January 2011 – A New Year with new hopes?

This January has been pretty much like any other January – the reports about markets, revenues, and forecasts for what’s to come has been flooding our inboxes here at Renewable Energy Focus. But in between the ‘business as usual’, some news stories have stood out and stuck in my mind when looking back at the first month of 2011.

Perhaps most recently, the big story has been US President Obama’s State of the Union Address where he stated that the country would get 80% of its energy from ‘clean sources’ by 2035. Heralded as being forward/green thinking by some, others have accused the President of avoiding the big CC – climate change.

Seeing that the President’s definition of ‘clean sources’ include so-called clean coal, CCS and nuclear, I must admit I was underwhelmed. What if he had said 80% renewable energy by 2035 instead?

He also suggested cutting the tax aid for fossil fuel – great on paper, a great sound-clip – but here in the office, we couldn’t help wondering how he’ll get that one through the two houses…

Cuts and more cuts

In Europe, several countries have announced cuts in their support for renewable energy, including the feed-in tariff-beacon of Germany; and France is applying the emergency stop in order to sort out spiralling costs. With most governments desperately cutting costs these days, further announcements of cuts could follow.

China rising

Another blow – pardon the pun – came to the European and US wind industries with the Chinese Wind Energy Association estimating the country having reached 248 GW in installed capacity in 2010, setting China well on target to become the largest wind market in the world.

Reading through the news, we see more and more contracts between ‘western’ companies and China for wind, and other renewable energy, and I believe China will definitely be a space to watch!

So exciting times ahead for the renewable energy industry, and Renewable Energy Focus – both international and U.S.!

PS: we’ve started our weekly US newsletter!

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