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Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson Bio

2009-10-28T11:13:25-08:00

Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson
President of Iceland

Mr. Grímsson has a Ph.D. degree in Political Science. He was a professor at the University of Iceland, served as Member of Althingi (parliament), was Minister of Finance 1988-1991 and served as chairman of the People’s Alliance Party.

Mr. Grímsson was born in Ísafjörður in Northwest Iceland on 14 May 1943. His parents were Mr. Grímur Kristgeirsson, barber and town councillor in Ísafjörður and Mrs. Svanhildur Ólafsdóttir Hjartar, housewife. Mr. Grímsson was raised in Ísafjörður and also by his grandparents in Þingeyri.

After completing his elementary education, Mr. Grímsson enrolled in the Reykjavík Higher Secondary Grammar School, graduating in 1962. He was involved in extra-curricular activities during his school years and was president of the school’s old debating society, The Future. His path then led him to Manchester University, here he studied Economics and Political Science. He took his BA degree in 1965 in these subjects and five years later, in 1970, took his doctorate in Political Science at the same University. His doctoral research was part of the project “Smaller European Democracies”, directed by the American professor Robert Dahl and the Norwegian professor Stein Rokkan.

Upon returning to Iceland at the end of his studies, Mr. Grímsson was appointed lecturer in Political Science at the University of Iceland, becoming a full professor in 1973. Mr. Grímsson built up the Social Science Department of the University and his main speciality was the evolution of the Icelandic political system. Ólafur Ragnar is the author of many articles and teaching texts on the Icelandic political system, as well as essays on international affairs in numerous periodicals and essay collections.

Mr. Grímsson´s involvement in politics began at an early age. He sat on the board of the Progressive Party’s Youth Federation in the years 1966-1973 and was on the executive board of the Progressive Party from 1971-1973. He first stood for parliament on behalf of the Liberal and Left Alliance in 1974, representing the East part of the country. During that parliamentary session, he twice sat as an alternate member, in 1974 and again in 1975. Mr. Grímsson was chairman of the executive board of the Liberal and Left Alliance from 1974-1975.

In the elections in 1978, Mr. Grímsson was elected to Althingi as a representative for Reykjavik, the capital, for the Peoples’ Alliance Party and again in 1979. He sat in Althingi until 1983 and became chairman of the parliamentary group of the Peoples’ Alliance Party 1980-1983. He served three times as an alternate member representing Reykjavik in the years 1984 and 1985 and four times, representing Reykjanes, in 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990. Mr. Grímsson was Minister of Finance in the Government of Mr. Steingrímur Hermannsson, 1988-1991. He was re-elected to Althingi representing the Peoples’ Alliance Party in Reykjanes in 1991 and again in 1995.

In 1987, Mr. Grímsson was elected leader of the Peoples’ Alliance Party, a position which he relinquished at the party’s national convention in autumn 1995.

Mr. Grímsson has been a member of various public bodies. He was a member of the Economic Council 1966-1968, on the board of the Icelandic Broadcasting Service 1971-1975, was chairman of a committee concerned with the relocation of public institutions 1972-1975 and chairman of the Icelandic Social Sciences Association, 1975. Mr. Grímsson was vice-chairman of the Icelandic Security Commission from 1979-1990 and sat on the board of the National Power Company from 1983-1988.

Mr. Grímsson was chairman and later International president of the International Association Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), in the years 1984-1990 and has sat on the board since. The PGA is an association of over 1,800 parliamentarians in about 80 countries. The association organised the “Six Nations Peace Initiative” 1984-1989, which included amongst others the late premiers Olav Palme of Sweden and Rajiv Ghandi of India. Mr. Grímsson sat on the executive committee of this initiative. He accepted the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize on behalf of the association in 1987 and has himself received international prizes.

Mr. Grímsson was a member of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe 1980-1984 and again in 1995. He was chairman of the organising committee of the “Parliamentary Conference of the Council of Europe, North-South: Europe’s Role 1982-1984”. This conference created the basis for the Council of Europe’s work on North-South relations and the foundation of the North-South Centre in Lisbon. In recent years, Mr. Grímsson has been advisor to Icelandic firms seeking new markets, particularly in Asia and South America.

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2012-01-29T03:05:25-08:00

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Electricity vs. Ethanol and The Death of Hydrogen?

2009-10-27T13:30:52-08:00

Using biomass to generate electricity to power electric cars is more efficient than making biofuels for cars, according to a study published by the journal Science on May 7th. On the same day Shell CEO criticized electric cars as impractical and said “I want Shell to be really big in one renewable, and that will be biofuel,”. Shell did not mention hydrogen in this context, but during the very same week the U.S. Government decided to drop research on hydrogen fuel cell cars saying they would not be practical in the next 20 years.

The authors of the electricity-ethanol study, from the Carnegie Institution at Stanford and the University of California, Merced, calculated that generating electricity, by burning biomass in an efficient power station, delivered 80 per cent more mileage per acre of crops than conversion to ethanol for liquid fuel. It also doubled the greenhouse gas offsets to mitigate climate change. Of course, biofuels still give a driver more range than batteries, but the 80% difference in efficiency is by no means small. Read more about the findings here.

Royal Dutch Shell CEO, Jereoen van der Veer, was quick to react in Business Week saying that electric cars would need too much infrastructure but biofuels could use the existing infrastructure (of the oil companies of course). Van der Veer said Shell was not looking at wind or solar due to low returns on investment but would concentrate on biofuels as a renewable fuel. 1% of Shell’s investment last year was in biofuels.

Shell has been one of the open advocates of a hydrogen economy, but the Shell CEO did not mention that at all when talking about Shell’s plans for renewable fuels. Nothing much seems to be happening in hydrogen at Shell judging from the Shell Hydrogen website as the last thing to be posted there as “what’s new?” is more than one year old post.

U.S. Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, cut funding for hydrogen fuel cell cars from his budget for 2010 and seems to have angered proponents of hydrogen cars with the frequently heard comment that hydrogen is always at least 20 years away, whereas charging for plug-in electric vehicles can be done partly with the existing infrastructure and partly at special charging stations. “We asked ourselves,” Mr. Chu said, “‘Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will convert to a hydrogen car economy?’ The answer, we felt, was ‘no.’” See a great blog by Jim Motavalli on The Fight for Hydrogen Funding.
To get out of the trenches I would like to make a personal comment at the end that as was the first conclusion at the Driving Sustainability ´07 conference we will not be seeing a silver bullet solution for sustainable mobility but a multi-energy society. Sustainable varieties of biofuels already exist, electric cars are coming in 2011-2013 but will at first be more expensive to buy then traditional cars and I agree that hydrogen for transport is still a long way out, but might be a part of the future mix.

This view was firmly backed by the world’s largest automakers a few days ago in Vancouver Canada who agreed that “No single technology will triumph in the pursuit of a “greener” auto industry. Instead, the future will include a mix of cars powered by electricity, hydrogen fuel cells and biofuels. I might add to this much greater efficiency of the internal combustion engine, lighter materials and of course a change in urban design and human behaviour.

Energy Assessment

2010-03-22T04:37:40-08:00

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2011-12-23T08:11:59-08:00

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2011-01-26T10:57:15-08:00

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Henrik Duer Bio

2009-10-28T11:37:42-08:00

Henrik Duer
Senior Project Manager, COWI Consulting Group

Henrik Duer was employed in the Danish Ministry for Energy, Ministry for Environment and Danish Transport Council before he joined COWI, where he works with analyses of options for CO2 emissions reductions within the transport and energy sectors and options for alternative transport fuels.

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