Central versus decentral energy supply strategies for industrialized countries - soft or hard energy strategies?

Abstract

Of late, the discussion about alternative ways of securing our future energy supply has received a new impulse by the introduction of the catchphrase "soft energy". This catchphrase is exemplary for widely-applied socio-political criticism of the general development of technology towards industrialized technology and for the pursuit of alternative life styles signified by decentralized, comprehensible technology. With reference to the field of energy, this is to be interpreted as the concept of an energy supply in which power is produced by a number of smaller plants at the point of consumption, and which for the main part makes use of regenerative energy sources, such as sun and wind and biomass.