Abstract

The recent progress of human kind has so far been strongly related to the use of fossil fuels. Nowadays, the uncontrolled growth of their use is producing a series of threats such as local pollution, global warming, and the unbalance between their growing demand and their progressive depletion is creating serious geopolitical frictions which may put at risk our civilization. While the nuclear option is seriously questioned in the Western world, the growth of renewable energy sources (RES) is creating the illusion that they may just replace fossil fuels and become a sort of panacea overcoming all aforementioned threats. Some of the shortcomings of this way of thinking are underlined in this paper. Actually, the correct answer is a combination of two factors: on one side the use of renewable energy sources, but on the other side the adoption of energy efficiency measures in order to rationalize the energy demand.

Highlights

  • The recent progress of human kind has so far been strongly related to the use of fossil fuels

  • The uncontrolled growth of their use is producing a series of threats such as local pollution, global warming, and the unbalance between their growing demand and their progressive depletion is creating serious geopolitical frictions which may put at risk our civilization

  • While the nuclear option is seriously questioned in the Western world, the growth of renewable energy sources (RES) is creating the illusion that they may just replace fossil fuels and become a sort of panacea overcoming all aforementioned threats

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Summary

The “perfect storm”

1.1 Greenhouse Gases and energy Thousands of papers have been probably written about the consequences of the increasing amount of CO2 and other Green House Gases (GHG) on the Earth temperature.

Price of fossil fuels
Will Renewable Energy Sources be the solution?
Advantages of RES
Disadvantages of RES
CO2 emissions by PV panels
Limitations imposed to RES by the grid
Demand side management
The EU solution
Findings
Final considerations
Full Text
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