Courtesy of Trevor Winnie, Clean Edge's senior research analyst, comes a strong rebuttal to Bill Gates' comment that currently available cleantech technologies were "cute," but won't be sufficient to solve the planet's energy challenges. To the contrary, Trevor Winnie argues:
*The global PV market has "skyrocket[ed] from $2.5 billion in 2000 to $71.2 billion in 2010," and is "expect[ed]... to continue this growth trajectory into the future, expanding to more than $113 billion by 2020."
*"In the U.S. alone, more than 100,000 people are employed in the solar industry, exceeding the number of workers in U.S. steel production..."
*"Wind energy can’t be written off as a niche sector, either. In March, wind became Spain’s main source of electricity for the first time...
The examples continue, almost indefinitely, to disprove Bill Gates' assertion that existing clean energy technologies are "cute," but not sufficient to make a major difference in the world's energy equation. That's simply not true. In fact, as Trevor Winnie concludes, "Technologies exist today that have the ability to make an enormous impact, and deploying them at full scale will significantly hasten the world’s transition to a clean, low-carbon future."
That's a much bigger deal than Bill Gates would have us believe.
