Monday, March 31, 2008

Ron Pernick: "The Future Ain't What it Used to Be"

Check out "The Future Ain't What it Used to Be" a great article by Ron Pernick. I found it at Renewable Energy World which itself is a good information site for energy geeks and commercially motivated types alike.

Little factoids from his article worth sharing:

According to the 2008 annual Clean Energy Trends report the "clean-energy markets" grew by 40 percent from $55 billion in 2006 to $77.3 billion in 2007.

Ron predicts these same technologies will reach $254.5 billion by 2017.

The EU has added 47,000 megawatts of new wind energy since 2000.

The EU has also added 9,600 MW of coal and 1,200 MW of Nuke.

The US has more than 50 new coal plants on hold because of CO2 worries and the anticipation of a federal carbon emissions cap under the next presidential administration.

The upfront cost comparison of Nuke versus Other:

1-gigawatt brand new Nuclear plant is between $2 billion and $6 billion.

1 - gigawatt of geothermal or wind is less than $2 billion.

1 - gigawatt of solar is between $5 billion and $10 billion.

And best of all - Ron quotes Oil Luminary T.Boone Pickens who has announced he will build the world's largest wind farm at 4,000 MW.

"I have the same feelings about wind as I had about the best oil field I ever found."
- T. Boone Pickens

NOTE: Ron Pernick is author of the Clean Tech Revolution, which I consider the best book available on the emerging new market for outside the box energy concepts. He also maintains a website and currently teaches at Portland State University. Go Stumptown!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well that is pretty encouraging! Green business is supposed to really take flight this year.