this in my doctoral thesis. If we take the solar energy supply into our own hands, there is a chance for the first time in human history to organise prosperity for all around the world. To do this, we need a socio-ecological transformation.

The building sector is responsible for about 40 percent of all CO2 emissions. This is due to oil and gas heating, but also to thin walls, drafty roofs and/or old windows. Old buildings are usually an energy nightmare. And about 90 percent of our buildings are old.

This means: if heating systems in buildings are to be made more climate-friendly and CO2 emissions from transport are to be reduced, then this will not only mean a change in everyday life, but also financial burdens. Environmental and social issues are inextricably linked. That is why trade unions, Fridays for Future and environmental organisations are calling for the just distribution of the social and ecological transformation. Particular consideration must be given to low-income households. Only if ecological and social aspects are considered together can most people see it as an opportunity rather than a threat.

Dear readers, does this seem like a distant dream to you? Then you are absolutely right. It is music for a better future in a better world. We should learn that we are all representatives of the sun on earth. Today, almost all of us – at least in the rich industrialised countries – are part of the problem. Our most important question is: how do we become part of the solution?

Source

Franz Alt 2025 |  Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

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