Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Green Energy Financing & cultural challenges to getting more green energy adoption?

Question by Jason M: Financing & cultural challenges to getting more green energy adoption?
I’m curious to hear what some of the financing & cultural challenges are to getting traditional energy companies to adopt green technologies? In particular, I know that many green energy sources require significant up-front investment today to capture the benefits of potentially grid-parity kwh production in the future.

How does financing work in the energy industry today around the world and is it possible that the way energy production is financed might hinder large investments?

Also, what some of the cultural challenges to green adoption? For example, are $ /Watt and $ /kwh even the right metrics to use when thinking about the economics of adopting green technologies?

Best answer:

Answer by whsgreenmom
Every source of energy takes huge up front investments. You can’t produce electricity with coal unless you build the plant. The government has subsidized most forms of energy, so I don’t see any differences between dirty energy and clean. The only real difference is wind, solar, tidal etc, won’t be held hostage by suppliers or market conditions. We just need more people like T. Boone Pickens to see there are ways to make money off of the technology and it will happen.

Culturally, the challenge is to show people we can continue to live a comfortable lifestyle and conserve energy. We can solve a lot more problems by cutting back on demand than rushing projects to meet demand.

Add your own answer in the comments!



Tags:adoption, Challenges, cultural, energy, financing, getting, Green, more

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