It was shocking and sad to learn that the great Hermann Scheer died last night. He leaves behind an extraordinary legacy. That he had such vision, energy and commitment is one of the reasons why renewable energy is taking its rightful place in the world economy. It will be, before much longer, the dominant form of energy. I quoted Amory Lovins here: “The Renewable Revolution has been won. Sorry, if you missed it.” Scheer’s contribution to winning the revolution is incalculable.
I wrote about Scheer in this post from last December. He was a leading Social Democratic member of the German parliament and the principal architect of the German National Renewable Energy Act. Through a feed-in tariff created by the law, a premium price is paid to providers of renewable energy. This fostered a quantum leap in renewable activity in Germany. (For background on this, see Scheer explaining it at this video taken from Nova’s program, “Saved by the Sun.”)
Scheer was the President of EUROSOLAR, the European Association for Renewable Energy, and General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE). He was a tireless advocate for renewable energy – and reason.
If you can, take the time to watch his talk at the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) from a year ago in Washington. The video segment with Scheer and his introduction by ACORE’s head begins at 43:45.