Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Danielle's internal advocacy has likely inspired her colleagues to see the light and
startthisbusiness,whileotherbigcompaniesarestillclingingtothepast.Thatisacritic-
al role that many people reading this topic could fulfill: opening the eyes of their bosses
and others to see how they can take part in the Solar Ascent.
Sven Teske: Spreading the Sunshine
Sven Teske is German friend of mine and another of my super-heroes because he has
long helped everyday people understand their own superpower, which is their ability to
gosolar.Sven'salsoanengineer bytraining andhasoneofthemostbrilliant mindsima-
ginable, but he's also one of the sweetest, most affable people you'll ever meet. (For
those of you who think pairing the ideas
German engineer
with
sweet
and
affable
makes
asmuchsenseasmixingboiledpotatoeswithicecream,thinkagain.MostoftheGerman
engineersI'vemettrulyare.)He'stallandcurlyhairedandcanspeakmultiplelanguages,
which he does with aplomb as he travels the world spreading the good news about solar
electricity uptake.
Sven is also one of the least-heralded champions of the solar industry, which is odd
because he not only directed Greenpeace's renewable-energy efforts internationally for
more than a decade but also helped start a solar-energy cooperative in Germany that cur-
rently has 100,000 customers. He has heavily contributed to the International Energy
Agency's
World Energy Outlook
(
WEO
), an important status report published annually
for the energy industry. I remember when he joined me in Australia to participate in the
releaseofasolar-generationforecastandheranahalf-marathonjustforfunthedayafter
a grueling 24-hour flight. He pops up in the most surprising places, Yellowstone Nation-
al Park for example—hiking with his family by day and editing
World Energy Outlook
reports by night.
Intheninetiesandnaughties,Svenwasaone-manpublishinghouse.Hegeneratedre-
portsforafull-scalemodelforrenewable-energyuptake,solar-thermaltechnologyadop-
tion,andconcentratedsolar-industrydevelopmentsforspecificregionsaroundtheglobe.
Thesereportsmainlyaddressedsolargenerationandwereoftendismissedbycriticsfrom
the mainstream electricity sector. Sven consistently and meticulously demonstrated the
accuracy of his forecasts over several years, however, actually underestimating the up-
take of renewable-energy technology, and therefore demonstrated that these industries
were exceeding the expectations of even Greenpeace. In this way he's earned great cred-
ibility. Whereas a decade ago he was rejected by the International Energy Agency and
the United Nations, he's now listed as either author of or contributor to many of their
studies because he has so persistently proved his authority and pressed the case for clean
energy.
