Recent developments domestically and globally are pointing to a fantastic trend – more investment in renewable energy. A combination of global events point to one direction: less dependence on oil, and more focus on green energy.
Is the world finally shifting to renewable energy?
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With the recent discovery of new oil deposits in states like Texas and North Dakota, as well as implementation of techniques like horizontal drilling, supply of light crude oil is way up. And when supply goes up, demand and prices go down. Prices in the U.S. have dropped, and Moody’s says that it expects they’ll drop globally as well.
Moody’s, headed by CEO Ray McDaniel, specializes in credit ratings and says that this drop in price could be bad news especially for Gulf States such as Oman and Bahrain, whose depend largely on oil exports. “A sustained oil price decline would likely result in significant adjustments to major parts of these economies, with some exceptions such as utilities,” said the coauthor of the report, Martin Kohlhase.
On the flipside, however, renewable energy is moving forward aggressively, especially in places like China (which has declared a “war on pollution”) and India (which plans to build the world’s largest solar power plant). With China leading the way, renewable energy is expected to grow faster than ever.
China is now the world’s largest investor in the renewable energy market, putting trillions into the manufacture of things like wind turbines and solar panels. And with its progressing economy, China is necessitating less and less use of fossil fuels.
“Through the ramp up of manufacturing (of wind turbines and solar panels) in China, it has helped reduce the costs of clean energy for everybody,” said Ethan Zindler, head analyst for the Americas at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Demand for oil is falling off as supply increases and progressive economies turn to greener energy sources like wind or solar power. Hopefully, that’s a trend that will continue, allowing humans to move further away from our strong dependence on oil and instead toward energy sources that can be renewed and do not wreak havoc on the earth.