Archive for Money and Finance
June 20, 2007 at 2:20 pm · Filed under Solar, Green Tech, Money and Finance
Japan was the largest producer of solar power until Germany exceeded it in 2005. European countries have been expanding their production of solar power more rapidly than Japan. Germany now accounts for 39 percent of total production, while Japan’s contribution is 38 percent. Germany, which will host the summit meeting on global warming in June, has a reputation for being environmentally conscious, and subsidies for solar power have been increased, with the stable price of such power helping to make solar power generation more popular. However, in Japan, subsidized projects by the New Energy Foundation, aimed at generating solar power for private residents ended in fiscal 2005, and now only local governments have subsidized projects.
Source: Daily Yomiuri Online
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June 1, 2007 at 7:06 pm · Filed under Money and Finance
Joel Makower has this funny article about how marketing companies has divided the green consumer segment in to various groups.
“So, how many ways can you slice the green-consumer pie?
For starters, there’s Roper, which divvies up the marketplace thusly:
- True-Blue Greens — the most environmentally active segment of society (11% of the U.S. population).
- Greenback Greens — those most willing to pay the highest premium for green products (8%).
- Sprouts — fence-sitters who have embraced environmentalism more slowly (33%).
- Grousers — uninvolved or disinterested in environmental issues, who feel the issues are too big for them to solve (14%).
- Apathetics — the least engaged group who believe that environmental indifference is mainstream (33%).”
The list goes on and he concludes by suggesting his own segmentation.
- Read the entire article at http://makower.typepad.com/joel_makower/
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December 19, 2006 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Money and Finance, The Politics
Europe can green the globe by pushing trade partners to eliminate tariffs on clean and renewable power technology, EU trade chief Peter Mandelson said Monday.
“It should be possible to agree a zero percent deal for these key goods,” Mandelson said in a podcast posted on the Web site of the European Commission’s trade department.
He said he was writing to Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organization, to ask him to spearhead this push as the world was faced with the “urgent challenge” of greening the growth of rapidly expanding economies China, India and Brazil.
Europe had a lot to gain in getting ahead of the curve on technologies and services that attempt to tackle climate change and European companies are already exporting wind farms and solar panels to China, he said.
China worries environmentalists by building one coal-powered electricity plant a week to feed its booming economy, adding to the carbon emissions that cause climate change.
“We can … export the tools and expertise to tackle climate change worldwide,” he said, stressing that other countries could also win, citing India’s growing exports of low-power water heaters and China trading wind-powered electricity generators with Africa. More at ENN
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November 27, 2006 at 11:24 pm · Filed under Green Tech, Money and Finance
As the oil price continues to rise, many African oil-importing countries are beginning to look at ways of lessening their dependence on the fuel.Whilst continuing high oil prices are good news for the 13 African countries which are net oil exporters, for the 42 oil-importing countries, higher prices are creating serious challenges. Read the rest of this story at priceofoil.org
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November 27, 2006 at 10:54 pm · Filed under Green Tech, Money and Finance
Investment in renewable energy and low carbon technology has more than doubled in the past two years and is set to grow another 30% to $63.3b this year, according BlackRock Mlim. Merrill Lynch International Investment New Energy fund (MLIF) co-manager Poppy Allonby believes new energy technologies are becoming mainstream, in the wake of the global move toward alternative energy.
“Environmental pressure and voter concern, security of energy supply worries, rising traditional energy prices and falling alternative energy costs are pushing new technologies towards the top of governments’ agendas,“ Allonby says.
The sector is being driven by four long-term key forces, she adds. Globally, regulatory momentum is supporting the sector as governments put environmental policies into place.
“In the US, California has the solar incentive program and China has the renewable energy law which gives financial incentives and encourages investment,“ she says.
“The Stern report in the UK has addressed the economic impact of climate change, while France has increased the purchase tariff for solar electricity by 50%.“
Allonby says energy supply concerns, operational and technological advances, and the economic performance of the sector are also driving investor interest.
“Most countries do not have enough domestic resources and are forced to import energy resources,“ she says.
“Traditional energy prices for commodities such as oil and gas are high and, in our view, are likely to remain that way, Investmentweek.com said.
Take a look at the article about how the new energy sector creates jobs from today statesman.com: link
Read the rest of this entry »
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November 18, 2006 at 11:41 am · Filed under Money and Finance, Bio Fuel
A strong majority of American consumers are more inclined to throw their economic clout behind a cleaner, greener renewable fuel when it comes to issues of energy independence, American jobs and the environment. A national U.S. survey released today found that 57 percent of respondents believe that it is important that adding ethanol to gasoline lessens U.S. dependence on oil from foreign countries. "These findings demonstrate that more and more Americans are becoming aware of the reasons why they should choose ethanol-enriched gasoline," says Reece Nanfito, senior director of marketing for the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC). "A solution to our dependence on foreign oil rests right here at home through the hard work and ingenuity of the American workforce. "Ethanol's positive impacts upon the American economy and the environment struck a chord with survey participants. Sixty-one percent of respondents indicated that they believe the American economy benefits from ethanol production. Fifty-eight percent believe that ethanol-enriched gasoline is better for the environment than standard gasoline. Respondents indicated that the most important benefit of ethanol is that it is "better for the environment."
The full results of the study are available at http://www.drivingethanol.org/survey
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November 8, 2006 at 10:55 pm · Filed under Money and Finance
Alternative energy and clean technology companies are attracting investor capital in record amounts this year, setting up what one solar photovoltaic (PV) industry observer sees as a positive feedback cycle whereby technological improvements and government incentives attract investment and lead to lower production and consumer costs, which attracts more investment, which leads to further gains in quality and efficiency. And the growth trend looks set to continue, according to recently released research reports. If anything, existing production capacity and nascent distribution networks, along with short supplies of key, high-quality components and associated raw materials - copper, steel and silicon among them - are constraining production of everything from biofuels, domestic solar panels and wind turbines to their industrial-scale counterparts. There has been a flood of new money coming into the clean energy sector, Michael Liebreich, CEO and founder of London-based New Energy Finance, the lead analysts of a recent survey of investment in the European alternative energy market, told RI. The risk is that these new investors dont understand that the energy industry is about heavy engineering and commodities as well as about technology. Fortunes will be made in the coming years, but fortunes will also be lost, he said. Thanks: ResourceInvestor.com
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