Wartime speed

The use of renewable sources of energy in Europe continues to grow at a brisk pace and energy efficiency also is improving, significantly reducing reliance on coal and natural gas, according to a new report. Renewable energy sources now account for nearly as much electricity production as natural gas, which supplies 19.3 percent of the continent’s electricity.

In the US too, wind and solar are blossoming. Texas now has 9,700 megawatts of wind generating capacity online, 370 more in the construction stage, and a huge amount in the development stage. When all of these wind farms are completed, Texas will have 53,000 megawatts of wind generating capacity -- the equivalent of 53 coal-fired power plants. In South Dakota, a wind-rich, sparsely populated state, development has begun on a vast 5,050-megawatt wind farm (1 megawatt of wind capacity supplies 300 U.S. homes) that when completed will produce nearly five times as much electricity as the 810,000 people living in the state need.

Portugal, Spain, Turkey, China, Indonesia, renewables are being seized upon. the world is on the right path it would seem, but is enough being done amidst all the claims? Can we replace fossil fuel plants by renewables by 2020? In a bid to keep carbon dioxide levels to below 400ppm? Can we do it all in time?

Lester Brown of the Earth Institute believes it can be done. New technologies can spread like wildfire once established he says, pointing to mobile phones and computers. Once cumulative mobile phone sales reached 1 million units in 1986, the stage was set for explosive growth, and the number of cell phone subscribers doubled in each of the next three years. Over the next 12 years the number doubled every two years. By 2001 there were 961 million cell phones -- nearly a 1,000-fold increase in just 15 years. And now there are more than 4 billion cell phone subscribers worldwide.

Installations of solar cells are doubling every two years, and the annual growth in wind generating capacity is not far behind, he writes. The urgency of the climate scenario is an extra booster for renewables, Brown believes.

Is he being overly optmistic? When half the world is still in denial mode about seriousness of the situation, will the speed pick up, or succumb to political pressures?