Today Germany gets 10% of their electricity from renewables. If the present rate of conversion is maintained, no nuclear & fossil fuels will be used in 50 years. If allowed to continue, this can make the difference for climate change.
Interview with
DR. HERMANN SCHEER
World Council for Renewable Energy and member of the German Parliament
A large industrialized country already gets 10% of their electricity from renewable sources. And if the present rate of conversion is maintained, this country will have phased out nuclear and fossil fuels within the next 50 years. And this country, Germany, is not even blessed with abundant wind or sun. Germany, for 15 years now, has shown the determinations to move away from centralized to decentralized power, from commercial to non-commercial energy production, and to come up with solutions to climate change, peak oil and the dangers of nuclear power.
At the root of these developments is the German Renewable Energy Act, the EEG. It started as a one page act passed by the German parliament in 1990. It was simple and based on three concepts: Free access to the grid to all producers, the obligation for utilities to purchase, and guaranteed fixed prices for each producer in accordance with their cost of production and state of technology. The lead author of the Renewable Energy Act is Dr. Hermann Scheer, chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy, now serving his 6th term as elected member of the German Parliament.
I interviewed Scheer on February 16 at 7 am in the noisy courtyard of his hotel in Palo Alto, CA.
