12 years have passed since the German parliament adopted the “Renewable Energy Sources Act” on the 29th March of 2000 . This law was primarily developed by Hermann Scheer who developed the underlying concepts during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Up until his death in 2010, Dr. Scheer was one of the most significant and uncompromising proponents of renewable energy sources in Germany and around the world.

The law that gave priority to renewable energy sources, guaranteed access to the grid for renewables and included a comprehensive feed-in-tarrif system became known as “Scheers-Law” around the world. Today it has been introduced to some extent by over 60 countries and states around the globe.

Since this historic push for a 100% renewable energy supply began, there have been countless developements & success stories in the field of clean energy & energy efficency around the world.

But the most important success of “Scheers-Law” is without doubt the commercialization of photovoltaic technology. In the middle of the last decade many companies around the world started to massivly expand their production capacity for silicon & other materials required to make PV-solar systems. This solar gold rush that lead to investments around the globe was mainly driven by demand in Germany up untill recently. The first effects of this developement?
Since 2009 the prices for PV-solar systems have fallen by up to 70% and continue to decline.

Today industry experts claim that photovoltaic & multi-kWh energy storage will become the cheapest source of electricy even in OECD countries within the next 10 years.
This will lead to a very fast structural change of the entire world economy. Huge parts of the fossil energy market will disappear and people around the world become energy independent. The energy corporations that dominate the fuel market, will loose significant parts of their revenue.. perhaps they will even get marginalized by this developement.

This developement has just started, but with 24.5 GW of PV-Solar capacity installed on more than 1 million roofs in Germany, the first signs of this new industrial revolution can already be observed.
For example even during the dark & windy winter month of January, PV-solar produced up to 7 GW or 10% of peak-load demand in Germany.
When a deadly cold wave brought the fossil & nuclear dominated energy system of France close to collapse, german PV-solar kept many gas & oil fired powerplants offline, which significantly lowered the spot-prices at the European Energy Exchange.

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Sources:
www.transparency.eex.com/en/
www.entsoe.net/
www.unendlich-viel-energie.de/en/homepage.html

Duration : 0:2:58

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Technorati Tags: EEG, Energy, germany, hermann, photovoltaik, power, pv-solar, renewable, revolution, scheer, solar, Solar Energy (Industry)

EnviroMission, Ltd. (www.enviromission.com.au; US Stock Market: EVOMY, Australian Stock Exchange: EVM) is a renewable energy developer of sustainable “green” energy solutions for the energy market. EnviroMission aims to be one of Australia’s leading producers of clean renewable energy. EnviroMission holds the proprietary rights to Solar Tower technology, a large-scale renewable energy technology based on simple fundamentals of physics — hot air rises. Solar Tower technology has the potential to offer competitive renewable energy with equal reliability to fossil fuel generators.

A single 200MW Solar Tower power station will provide enough electricity to power around 400,000 households. The energy output will represent an annual saving of more than 1,960,000 tonnes of greenhouse CO2 gases from entering the environment when compared to brown coal emissions in Victoria. The greenhouse savings equate to the removal of approximately 500,000 cars from the road. The Australian Solar Tower project consists of six distinct phases, the first two of which (project optimization and pre-feasibility commercialization) have already been completed. The third phase (final feasibility), paving the way for the implementation of the next three phases (final design, construction, and commercial operation).

Duration : 0:3:11

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Technorati Tags: carbon, change, climate, CO2, coal, dioxide, earth, electricity, emissions, Energy, enviromission, environment, environmental, farms, gas, Geothermal, global, Green, heat, mega, nuclear, oil, panels, pollution, power, production, radiation, Reduction, renewable, solar, sun, Technologies, technology, tower, warming, watts, wind

Some people say transitioning to clean energy will simply cost too much – “leave it to future generations.” In Edinburgh, Scotland, Richard Alley explains that if we start soon the cost of the transformation could be similar to that which was paid for something none of us would want to do without – clean water and the modern sanitation system.

Duration : 0:4:19

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Technorati Tags: affordable, bathroom, carbon, clean, clean energy, climate, climate change, CO2, documentary, earth, Earth The Operators Manual, electric, electricity, Energy, Energy (Dimension), environment, footprint, global, global warming, Green, grid, hygiene, manual, mini-series, operators, Ostrich (Animal), PBS, power, renewable, sanitation, science, septic, sewer, skeptic, smart, solar, sustainability, sustainable, the, toilet, toilets, warming, wind

Even before Solyndra filed for bankruptcy, the U.S. clean energy industry was facing an uncertain future because of the slow economy, low-cost overseas competition, and political gridlock in Washington, D.C. But in spite of these headwinds, Energy Secretary Steven Chu says clean energy cannot be abandoned and is on track for cost parity with fossil fuels.

In this exclusive one-on-one interview, energyNOW! anchor Thalia Assuras discusses the outlook for clean energy funding, the Obama’s Administration’s plans to advance energy technology, and global competition with Secretary Chu.

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/13l5a)

Duration : 0:6:54

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Technorati Tags: Association, Deparment, doe, Energy, energynow, Industries, of, power, solar

We are dismayed to hear that Dr. Paul Epstein of Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment passed away on Sunday. In February 2011, Greenpeace was lucky enough to host a press conference on board the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise to release a study he directed entitled, “Full Cost Accounting for the Full Lifecycle of Coal.” Dr. Epstein’s work was invaluable to the understanding of climate change and he will be missed.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/harvard-study-500-billion-full-cost-of-coal/blog/33350/

Duration : 0:8:55

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Technorati Tags: air pollution, burning, clean coal, clean energy, climate, coal, coal prices, cost, doctor, effects, electricity, Energy, environment, global environment, Green, harvard, Harvard Medical School, health, medical, medicine, mine, mines, mining, mountaintop removal, news, Paul Epstein, pollution, power, price, professor, quit coal, quitcoal, renewable, school, science, scientist, solar, solutions, strip mingin, true cost, university, water