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You CAN make money on renewable energy
By Jon Menaster | February 20, 2008
Reuters news service is reporting that “Investors pledge $10 billion for renewable energy“, stating:
U.S. institutional investors pledged at a U.N. summit on Thursday to invest $10 billion over two years in technologies that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to pressure companies to disclose their risks associated with climate change.
This is a big deal for many reasons, but especially because so many old time U.S. companies whose destiny sat on producing so-called dirty energy such as nuclear, coal, and gas, repeatedly made claims that renewable energy simply was not cost effective enough to make sense. Remember, in a society as capitalistic as America, the key to convincing anyone to do anything is properly explaining that there is money to be made. The reason dirty energy companies are able to continue making money is due to the huge energy subsidies the federal government pays them every year. These companies then give huge campaign contributions to both major political parties, thus ensuring the continuation of the cycle. For instance, as reported by Public Citizen, over $6 billion in oil and gas subsidies were given in the energy bill passed in 2005. $9 billion in subsidies to coal companies and $12 billion in subsidies to nuclear energy companies complete the circle of doom.
Since the federal government is clearly not giving this kind of money to renewable energy suppliers, such as wind and solar energy producing companies, they cannot price their products as cheaply as the oil, natural gas, and nuclear power companies do. This problem must then be solved by private investment, which is exactly what this United Nations summit is trying to do. As the article mentions in the end,
“Some analysts have said green technologies like solar power, ethanol and biodiesel are forming an investment bubble that could soon pop.”
The key to making money off this is finding the when and the where and the how, but as many people have come to recognize that global warming is indeed a serious issue for the planet, seeing that $10 billion being invested in potential solutions (or at least ways to slow down the destruction) should motivate companies looking to grab a piece of the pie just work just a little bit harder. Or maybe a lot harder.
Topics: Finance, Investing, Money News |