Dario Estrada, born in Tumaco, Colombia, has always had a keen interest in everything related to power generation. During the pandemic, in one of those free moments surfing the internet and watching a video of someone generating gas with drinking water, changed Dario’s life: “gas for everyone!”
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A mega power plant in Patagonia produces green hydrogen and then synthetic gasoline from it. But that sets the wrong course.
What actually happens to car dealerships when internal combustion engines are a thing of the past? They could become transformation agencies for a traffic turnaround, says the mobility house Golbeck in north-east Berlin. And do it yourself.
In 2008, the people of Zurich voted for the 2000-watt society energy initiative. Since then, the city administration has developed into an ecological role model and is preparing Zurich for change with instinct and reason.
Many raw materials are mined in developing countries, with devastating consequences for nature and people. Even more lithium, copper, cobalt and bauxite are needed for the energy transition. Can you win it responsibly?
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The first bioenergy village was Jühnde in 2004. Since then, many have come. Here you can find out what makes a bioenergy village and how it can contribute to climate protection.
The limited availability of non-renewable resources, a lack of community spirit and dependence on imports are currently critical issues. Bioenergy villages deal with all of them and strive for ecologically and socially sustainable solutions.
A bioenergy village uses biomass as renewable energy and generates it where it is consumed. In addition, the systems for generating energy create jobs and the joint project strengthens the cohesion in the village.
The municipality of Jühnde near Göttingen was a pioneer when it came to bioenergy villages. In 2004, 70 percent of the households there were connected to a biogas plant and a biomass heating plant. A key driver of the project was the “Interdisciplinary Center for Sustainable Development” at the University of Göttingen. In 2019, the plants in Jühnde had to be sold to a company for financial reasons. However, many other communities have been found that are implementing the bioenergy village concept.
In order for a village or community to be called a bioenergy village, the location must cover at least 50 percent of its electricity and heat energy consumption with regionally generated bioenergy. For this, a bioenergy village mostly uses biomass, photovoltaics and partly wind energy . However, other alternatives are also possible. Biomass can be, for example, crops, liquid manure or organic waste.
In addition to the generation and use of bioenergy, the focus in a bioenergy village is also on using the energy generated as efficiently as possible. In addition, the villages try to use energy sparingly.
The participation of the citizens is particularly important in a bioenergy village. They support the idea of the bioenergy village and are involved in decisions. It is important that as many people as possible work together and also rely on renewable energies in their private households. In addition, the technical systems for generating bioenergy belong, at least in part, to citizens and customers, such as farmers.
On the website of the Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe e. V. currently lists 170 bioenergy villages in Germany. Most of them are in Baden-Württemberg or Bavaria. Another 42 towns are on the way to becoming bioenergy villages – including even Göttingen, which is not at all rural. You can find a more detailed data sheet for each bioenergy village on the website. Among other things, it informs you about how the respective village is currently generating its energy.
However, bioenergy villages are not only found in Germany. For other countries there does not seem to be such a clear listing as for Germany, but an example of a bioenergy village in Austria is Landgut Danzermühle . In Romania, the municipality of Ghelinţa is trying the concept.
Using solar energy via photovoltaics is a well-known method of generating energy, at least without direct CO2 emissions . The Agency for Renewable Resources describes biomass as “solar energy stored in plant form”. This makes it clear that this is also a renewable form of energy: After all, plants grow back relatively quickly. In most methods, the biomass is ultimately burned to release the energy stored in it.
Now you might be thinking: wait a minute, burning produces CO2 – doesn’t that harm the climate? CO2 is actually released during the combustion process, but only as much as the respective plant absorbed during its growth. So there is no additional CO2 and the next generation of plants absorbs the released carbon dioxide again. In that respect, the balance sheet is balanced.
Unfortunately, the calculation doesn’t quite add up in the end, because the plants also have to be planted, cared for, harvested, transported and processed. This also requires energy and releases CO2. That is why you should pay attention to the economical use of energy during these preparatory steps. Overall, energy from biomass has the clear advantage over energy from fossil fuels that it does not release carbon stored millions of years ago in the form of CO2.
“Fridays For Future” is allowed to organize a bicycle demo on the A7. But the group in Hildesheim had to make compromises.
Soon also on the A7: there was already a bicycle demo on the Berlin city motorway in 2020Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa
At first they weren’t allowed, but with a few changes they were: “Fridays For Future” received permission to protest with a bicycle demo on the A7 near Hildesheim. Last year, the Lüneburg Higher Administrative Court prohibited the demo. Now the activists have found a compromise in cooperation with the city of Hildesheim and the police. What does this mean for the protest?
The activist group “Last Generation” has recently been increasingly criticized for demonstrations and blockades on freeway ramps. She is accused of blocking emergency vehicles, coercion or extortion. Justice Minister Marco Buschmann even called the sit-in protests illegal. The legal classification of this form of protest is not that easy from a legal point of view.
Freedom of assembly is paramount. Although it is enshrined in the Basic Law, it can be restricted under certain conditions. A central role is played in road blockades by second-tier jurisdiction. She describes deliberately stopping the first row of waiting cars in order to set up a physical barrier for the following motor vehicles as an act of coercion.
If the blockades move in the sense of freedom of assembly, the fact of coercion is still given, but the physical blockade of the cars from the second row is no longer illegal.
The Federal Constitutional Court writes as a specification for the resolution of such actions after a precedent in 2004: “Important weighing elements here are the duration and intensity of the action, its prior notification, alternative options via other access roads, the urgency of the blocked transport, but also the factual connection between the in persons impaired in their freedom of movement and the object of the protest.”
The interpretation in individual cases is possible within a relatively large framework. Even if the demos against food waste by the “last generation” always raise the question of the material reference, the legal scholar Tim Wihl argues in a guest article for the legal magazine LTO that there is a kind of “permanent emergency” especially in the climate crisis. In the climate emergency , the factual reference could be justified by the fact that the object of protest is omnipresent in society.
Legally, it’s even easier with Fridays For Future. “The content of the demonstration focuses on climate protection in the transport sector, where Germany is still stagnating at the emissions level of 1990,” writes “Fridays For Future”. The reference to the people restricted in private transport is therefore clearly given in a demonstration on the motorway.
With the agreement with the city and the police, however, the activists have circumvented the legal dispute: the motorway is officially closed, traffic can easily bypass the area with a detour of about ten minutes.
The fact that the protest was now approved was justified by the city with the new time of the action, reports “Fridays For Future”. In 2021, the demo was still planned for Friday afternoon, but now they want to start cycling on Sunday, July 10th at 9.30 a.m. with 600 participants at Hildesheim Central Station. It’s about three kilometers on the A7, until 11 a.m. at the latest, motorized traffic is allowed to drive unhindered again.
The group chose the route via the A7 “to give our demand for a traffic turnaround more emphasis,” Vera Wagner from “Fridays For Future” Hildesheim told the taz. They also hoped to attract new participants with this form of protest. After all, cycling on the autobahn doesn’t work every Sunday.
The fact that the protest will not hit too many cars on a Sunday morning and that a detour is possible due to the route is the price for the city permit. Stop the climate crisis yes – but please only on Sunday. After all, nobody has to deal with the interpretation of the right to demonstrate anymore.
