Renewable Energy Investments at Record Highs

Picked up from Reuters is news that the Washington-based environmental watchdog group, WorldWatch Institute, has released a report today showing that global investment into renewable energy hit a record $30 billion USD last year. a figure that accounted for 20-25 percent of all investments in the power industry. Of the types of technologies receiving the bulk of that financial attention, apparently solar is the fastest growing.

Even though Kyoto is thought to be one of the driving forces behind this, China, a country exempt from emission caps in the protocol, is now the world leader in renewable energy capacity. China is now pumping out 37 gigawatts of clean power and has a goal of making renewable energy account for 10 percent of its power generation by the year 2020. Other leading countries after China are Germany, the US, Spain and Japan.

An interesting quote from the report featured in the Reuters article…

Solar and wind power costs are now half what they were 10-15 years ago. Many renewable technologies can compete with retail and even wholesale prices of conventional technology under good conditions

Another tidbit from the report…biofuel production exceeded 33 billion litres in 2004, or about 3 percent of the total gasoline consumed worldwide.

Is it me or are we approaching a tipping point? Here’s the Reuters article at Yahoo News.