China regains lead in solar and wind investment —Financial Times

Pilita Clark wrote for Financial Times 14 January 2013, China retakes renewables investment lead,

China has surged ahead of the US to regain its title as the world's biggest investor in renewable energy, new figures showed on Monday.

The article continues by trying to downplay solar and wind because of a drop in investment from other countries, while not mentioning that solar and wind deployments continue to climb. According to Todd Woddy in Forbes 22 January 2013, Chinese Solar Market Boomed In Q4, Accounting For Third Of Global Demand. China has incentive and is doing something about it, as Feifei Shen and Reed Landberg wrote for Bloomberg News 30 January 2013, China to Boost Solar Power Goal 67% as Smog Envelops Beijing.

How much are the Chinese investing? The FT story continues:

...a record $67.7bn investment in China last year, up 20 per cent from 2011, mostly thanks to growth in its solar power sector.

China replaced the US as the biggest investor in so-called clean energy in 2009 but lost its lead in 2011 after the Obama administration introduced subsidies as part of its 2009 economic stimulus package.

The US is now firmly in second place. Investment in the world's largest economy sank by almost a third to $44.2bn in 2012 amid fears that important wind power tax credits would lapse at the end of the year.

The wind tax credits were renewed, and the U.S. has demonstrated it can move out ahead on renewables if it wants to. It's time for it to want to, instead of wasting time and resources on boondoggles like the ever-later and more expensive nukes at Plant Vogtle or nuclear energy in general, or for that matter pretty much any form of fossil fuels, because the carbon bubble is going to pop like the Georgia biomass bubble already did. Renewables are Winning, Nukes are Dead, and Coal is Crashing.

It's time to follow Moore's Law for Solar as it continues to drive solar deployments up. There's still a day to get SB 51 passed out of the Georgia Senate and introduced in the House so we can have real solar financing in Georgia.

Nationally, if we choose, we can push solar deployments up from their current rate of about 65% compound annual increase to 100% and move the likely date ahead a few years for when solar will produce more power than any other source.

-jsq