Last night, the Hermann Scheer passed away at the age of 66. It is safe to say that no one has done more for the cause of renewables worldwide than Hermann.
His death comes as a bit of a surprise. Over the past few weeks, I have been in personal contact with him because he personally decided that I was to be the translator of his new book. Ironically, I sat down to begin the translation yesterday.
Until the very end, he remained very active. Only recently, he was in the running for the head position at IRENA, the international renewables agency he was principal in founding.
His input will be sorely missed. No one was able to dissect competition issues like Hermann. I have therefore made available an interview that my agency translated last summer of him talking about Desertec (PDF).
One of the most fascinating and perhaps least understood aspects of his history was that he actually began his career at Germany's nuclear fusion research Center in Jülich, a phase of his life that is not even mentioned at his English Wikipedia site (though it is in the German entry). I was going to investigate this at a meeting with him this summer, which was postponed until the first week of November -- and it's not going to happen now.
But thanks, Herman, for your input over the decades. With renewables taking off now, there will probably never be another single person who can play such a pivotal role.
Oh my... Too young... Hermann will be missed.
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