A Physicist´s View of the German „Energiewende”

"This talk discusses the ideas and goals of the Energiewende, which aims at successively decarbonizing all of the german energy supply systems, but suffers from patchwork, wild exaggerations, cost explosions, and true pitfalls due to the construction of the European Climate Program.After a general overview we have a closer look at the electrical power generation and distribution, which is strongly affected by the Energiewende. We evaluate the consequences of the intermittent power production by wind turbines and photovoltaic panels, the dynamics of the present conventional power plants and the need and potential of present or future storage systems. The role of hydrogen and synthetic fuels as a form of chemical energy storage is discussed."