Cleaner, Abundant Fuels Attracting Record Investment

Renewable energy captured from the wind, sun, Earth’s heat, tides, and from small dams is drawing record levels of investment as poor villagers and entire nations alike seek clean, abundant ways to fuel economic growth. Global investment in renewable energy set a new record of $30 billion in 2004, according to a new report from the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21). Technologies such as wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and small hydro now provide 160 gigawatts of electricity generating capacity – about four per cent of the world total – the report said. They are growing at rates of around 20-30 per cent per year, however, compared to two or three per cent for oil and gas. “Renewable energy has become big business,” said Eric Martinot, lead author of the study, “Renewables 2005: Global Status Report”. Martinot, a senior fellow at the Washington, DC-based think tank Worldwatch Institute and a lecturer at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said renewable energy has attracted some of the world’s largest companies, including General Electric, Siemens, Sharp, and Royal Dutch Shell. The report estimated that nearly 40 million households worldwide heat their water with solar collectors, most of them installed in the last five years. Altogether, renewable energy industries provide 1.7 million jobs, most of them skilled and well paid. Martinot and 100-plus researchers in more than 20 countries assessed several renewable technologies: small hydro (meaning small dams), modem biomass (agricultural waste, for example), wind, solar, geothermal, and biofuels such…