Good News on Clean Energy

by S. Tom Bond on June 25, 2012

Juan Cole famously covers the Middle East with a sound knowledge of Arabic and Farsi, and a life time of study of Near East cultures. Recently he chose to write an article interesting to us called “Green Sunday: Good News on Clean Energy.”

1. Morocco is importing equipment from Germany, and plans to export large quantities of energy to Europe.
2. Japan has used government incentives to encourage solar power and is expected to overtake Germany as market for solar installations. Japan wants to reduce dependence on nuclear and hydrocarbon sources of energy.
3. A Bloomberg study suggests crowd funding could revolutionize the solar industry in the U. S.
4. U. S. solar installations increased by 95% in the first three months of 2012.
5. A US Aid study finds that Pakistan could generate a vast amount of power from wind energy. It is desperately needed, because riots due to the lack of electrical power have occurred in recent months.
6. The Indian State of Gujarat is planning to build a very large wave-power installation.

Could it be that the vast amount of capital invested in shale drilling could better serve society if it went into clean energy? Solar is getting cheaper all the time, and the negative impact from shale drilling is more widely recognized every day, as more and more drilling is done.

Shale drilling has been touted as a step from coal to clean energy. Do you suppose the United States, with its well developed petroleum industry, will be the last to catch on that it is a step that can be skipped?

Leave a Comment

Previous post:

Next post: