0191-9067/83 $3.00 + .00 Copyright ® 1984 SUNS AT Energy Council THE COEXISTENCE OF “SOFT” AND “HARD” TECHNOLOGIES PETER E. GLASER Arthur D. Little, Inc. Acorn Park Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140, USA APPROPRIATENESS OF “HARD” AND “SOFT” TECHNOLOGIES One of the major challenges facing contemporary society is the development of technologies based on the use of renewable energy resources to meet future global energy demands. Efforts to meet this challenge have led to the evolution of two technological approaches: distributed, or “soft,” technologies, designed to serve individual users or to meet the needs of small communities; and centralized, or “hard,” technologies, designed to meet the needs of societies with a high energy demand density. But the differentiation of renewable resource applications according to the scales of the conversion and distribution systems which will be required to shift them from nonrenewable to renewable resources is a matter of some debate. The appropriateness of “soft” and “hard” technologies for specific applications can best be judged by considering the technical, economic, environmental, and societal issues associated with these technologies. As long as the world was perceived as having effectively infinite material and ecological resources, new technologies could be introduced almost without constraint provided they satisfied economic criteria. Today, before a specific technology can be viewed for conversion of an energy resource into useful forms, it must pass the test of social desirability, which is based on consideration not only of its beneficial aspects, but its undesirable consequences. Although irksome for the developer of a specific technology, these added constraints are required to define and mitigate any irreversible damage the human species could inflict on itself and nature. CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF ENERGY PROBLEM On an evolutionary time scale, the human species is experiencing unprecedented changes at a dizzying pace. Within our lifetime, we have witnessed events of such significance that it is hard to grasp their implications. Seemingly, we are encountering a discontinuity in our development with consequences unthinkable at the beginning of this century. Just consider that our generation has shed the shackles of gravity to explore the outer reaches of the solar system, unlocked the forces within
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==