Renewable Energy Growth Opportunities
More Troubles for Coal
By
The big news this week was the International Energy Agency's (IEA) prediction that the U.S. will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer by 2020.
And there's no doubt about it: This is a monumentally huge deal, and it deserves all the coverage it continues to get.
But the IEA made another prediction this week that was also pretty big, yet it wasn't followed up with the same enthusiasm, though it should have been...
On Monday, the IEA published the following statement:
A steady increase in hydropower and the rapid expansion of wind and solar has cemented the position of renewables as an indispensable part of the global energy mix.
The IEA also claimed renewable energy will provide nearly one-third of the world's energy needs by 2035, and is now set to rival coal as the main generator of the world's electricity as technology costs fall and subsidies rise.
Now, I don't know if that's going to happen.
What I do know is two things are going to unfold between now and 2035 that make this a very probable outcome...
First, manufacturing costs for renewables will continue to plummet. From solar cells to high-performance batteries to wind turbines, increases in efficiencies and rapid declines in production costs are a lock.
No comments:
Post a Comment