Jan Beránek

Who is Jan Beránek?

Jan Beránek was born on January 11, 1970. He is a Czech ecological activist, energy expert, politician, employee of Greenpeace and former member and chairmain of Czech Green Party.

He studied physics at the Univerzity of Jan Evangelista Purkyně in Brno from 1988 to 1990. Already at that time, back in 1989, he had established together with his friend Jakub Patocka an environmental organization Hnuti DUHA, which later became the Czech branch of Friends of the Earth

Soon after the political changes in Czechoslovakia in November 1989, he became a full-time political and environmental activist, and subsequently abandoned the studies. Later, from 1993 to 1995, he also studied sociology at the same university. However, he did not graduate either.

Has been actively working on issues related to energy, climate change and nuclear power since his studies in late 1980s, with initial focus on the energy policies and the Soviet-designed nuclear power plants in the Czech Republic and other Eastern European countries. He wrote and contributed to several publications about energy and nuclear power, including three commissioned by national and local governments.