Hermann Scheer

Hermann Scheer
Hermann Scheer (2008)
Member of Parliament for Social Democrat member of the German Bundestag (parliament)
Personal details
Born	(1944-04-29)29 April 1944 Wehrheim, Germany
Died	14 October 2010(2010-10-14) (aged 66) Berlin, Germany
Nationality	German
Political party	Social Democrat
Occupation	Social Democrat member of the German Bundestag (parliament) President of Eurosolar (European Association for Renewable Energy)

Hermann Scheer (29 April 1944 – 14 October 2010) was a Social Democrat member of the German Bundestag (parliament), President of Eurosolar (European Association for Renewable Energy) and General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy. In 1999, Scheer was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for his "indefatigable work for the promotion of solar energy worldwide".

Scheer believed that the continuation of current patterns of energy supply and use would be environmentally, socially, economically, and politically damaging, with renewable energy being the only realistic alternative. Scheer had concluded that it is technically and environmentally feasible to harness enough solar radiation to achieve a total replacement of the foclear (fossil/nuclear) energy system by a global renewable energy economy. The main obstacle to such a change is seen to be political, not technical or economic. In 1999 he was one of the initiators of the German feed-in tariffs that were the major source of the rise of renewable energies in Germany during the following years.

Scheer was born in Wehrheim, and became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1965 during his military service as an officer in the Bundeswehr. He in economics and law and was active in student politics at the University of Heidelberg. 1979 he graduated from the Free University of Berlin as a doctor of political science. He worked as postgrade scientist at Universität Stuttgart and as a scientist (1976 till 1980) at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (a large nuclear and basic research center). Scheer was member of the German Modern pentathlon national team in his youth. He became a member of the Bundestag in 1980, representing Baden-Württemberg; in 1993, he also became a member of the federal steering committee (Bundesvorstand) of the Social Democratic Party. Scheer had a solid track record as an anti-establishment figure within his own party. He however never gained a direct majority based mandate in any political election and never held any executive post in government.