Sucedem-se os artigos com dados estatísticos sobre o abrandamento do investimento privado, e sobretudo público, no sector das energias renováveis. Basicamente os argumentos são estes:
- as energias renováveis —eólica, solar, bio e mini-hídrica— são substancialmente mais caras do que a energia eléctrica oriunda das centrais nucleares existentes, dos hidrocarbonetos, das grandes barragens e das redes de distribuição instaladas;
- o financiamento destas energias tem dependido até agora de subsídios públicos directos e indirectos, de garantias estatais à realização de contratos público-privados (PPP, etc.) e de arquitecturas várias de investimento privado especulativo;
- a crise de endividamento mundial que atinge muito fortemente as economias norte-americana e europeia, entre outras, agravada pela explosão da bolha de crédito barato e fácil, a qual começou pela crise hipotecária do Subprime, se agravou com a falência do sistema financeiro assente na hegemonia da moeda americana, e prossegue sob a influência nefasta da implosão dos mercados de Derivados (future contracts, Credit Default Swaps, Edges Funds, OTC Derivatives, etc.), bem assim como do especulativo mercado cambial, conhecido por Forex, de que o chamado Carry Trade é um dos venenos mais letais para a economia global;
- a mudança de paradigma energético conduz a inúmeras falências, deslocalizações e desemprego: por cada emprego criado no sector das energias renováveis, o qual custou em Espanha, até agora, entre 500 mil e 1 milhão de euros, são destruídos em média 2,2 postos de trabalho, ou, por cada MW “verde” instalado são destruídos em média 5,28 empregos — 8,99 pela fotovoltaica, 4,27 pela eólica e 5,05 pelas mini-hídricas (ler Renováveis implodem em Espanha).
Renewables Q3 Investment Down on Q2
5-10-2009, London, UK [RenewableEnergyWorld.com]
Latest figures from analysis firm New Energy Finance (NEF) show that total worldwide new financial investment in clean energy totaled $25.9 billion in the third quarter of 2009, down 9% from a revised Q2 total of $28.6 billion, but still markedly ahead of the dramatic low of $13.3 billion reached in Q1.
…Narrowing its forecast range for full-year 2009 total new investment to $105-$115 billion, in the upper band of the previous forecast range of $95-$115 billion, New Energy Finance still expects that total new investment in clean energy is likely to exceed $300 billion per year by 2020, but this is well below the $500 billion per year that would be required to limit the rise in global temperatures to two degrees Centigrade or less, the company argues.
…Michael Liebreich, chairman and chief executive of New Energy Finance, commented: “It is heartening to see that the collapse in investment seen in the first quarter of this year is firmly receding in the rear-view mirror. However, the financing environment remains difficult, with undue reliance on stimulus funds, development banks and state-backed capital providers of various sorts. Most significantly, the levels of investment required to bring global carbon emissions to a peak during the coming decade are as far out of reach as ever – particularly significant given the rapidly-approaching Copenhagen deadline.”
Por outro lado cresce a pressão dos argumentos ambientalistas, para quem o aquecimento global provocado pelo aumento de partículas de CO2 na atmosfera tem vindo a agravar-se mais depressa que o previsto pelo próprio Painel Intergovernamental para as Alterações Climáticas (IPCC).
Wind Power Could Supply Global Electricity Needs 40 Times Over. By Dr. Mae-Wan Ho.
Wind turbines on land could provide more than 40 times the world’s current electricity consumption or over five times its total energy needs. That’s the latest assessment using wind data from meteorological sources. A network of 2.5-megawatt (MW) turbines on land restricted to non-forested, ice-free, nonurban areas operating at as little as 20 percent of their rated capacity would do the trick; allowing for the fact that the wind does not blow constantly. To put this into perspective, wind turbines installed in the US in 2004 and 2005 operate on average 36 percent of rated capacity.
For the United States, the central plain states could accommodate enough wind turbines to provide as much as16 times its total current demand for electricity.
Wind power is on a steep ascent. It accounted for 42 percent of all new electrical capacity added to the US in 2008; but it is still only a tiny fraction of the total capacity, 25.4 GW out of 1 075GW. The Global Wind Energy Council projected a 17-fold increase in wind-powered generation of electricity globally by 2030. [Read more here]
Green Energies 100% Renewables by 2050.
By Mae-Wan Ho, Brett Cherry, Sam Burcher & Peter SaundersGlobal warming is happening much faster than the IPPC (Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change) predicted in its latest 2007 report. For one thing, its climate models failed to account for the rapid summer melting of the polar ice caps that’s been making headlines several years in a row.
The IPCC helped set the target of 450 ppm maximum of atmospheric CO2, which they thought would limit the global temperature rise to below 2 ˚C, and prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”
But top climate scientists Jim Hansen and colleagues, using more realistic climate models and key data from the remote history of the earth, showed that 450 ppm is well beyond the danger zone, and we must even reduce the current 385 ppm atmospheric CO2 down to 350 ppm, or else face “irreversible catastrophic effects”. And the head of IPCC Rajendra Pachauri now agrees.
The good news is that we can still do it. It is not too late. All it takes is to stop burning fossil fuels in order to bring 385 ppm back down to 350 ppm within the next decades. But we must act now, because 385 ppm is already within the danger zone, and we cannot afford to let it remain there for too long, or we push the planet past the point of no return.
That is why we need to commit ourselves to truly green energies as a matter of urgency. [Read more here].