1:38 min, from 2.2.2018
Project Info: http://sdg21.eu/db/studierenden-wohnheim-woodie
12:28 min, upload from 06/19/2020; presentation at the Berlin Energy Days 2020.
Keywords:
DE-News, Energy storage, Movies, Movies 11 to 45 Min, Research, News Blog Baden-Württemberg, PV, Hydrogen, eMobility
The Federal Cabinet today approved an update of the Resource Efficiency Programme. Germanwatch welcomes in principle the government's plan for resource efficiency, but says that the original draft of the Environment Ministry has been weakened considerably, especially with regard to human rights issues. "In many places we now only find lip service instead of a binding framework," regrets Cornelia Heydenreich, Team Leader Corporate Responsibility at Germanwatch. She emphasises: "Resource protection must go hand in hand with human rights protection".
In the September draft it had still said: "In all funding instruments of the raw materials strategy, state funding will be linked to binding compliance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights [...]". Heydenreich: "That is the level of ambition we would have needed." Now it just says that eligibility for funding will be "assessed" in terms of human rights. The Resource Efficiency Programme merely refers to the parallel process of drafting a "National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights", which is to be brought to the Federal Cabinet in May. "Now it is up to the federal government to present such an ambitious National Action Plan in May, as promised. This must include, in particular, a law on human rights due diligence", demands Heydenreich.
Hardly any effective measures to prolong the use of products
Even in the measures to promote longer use of products, the federal government has taken promising approaches such as the creation of the EU legal prerequisite for a VAT concession in favour of resource-saving goods and services (e.g. repairs) out of its plan again. "The federal government's measures are too timid to really push for longer use of appliances," Heydenreich criticises.
On the other hand, it is to be welcomed that the German government is clearly committed to a demanding implementation of the EU regulation on conflict minerals. Heydenreich: "We call on the German government to use all possibilities to create a workable basis for this at EU level in the coming weeks. It must not be left to the companies to decide whether or not they finance bloody conflicts in the mining regions." Since the beginning of February, the EU Commission, the EU Parliament and the EU states have been negotiating a regulation on conflict minerals.
The extractive sector repeatedly causes particularly extensive human rights violations such as forced relocations, violent repression or even labour rights violations, including accidental deaths. According to a study commissioned by the former UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, John Ruggie, most of the business-related human rights allegations (28 per cent) concerned the extraction of raw materials.
Source: Communication from Germanwatch, 02.03.2016
https://germanwatch.org/de/11901
Keywords:
DE-News, Resource efficiency, Environmental policy
According to Dr Axel Berg, Chairman of the Executive Board of the German Section of EUROSOLARAccording to the author, neither ambitious climate protection goals nor an increased ecological awareness are the drivers of the energy turnaround, but rather "the exponential cost degression in renewable energy technologies, the technical innovations in storage technologies and a high level of interest from the industrial sector". In his detailed, expert contribution, he names three key technologies that, in their interaction, will accelerate the energy turnaround to such an extent that it is very likely that major players from German old industry, which for decades were considered the backbone of our powerful industrial nation, will be disrupted away by new players.
The three Key technology:
1. solar energies, especially photovoltaics and wind power
2. memory
3. renewable mobility
We would have to increase research and development efforts in Germany to tinker with new battery generations and all the high-tech. We need public showcases, the conversion of public authority vehicle fleets, showcase cities like Graz and the bundling of SMEs. In the SME sector, many new players with good ideas are waiting in the wings. Subsidies in the double-digit billions flow annually, only slowing down the wrong channels of old industry (e.g. diesel...).
Conclusion
According to Berg, citizens could look forward to the disruptive developments described. Our cities would become quieter, the air cleaner, the quality of life would increase. Mobility would become smoother and much cheaper [FNB: because only a fraction of the previous cars would be needed and the external costs would be eliminated].
It will be bitter for the old world. The car companies have a lot of money and can survive by shrinking - similar to what E.on or RWE are currently trying to do by splitting up. It will be brutal for the medium-sized suppliers who specialise in engine parts such as gearboxes, carburettors, clutches or pistons that are simply no longer needed. Or the 40,000 car repair shops in Germany alone, whose main job is to service combustion engines. The later they look for new fields of business, the harder the economic and social collapses will be.
Everything is ready for the start of information technology disruption: renewable energies, storage, digitalisation and autonomous electric vehicles. By 2030, all of this could already be accomplished.
Read the full article from 7.8.2017 here:
www.energiezukunft.eu/...
Keywords:
100% EEs, Stakeholders, Construction and operating costs, Energy storage, Renewable, Climate protection, Mobility, News Blog Europe (without DE), PV, PlusEnergy house/settlement, Solar thermal, Electricity storage, Transition Town, Ecology, Economics
Berlin, 24.6.2021: Commenting on today's discussion of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) in the German Bundestag Sascha Müller-Kraenner, Federal Executive Director of Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH):
"The grand coalition is breaking its promise to set higher expansion targets for renewable energies for the year 2030 before the end of this election period. An agreement failed mainly due to the energy transition brakemen within the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. In doing so, the federal government is ignoring the implementation of the new EU climate targets and disregarding the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court to tackle more ambitious climate protection measures before 2030. The amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Act is missing the heart of the matter. As recently as the end of 2020, Federal Economics Minister Peter Altmaier had announced an ambitious expansion path for wind and solar energy for the first quarter of 2021. After a long wait, there was only the famous drop in the ocean: four gigawatts of onshore wind energy and six gigawatts of photovoltaics are the targets for 2022. Longer-term expansion targets? No such thing. Quite obviously, the need for a rapid transformation of our energy supply has not yet reached the CDU/CSU, despite all their climate protection pledges in the election campaign."
The rising demand for electricity from electric heat pumps and electromobility necessitates the expansion of at least six gigawatts of onshore wind energy and at least ten gigawatts of photovoltaics - and this annually until 2030. The financial participation of municipalities in ground-mounted photovoltaics and easier repowering of wind turbines, on the other hand, are fundamentally positive measures.
Source: PM of DUH from 24.6.2021
Keywords:
DE-News, Renewable, Climate protection, PV, Environmental policy
