Refine
Has Fulltext
- no (3)
Document Type
- Article (3)
Language
- English (3)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (3)
Keywords
- flexibility (3) (remove)
Institute
- Sozialwissenschaften (3) (remove)
The corrosion of character
(2017)
The topic of this imaginary dialogue between Georg Simmel and Max Weber is the relation between work – in the sense of labour – and personality. Its aim is to show that the thinking of these ‘founding fathers’ of sociology can furnish valuable insight into the current issue of the corrosion of character in contemporary post-Fordist society. The concept of work still represents one of the major factors determining modern individuals’ ability (or inability) to formulate personal, stable identities that enable them to become fully socialized. Both Simmel and Weber make reference to a common theoretical background that views the human being as a creature with originally rational potential, who is faced with the task of becoming a personality by means of consciously chosen life behaviour: This is evident in the parallelism between Simmel’s interest in the concept of ‘style of life’ (Der Stil des Lebens) and Weber’s research on the ‘life conduct’ (Lebensführung) that arose in Western rationalistic culture.
The European potential for renewable electricity is sufficient to enable fully renewable supply on different scales, from self-sufficient, subnational regions to an interconnected continent. We not only show that a continental-scale system is the cheapest, but also that systems on the national scale and below are possible at cost penalties of 20% or less. Transmission is key to low cost, but it is not necessary to vastly expand the transmission system. When electricity is transmitted only to balance fluctuations, the transmission grid size is comparable to today's, albeit with expanded cross-border capacities. The largest differences across scales concern land use and thus social acceptance: in the continental system, generation capacity is concentrated on the European periphery, where the best resources are. Regional systems, in contrast, have more dispersed generation. The key trade-off is therefore not between geographic scale and cost, but between scale and the spatial distribution of required generation and transmission infrastructure.
Sustainable electricity systems need renewable and dispatchable energy sources. Solar energy is an abundant source of renewable energy globally which is, though, by nature only available during the day, and especially in clear weather conditions. We compare three technology configurations able to provide dispatchable solar power at times without sunshine: Photovoltaics (PV) combined with battery (BESS) or thermal energy storage (TES) and concentrating solar power (CSP) with TES. Modeling different periods without sunshine, we find that PV+BESS is competitive for shorter storage durations while CSP+TES gains economic advantages for longer storage periods (also over PV+TES). The corresponding tipping points lie at 2-3 hours (current cost), and 4-10 hours if expectations on future cost developments are taken into consideration. PV+TES becomes only more competitive than CSP+TES with immense additional cost reductions of PV. Hence, there remain distinct niches for two technologies: PV+BESS for short storage durations and CSP+TES for longer ones.