Rhein on Energy and Climate

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On June 20-21st the international community will remember the 20th anniversary of the last UN Conference on Development and Sustainability in Rio de Janeiro. There is little reason to celebrate this anniversary. Though we have witnessed stunning economic progress in East Asia, the Gulf and several Latin American countries, the inequalities of living conditions on… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

Quo vadis Europe?

Europe is presently engaged in an intensive debate related to the crisis of sovereign debt, its governance and the links between citizens and EU institutions. I offer my modest contribution to this debate. The EU will have solved most of its sovereign debt problems by 2020. This follows logically from the progressive, reduction of member… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

Solar electricity generated from PV panels and mirrors is due to become one of the leading sources of power generation in the 21st century. It is abundantly available and will become cheaper to produce than fossil or nuclear electricity, due to technological advances in thin-film solar cells and conversion rates of solar irradiation. EU researchers… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

For the last three months the Iberian Peninsula and South-Eastern Britain have suffered from the worst droughts for several decades, with hardly any rainfall, less than 20 mm in Spain and Portugal. This dramatic situation has hardly been noticed outside the countries directly affected: city dwellers are less and less sensitive to natural catastrophes that… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

With sun shine of > 2500 hours per year, North Africa and the Gulf countries are among the best insulated regions of the planet. They are also unequalled in radiation density (2500-3000 kWh/m2/year). Both factors combined make them ideal locations for generating solar electricity. Indeed, the 22 Arab countries, occupying one third of global desert… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

When politicians get bored or frustrated with the jobs for which they are appointed they often “invade” new fields for which they have no particular competence. This seems to be the case with Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister. At the informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Copenhagen, March 10-12, he has proposed a… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein