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The end of cheap coal and the rise of renewable energy

Cheap Coal Is Dead. Long Live Renewable Age (Part 1) By Carl Pope, Bloomberg June 20, 2012  Sustainable Energy for All” is the main theme for this week’s Rio+20 United Nations gathering in Brazil. The challenge of making energy both accessible and sustainable has grown more complicated in the past year or so, and also more exciting.

These are tough times for coal and other high-carbon sources of energy, while the news about clean energy is more promising.

In March, the power generating arm of India’s largest conglomerate,
the Tata Group, announced that it was shifting its investment strategy
from coal-fired thermal plants to wind and solar renewable projects.
Coal projects, Tata said, were becoming “impossible” to develop, and
investment in them had stopped.

With this declaration, one of Asia’s biggest energy players confirmed
an emerging reality. The U.S., Europe, Russia, Australia and Japan all
had created modern consumer economies dependent on abundant, cheap
fossil-fuel energy. In the 21st century that is no longer viable; the
high-carbon growth path is closing……
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/06/cheap-coal-is-dead-long-live-renewable-age-part-1??cmpid=GeoNL-Thursday-June21-2012

June 25, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general