Green Options

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) just released a comprehensive global report, and the first country by country ranking, of clean energy technology sales.

The clean energy sector is on the verge of becoming the third largest sector in the world now. The report — Clean Economy, Living Planet - Building Strong Clean Energy Technology Industries — finds that Denmark is currently the leading country in clean energy sales (relative to GDP), Brazil is second and Germany is third (the top three in absolute terms are Germany, the US and Japan).

With the sector booming, there is much opportunity for growth in these countries and others now. The report delves into how the countries currently leading the world got to the top and makes a short list of best practices.

Clean energy technology sales were about $921 billion in 2007 (€630 billion), but are expected to become about $2339 billion per year (€1600 billion) in 2020. At that volume, the sector is expected to only be behind automobiles and electronics in global sales. This is even without a strong, binding deal in Copenhagen.

Kim Carstensen, leader of WWF’s global climate initiative, says: “This is the clean economy growth happening now with only a partial Kyoto protocol international framework supporting clean energy development, patchy national support for green energy and huge subsidies to fossil fuel use.”

I think the growth in the future is liable to skyrocket with more and more countries getting serious about stopping human-induced catastrophic climate change. Plus, clean energy is an economic benefit for countries as it creates more jobs for the countries’ citizens.

Donald Pols, Head of the Climate Programme at WWF-Netherlands, says: “Clearly, from a national perspective there is much to gain and nothing to lose from investing in clean energy.”

Where do the US and the UK fit into this matter? And what are their and other countries’ best chances for becoming industry leaders?

No recession in evidence here.  Yesterday’s opening session of Intersolar North America was packed and full of energy. The solar trade show almost tripled its exhibition space and more than doubled the number of exhibitors from last year, when the first North America Intersolar show was also hosted in San Francisco.

As far as I can tell, there won’t be any major news coming out of the conference and show. Intersolar’s growth and popularity shows that this is still a young industry and more and more people want to learn about the technology and products available–as well as participate in discussions about how to grow the industry and influence public policy. Organizers say that there are 17,700 registered attendees from 79 countries and 333 exhibitors from 23 countries.

The primary “news” is a continuation of increases in PV efficiency and the lowering of costs of production for equivalent units of electricity. It’s good news but not new news.

Keynote Address by Mayor Gavin Newsom

In this blog network, you’ve probably read posts furthering the friendly rivalry between the cities of San Francisco and Portland (and now Seattle). San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and mayors of these other progressive cities blog about their communities’ challenge to each other to be more green and to claim leadership in electric car usage, solar installations and more.

Two Spanish Solar companies - Concentrix Solar and Abengoa Solar - announced they’ve connected a 2 Megawatt solar power plant to the public utility grid under Spain’s feed-in tariff law. The plant will supply 300 MW for around 153,000 homes. The companies say the plant is the first to combine silicon flat modules and concentrator PV modules mounted on tracking systems.

Image source: Gymkata on Flickr