Speeches
The term "age" is generally taken to mean something transitory, an emerging and then declining epoch that is decisively characterized by one special feature. "Solar age" means that by far the greater part of mankind's demand for resources is covered by solar energy. However, if this readily available option is realized to the fullest possible extent, everything seems to indicate that it is a durable and thus definitive way of providing energy. In this respect, the term "solar age" is accurate in the description of its goal horizon, but inaccurate in the description of its time horizon. Once it has established itself, the "solar age" will become synonymous with an economic system that truly does justice to the frequently abused word "sustainability".
Address by Dr. Hermann Scheer, MP, General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE), President of EUROSOLAR, to the 3rd World Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, Osaka, May 12th, 2003I am delighted to address this 3rd World Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference. At the end of the 2nd Conference in July 1998 in Vienna I received the First PV Solar World Price. One of the reasons for receiving this Prize was my commitment to the global promotion of PV policy, such as the initiative for the 100.000 PV roofs and facades program in Germany.
PV Solar Energy Conversion is the coming “Prima donna” of Renewable Energy options. The frontrunner of New Renewable Energies is wind power. In the field of embedding Renewable Electric Power in the grids Wind Power will probably hold the first place.
Speech of Dr. Hermann Scheer, General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE), at the conference of the American Council for Renewable Energy "Renewable Energy in America", Washington, July 10th, 2002Honourable Senator Bingaman,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In my address to the Organizing Conference of the ACRE I am going to talk about the necessity for putting Renewable Energies in place, for the assurance of life on Earth. There is no time to waste. It must be done before they say we waited too long. The main task of supporters of Renewable Energy is to stimulate this change. The question is: how to do it?
Address of Dr. Hermann Scheer, MP and General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy, World Wind Energy Conference 2002, Berlin, July 2nd to 6th, 2002I have the honour and the opportunity to welcome you to this World Wind Energy Conference. I do this in several capacities, as General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE) and as President of EUROSOLAR, the European Association for Renewable Energies – and as one of the architects and the rapporteur of the German Parliament for the Renewable Energy Act, the legal framework for the worldwide most successful policy promotion of Renewable Energies in the electric power sector.
Speech of Dr. Hermann Scheer, Member of the German Parliament, President of EUROSOLAR, at the Opening Session of the 12th European Biomass Conference 2002, Amsterdam, June 17th, 2002 Ladies and Gentleman,
my most intensive meeting with the science and technology in the field of Biomass for Energy, Agriculture and Industry I had when I chaired the VII. European Biomass Conference in Florence 1992, together with David Hall as the chairman of the scientific committee. Many things happened in the last decade for Bio-Energy. The most important are, in my point of view, the increasing policy awareness on BioEnergy and the increasing awareness of the car industry to recognise Bio-Energy as a transport fuel.
Speech of Dr. Hermann Scheer at the First World Renewable Energy Policy and Strategy Forum 2002, Berlin, June 13th, 2002Ignoring the possibilities of renewable energies was one of the greatest failures of the 20th century. At the same time, one of the biggest problems of the 20th century was the worldwide orgy of energy consumption that accompanied it and resulted in man using twice as much energy between 1950 and 2000 than in all prior history of civilization. This process was triggered by the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century. The Industrial Revolution was founded on fossil energies. The fossil energy economy emerged with the availability of power for the steam engine, which became the primary means of energy conversion for more than a century - not only to replace human and animal labour with mechanical power and thus enable the introduction of mass production, but also for steam ships and thus the beginning of a global transport system, for steam trains and thus modern overland transport, and finally for the large condensing power plants driven by fossil fuels - and later by nuclear energy - that still function according to the principle of the steam engine.
Speech First World Renewable Energy Policy and Strategy Forum 2002 (pdf)
