Thread: 1 Year ago Hermann Scheer died - The man who started the 4th Industrial Revolution

Fully aware that many here don't know him and have little idea about his relevance, I will use this space (intentionally in the Economics section) to honor this great mind who shaped history like few others and whoes legacy continues to shape the present & the future.



On October 14th 2010, Dr. Hermann Scheer died.
Hermann Scheer was a German politican & since 1980 member of the Bundestag.
He was born in 1944 and grew up in a war wrecked Germany under occupation. After he finished his highschool education in 1964, he enlisted in the German Military for a period of 3 years were he rose to the rank of lieutenant. From 1967-1972 he studied economics, law & politics at the Universties in Heidelberg and Berlin. Later he worked as a scientific assistant at Stuttgart University and a nuclear research facility in Karlsruhe, until his conferral of a doctorate (PhD) in political science in 1979 about the future of representative democracy.

Since the late 1970s he focused his attention and academic energy on pushing for a shift away from fossil & nuclear energy sources toward the utilization of renewable & sustainable energy sources.
He was driven by the realization that without a shift away from fossil & nuclear energy, mankind would be faced with a conjuncture of human, political & economic crisis that would challenge the survival of human civilization as we know it. To prevent the conflicts of the future, he worked hard to challenge conventional wisdome, prejudice against the potentials of renewable sources and active misinformation & lobbying actions by the conventional energy industry.

In 1999 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) and Time Magazine called him "Hero of the Green Century".
Due to comprehensive understanding of the huge potential behind renewable energy technology, he pushed for certain programs which were called "Too ambitous and destined to fail" by Greenpeace, he always proofed his critiques wrong.

Introduction of the EEG / German Renewable Energy Act

In 2000 he changed the course of human history by winning bi-partisan parliamentary support for a piece of legislation drafted mainly by him.
The "The Law for the Preference of Renewable Energy".
A comprehensive piece of legislature that forced the heavily distorted & monopoliezed electricity market open and utilized smart market economic benefits to ensure private investments.
Furthermore it was the goal to facilitate an enviroment for a new industy that would create domestic demand for industrial goods & services. A measure to strenghten the backbone of the german economy, manufacturing. The milestones of the legislation was the increase of renewable electricity from about 5% (4% Hydro) in 2000 to 12.5% by 2010 and 20% by 2020.

The opponents tried everything in their power to stop the law, but failed even at the highest european courts.
So they turned to belittle the potential and say that the goals would be impossible to reach.

By 2007 the output of renewable electricity surpassed the mark of 12.5% and now (in 2011) it surpassed the 20% mark.
In the meantime there are about 400.000 new jobs directly in renewable energy technologies.
Mainly in the export oriented wind-turbine market & biomass energy. Furthermore this new industry rose to be the second largest consumer of german steel, many machinary parts and electronics. All of this at far smaller economic cost and higher efficency than "quota-systems" or "carbon-trade" agreements, due to the utilization of market economic processes.

Due to the success of the law, parts of it have been implemented in more than 45 countries or states.
Last on the list is China, that passed a solar feed-in-tarif in August 2011 in order to increase domestic energy production & demand.

His Legacy

But most importantly, Hermann Scheers visionary thinking, forsight and smart policy making have changed the culture of energy consumption in Germany and showed the world that there is a viable alternative.
The way of thinking has changed and people value the energy they don't need to use much more than before.
People prefer to be energy efficent instead of spending more on energy on a monthly basis, without decreasing living standards.
People value indivual & regional energy independence & they enjoy the feeling that they don't leave a negative impact on the world & humanity.
New build houses require almost no heating energy or even produce more energy than they consume, making houses small powerplants.
Entire regions are working on becoming energy independent within years, with people buying electricity and gas from neighbours & local farmers instead of multi-national corperations.

All disinformaiton campaigns by conventional energy corperations are being prooven wrong within short periods of time.
All technical issues are being solved at record speeds by engineers & scientists.
Today nobody talks about IF a transition to renewable energy is possibe, the only standing question is "how fast" is a transition possible.

Credible predictions by industry analysts based on historic learning curves, decreasing prices, higher production capacity and requests for construction permits see the output of renewable energy sources to rise to more than 50% of domestic demand by 2020.
The goal of 100% renewable energy by 2030 in Germany will propably be reached since the reality of increasing fuel prices will accelerate this developement even further.

Danke Hermann. - 100% Jetzt!

Another sign that the EEG and the transition to a renewable energy system works as envisioned.
It ushers in a new era of a democratic energy supply in which many individuals & groups take care of their energy supply.
This strenghtens personal freedom & liberty in an age increased global dependencies.

The following graphic shows the ownership structure of the 53.000 MW of renewable energy installed in Germany of 2010.
As of 2011 renewables supply over 20% of the electricity consumption of Germany and over 11% of the total energy need of the country.

Counterclockwise:

40% - private individuals
11% - farmers
1.5% - others
9% - buisnesses
11% - fonds & banks
7% - regional utilities
6.5% - the "Four Giants" (invester owned multinational energy coroperations that dominate the german electricity market and own the most of the grid)
14% - Companies specialized at organizing, investing and realizing renewable energy projects.