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Shahla
Money Managing Guru
Joined: 13 Nov 2004
Posts: 3324
Cash Points ££ 126163.28
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 Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 8:28 pm Post subject: Germany Wind Power Investing, Tiliting At Windmills |
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By: Elliot_H_Gue
Last week I was aboard the MS Deutschland cruising the Baltic Sea in northern Europe for the KCI Investment Cruise. Leaving from the German port of Travemunde, we stopped at a total of seven countries in 11 days. In several of these countries, we had the opportunity to meet with the commercial attaches at the US Embassy as well as local business leaders.
Not surprising, energy was the topic of considerable conversation both in our onshore meetings as well as with subscribers aboard the Deutschland . What really struck me are the varied approaches and policies each country has chosen to follow to meet a common problem--producing enough electricity to meet the rapidly growing demands of a modern economy.
And it's impossible to strip environmental concerns from energy policy, especially in Europe. Whether you're convinced that global warming is a problem or believe it's simply bunk, the simple fact is that governments across Europe are increasingly looking to strictly regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. As investors, we don't necessarily have to enter the global warming debate, but we can't ignore the implications of carbon regulations or the potential profit opportunities afforded by so-called green energy policy.
As you might expect, alternative energy and government policy aimed at promoting such technologies was a key topic in several countries visited during the course of the cruise. In fact, the US Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, is promoting a campaign titled "The One Big Thing." The focus of that initiative is to encourage greater collaboration between Swedish and US firms toward the development of all sorts of energy technologies. The embassy has even gone so far as to publish a list of 30 small Swedish start-ups conducting research in areas as diverse as wind power, fuel cells and solar power.
But the fact is that most alternative power technologies aren't a true solution to the globe's energy problems. The best illustration of this is the long-time poster child of the alternative energy movement, wind power. Apart from hydropower, wind is the most economically viable, developed and feasible alternative energy source. But wind's contribution to the global electric grid is all too often overstated.
Consider that Germany has by far the largest base of installed wind power capacity in the world, with more than 20,622 megawatts of generating capacity. To put that figure into context, the runner-ups are Spain and the US with a little more than 11,000 megawatts of generating capacity each; Germany is far and away the undisputed leader.
But although I've long been aware of these statistics, I wasn't quite prepared for the sight of northern Germany's Baltic Sea coast. In the first day and a half of the cruise, we departed the German port of Travemunde and sailed close to the coast en route to Stockholm, Sweden.
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