Investing in green energy

UN: Global commitment to renewables is up
Global investment in renewable energy climbed to record levels in 2010 driven by factors such as high fossil fuel prices and government incentives for green energy, according to a United Nations-backed report. China accounted for more than one-fifth of 2010’s total investment in the sector, which reached an overall amount of $211 billion. Google/Agence France-Presse (7/7)
UNEP Press Release
– Global Investments in Green Energy Up Nearly a Third to $211 billion
– China, developing countries are now biggest investors in large-scale renewables while Germany surges ahead on rooftop solar;
– Positive trend in government research and development in renewables spotlighted—up over 120 per cent to well over $5 billion;
– UNEP and Frankfurt School launch Collaborating Centre for Climate and Sustainable Energy Finance
http://www.fs-unep-centre.org/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/reports/preview-34_0.jpg
3 May
Towards a Green Economy. Pathways to sustainable and poverty eradication
UNEP’s Green Economy Report, entitled Towards a Green Economy, aims to debunk several myths and misconceptions about the economics of “greening” the global economy, and provides timely and practical guidance to policy makers on what reforms they need to unlock the productive and employment potential of a green economy.

2010

3 June

Environmental Funds Battled BP For Years
Even before BP Plc’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began in April, the company was losing its sterling reputation with fund managers focused on the environment.
Though once hailed for its investments in renewable energy and a green advertising campaign, the British oil giant worried fund managers over a string of accidents and safety fines dating to 2005.
The company also had dialed back its outreach, and even as BP became a mainstay of sustainable-investing stock indexes, many specialists had sold their shares or were moving to do so.
12 May
Solar Can Provide 22 Percent World’s Power By 2050: IEA
(Reuters/Planet Ark) Solar power can provide up to a quarter of the world’s electricity by 2050, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday, but it needs government lifelines in the next decade until it can compete with conventional power.
The IEA, adviser to industrialized nations on energy policy, predicts roof-mounted photovoltaic (PV) panels will not reach grid parity until 2020, and utility-scale PV not until 2030.
Concentrated solar power (CSP) can achieve grid parity at times of peak demand by 2020 in sunny places, the IEA added in a series of “road maps” unveiled at a conference hosted by the Spanish government.
21 April
A Big Bet on Solar Technology
In one of the biggest green technology deals of the year, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm is leading a $129.4 million investment in a long-promising solar technology that is starting to gain traction in the United States. The venture firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and other investors are making a big bet on Amonix, a company in southern California that has spent 20 years developing concentrating photovoltaic power systems that resemble gigantic solar panels.
17 September 2009
Green Energy On A Roll But Experts Warn Of Bubbles
(Reuters/Planet Ark) Investors betting on renewable or clean energy and related green themes are looking for healthy and sustainable returns, but the road is full of pitfalls for the unwary, investment managers warned on Thursday.
Attendees at the Jetfin Green 2009 alternative investment conference in Geneva heard that some alternative energy sources are now in a position to compete with more established sources, even in the absence of government subsidies.
EU Seeks To Take Lead In Green Energy Research
(Reuters/Planet Ark) The European Union’s executive will next month publish its strategy for promoting hi-tech solutions to climate change, aiming to give European businesses a head start as the world switches to low-carbon energy.
World Bank decries fossil-fuel plants, also finances them
Even as it calls for nations to curtail their dependence on fossil fuels, the World Bank continues to finance huge coal-fired power plants, including one in India that will contribute 26.7 million tons of CO2 annually. The bank’s policy “is to continue funding coal to the extent that there is no alternative and to push for the most efficient coal plants possible,” one official said. In the past three years, the bank has loaned $5 billion for fossil-fuel plants compared with $11 billion for “low-carbon” facilities. The Times (London) (9/16)
15 September
(Tom Friedman) Applied Materials’s C.E.O., decided to add a new business line to take advantage of the company’s nanotechnology capabilities — making the machines that make solar panels. Applied maintains a real-time global interaction with all 14 solar panel factories it’s built around the world in the last two years. Not a single one is in America.
The reason that all these other countries are building solar-panel industries today is because most of their governments have put in place the three prerequisites for growing a renewable energy industry: 1) any business or homeowner can generate solar energy; 2) if they decide to do so, the power utility has to connect them to the grid; and 3) the utility has to buy the power for a predictable period at a price that is a no-brainer good deal for the family or business putting the solar panels on their rooftop.
24 August
Fueling speculation
Researchers at Cambridge firm are tight-lipped about their secret ingredient for turning sunlight into liquid energy
CAMBRIDGE – Joule Biotechnologies Inc.’s secret ingredient – a designer organism – looks like green Jell-O before it’s refrigerated.
27 July
Joule Biotechnologies Introduces Revolutionary Process For Producing Renewable Transportation Fuels
Joule Biotechnologies, Inc., an innovative bioengineering startup developing game-changing alternative energy solutions, today unveiled its breakthrough Helioculture™ technology—a revolutionary process that harnesses sunlight to directly convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into SolarFuel™ liquid energy. This eco-friendly, direct-to-fuel conversion requires no agricultural land or fresh water, and leverages a highly scalable system capable of producing more than 20,000 gallons of renewable ethanol or hydrocarbons per acre annually—far eclipsing productivity levels of current alternatives while rivaling the costs of fossil fuels.
11 October 2008
The credit crisis can be used to make progress in a new direction, an opportunity for global green economic growth. The credit crunch I believe is an opportunity to rebuild the financial system that would underpin sustainable growth
… Governments now have an opportunity to create and enforce policy which stimulates private competition to fund clean industry.
– UN Climate Change Secretariat chief Yvo de Boer. Read the full story
6 October
Financial crisis tests industry’s green priorities
By Joshua Chaffin in Brussels
(FT) The slowing economy and financial crisis are testing Europe’s goal of becoming a world leader in greenhouse gas reduction.
Industry has seized on the slowdown to lobby for delayed or watered down regulations, arguing that directives set out by the European Commission earlier this year would force them to cut jobs or relocate factories outside the European Union.
On Tuesday the European Parliament’s environmental committee is to vote on measures at the heart of the EU’s commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020.
Among the proposals are plans to expand emissions trading, accelerate the development of carbon capture and storage and a measure that would ban the construction of power plants that emit more than 350 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour – essentially ruling out coal-fired plants.
5 October
World Bank’s “Green” Energy Funding Up 87 Percent
WASHINGTON – World Bank funding for efficient and renewable energy rose 87 this year to nearly US$2.7 billion, reflecting the importance of moving to a low-carbon economy, the bank’s energy chief said on Thursday.
Investment in “green” energy projects is essential for poor countries hit hard by soaring oil prices, said Jamal Saghir, World Bank Director for Energy, Transport and Water.”
Funding in fiscal 2008, ending June 30, was nearly double the previous year’s US$1.4 billion, which in turn was 67 percent higher than in fiscal 2006.
Rising traditional energy prices has made alternative energy, such as wind power, more attractive and affordable in the developing world.
Commitments for this year, [include] carbon finance operations and support from the Global Environment Facility….