More honesty in energy policy

Energy policy, the subject of this article, is too important, also in Germany, to allow the public to be left in the dark about the consequences of overly expensive or inefficient measures. Consequently, a program of facts and requests can be addressed mainly to politics: - We must muster courage to inform the public of the unpleasant truths about causes and effects. - No type of energy resource, not even the renewables, are an end in themselves. - At the present level of knowledge it is impossible for renewables, and of course also for nuclear, alone to guarantee prosperity and security of supply in the long term. - The Act on Renewable Energies does not save CO₂ emissions but only shifts them. - Politics should be admonished to improve cost efficiency not only by words but also by deeds. This implies that energy efficiency is not always tantamount to cost efficiency. - Research efforts into new technologies, also renewables, must be stepped up drastically at the expense of broad subsidies of the use of technologies not commercially viable. This is going to result in solutions protecting climate much more quickly and at less expense than current practice. - German research into 4^th generation nuclear technology with inherently safe nuclear power plants, such as HTR, and for transmutation allowing for considerably shorter halflives of radionuclides, must be intensified. - Final storage of radioactive waste has been solved technically; political blocking must be abandoned. More honesty in energy policy in Germany is possible, but a lot depends on us as co-players. (orig.)