AltEnToday

Think nobody else is paying attention to the alternative energy future? Here’s a short list of some recent investments that have been made in the field of alternative energy:

• Duke Energy is planning to invest over $100 million in solar panels in North Carolina
• Masdar, the “clean-energy arm of the government of Abu Dhabi” will invest $2 billion in thin-film solar
• PG&E will purchase 106.8 megawatts of solar thermal-biofuel hybrid power from Portuguese company Martfier Renewables, which is opening a unique hybrid plant in 2011 near Coalinga in California
• Spanish-based Iberdrola Renewables is tendering an offer to build over $2 billion of wind farms in New York
• Norwegian company StatoilHydro ASA is investing 400 million Norwegian Crowns (nearly $80 million US dollars) to produce “the world’s first floating wind turbine”
• Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley have purchased a $64 million stake in Nevada based Ormat Technologies Galena 3 geothermal power plant based in Reno, Nevada

So that’s just a small sampling of the investments that are being made in alternative energy (and all those articles are recent - within the last 30 days). Compare this to some of the hype you hear on the news about how nobody is doing anything to solve our energy crisis, I think it’s clear to see that the global capital markets are working very hard to discover solutions to our current problems.

Also worth noting is the global nature of these energy relationships. As energy production moves away from fossil fuels, companies and countries that aren’t fossil-fuel rich can now compete in the global energy field. Nearly every country has wind and sunshine, and many countries can also tap in to hydroelectric, agricultural-based biofuels, as well as hydrogen and fuel cell research.