Clean Energy Investment Booms
New Energy Finance is reporting that “Clean” energy investment almost hit $150bn last year – up 60% on the year before.
Their press release states:
Among the key factors pushing this numbers sharply upwards in 2007 were government policies around the world to promote renewable power and cleaner fuels, oil prices approaching $100-a barrel and rising corporate and investor awareness of the opportunities in clean energy.
One of the themes of 2007 was geographic diversification. Western Europe and North America continued to enjoy sharp increases… but the momentum spread out to include other developed economic regions such as Eastern Europe and Australia.
Even more significant was the pick-up in activity in emerging economies, with China moving strongly ahead with projects in wind, biomass and energy efficiency, Brazil seeing huge investment interest in its sugar based ethanol sector, and Africa starting to see renewable energy and efficiency as partial answers to its power shortages.
Interesting stuff. Obviously the Low Carbon Economy is still in its infancy, but if investment continues to rise at this scale, markets will stabilise and the uptake of renewables and energy efficient technologies will start to become the norm, rather than the exception.