Future energy supply for society—Challenges in evaluation criteria and interdisciplinary research

Society faces a change from an age of vast and silently accepted energy supplies to an age requiring conscious effort to secure new and adequate source-energy for its future. The criteria for success will be different from currently customary methods. The sheer magnitude of the “product” will involve interrelationships of several participating technological and social parameters. The practice of customary “cost” evaluation of technology by itself will be insufficient as it employs monetary measurements based on economics of the present-day environment of energy availability. The pursuit of large-scale solar energy utilization provides an example for the multiplicity of interacting parameters that must be pursued technologically and the need for interdisciplinary understanding and pursuits.