Hermann Scheer's ideas will live on

We are mourning the death of Hermann Scheer, an extraordinary person and politician. Hermann Scheer – President of the European Association for Renewable Energy (EUROSOLAR), Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE), winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize and Member of the German Bundestag – died on 14 October 2010 in Berlin. He was 66 years old. His sudden death is a blow to us all.

Hermann Scheer achieved a great deal in his lifetime. Thanks to him, exemplary progress has been made worldwide towards a green energy supply from renewable sources rather than coal and nuclear power. His unwavering aim of accelerating the transformation of energy systems is becoming reality because his wealth of knowledge, his logical analysis and his ability to inspire others enabled him to convince and win over many people.

Hermann Scheer’s ideas and plans live on because he succeeded in transforming them into tangible achievements. He set them out in his book “Der energethische Imperativ”, published only days prior to his death. EUROSOLAR and the WCRE will continue his life’s work – to which he devoted himself tirelessly and without wavering, with energy and vision – by building on his achievements, as he would have wanted.

Promoting Renewable Energy is Foucus of New Agency

Article published in the International Herald Tribune, 18 May 2009. By Diana S. Powers.

PARIS — In Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, delegates from 79 countries will meet next month to choose a home, a director and a preliminary work program for the International Renewable Energy Agency, which was set up this year to lead a global drive to accelerate and expand the development of renewable energy resources.

The agency grew out of a conference in Bonn on Jan. 26, which was sponsored by the German government, with support from Denmark and Spain. Of the 192 United Nations member states invited, 125 sent delegations and 75 European and emerging countries signed on to the final agreement establishing the agency, also known as Irena.

Since January, four more countries have joined, most recently Mauritania. Membership includes leading European economies like Germany and France; emerging economies like India; major energy producers like Norway and Nigeria; hostile neighbors like Eritrea and Ethiopia, or Israel and Syria; and poor states like Liberia and Burkina Faso.

The United States has not yet joined the agency because of lingering commercial concerns, but is likely to do so, Hermann Scheer, a member of the Bundestag, the lower house of the German Parliament, said during an interview. 

You'll find the complete article here.