6. Conclusion: summary and outlook

The urgency of climate change requires us to rapidly decarbonize the energy sector. The technical challenge of mitigating global warming is immense, but so is the social challenge of adapting to it, because the changes required are profound. Engineers are now confronted with this challenge on a daily basis, not only to carry out technical calculations in design offices, but also to design and propose solutions that are relevant to local situations, taking into account environmental and social impacts, in order to generate political and social acceptance of the proposed solutions, based on substantiated scientific arguments. Present and future solutions are numerous, but while remaining open to innovation, the urgency of the situation calls for the use of proven technologies that are safe in terms of both performance and risk. We have revisited the reasons why solar energies are both quantitatively...