Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
technologies that we are going to need to clean up
the systemic mess that our generation has inher-
ited and continues to create. Revolutions 3 bring
enduring social, political and economic change
and if the effects of global warming are to be
mitigated then everyone has a stake in ensuring
that the cleantech sector delivers.
In our lifetime, we will witness not only a dis-
cerning demand for clean energy sources, but also
a sea-change in the ways that science, engineering,
business innovation and public policy collaborate
with each other for a more sustainable future that
will affect us at home and work.
The consultancy Clean Edge, in its Carbon-
Free Prosperity 2025 Report , identifies solar,
green building design, wind, sustainable bio en-
ergy and smart grid technologies as 'The Big Five
Opportunities' in cleantech. Runners up include
wave power, geothermal and clean transportation
systems 4 . But if in fact we need systemic cleaning
up, then we will also be looking to clean up our
waterways, our agriculture and food production
systems, our outer space, our entire mode of liv-
ing. While technology development has always
evolved over time to be better, faster and cheaper,
it is now going for cleaner. As the underlying
assumptions of the drivers of economic growth
change, we can expect to see a shift away from the
big centralized grid, industrial-type technologies
to smaller more mobile technologies, akin to what
has happened in the electronics industry, where
we have witnessed an amazing miniaturization,
multi-tasking and customization of technologies.
Policy change usually follows technological
innovation. Germany has been leading the way in
many ways, giving birth to one of the world's more
verdant green industrial heartlands. A straight-
forward and effective policy measure, called the
Feed-in Tariff (FIT) obliges power distributors to
purchase electricity from renewable sources at a
fixed rate for a fixed period of time above market
prices. The German FIT sets the price for green
power far higher than market rates, and in the case
price. As a result, Germany's renewable energy
industry employed about a quarter of a million
people and had brought in almost $40 billion rev-
enue in 2007 5 . Increasingly the attractiveness of
India and China has been rapidly improving based
on new renewable energy policies that subsidize
clean energy production. However, in both these
countries there is general shortage of energy and
hence in a number of cases, the renewable energy
produced is able to be meet the return sought by
equity investors without excessive additional
subsidies.
INDIA PAVES A WAY TO
A CLEAN FUTURE
India represents an exciting frontier in the clean-
tech sector, with small, medium and large-sized
companies addressing the needs of domestic and
international markets alike. The country still relies
very heavily on fossil fuels to power its industrial
production. This places it in the top five largest
emitters of carbon dioxide in the world, while more
than 400 million of its population lacks access to
basic electricity. At the same time, the country is
making important new strides in the clean sector,
capitalizing on its own massive domestic market, a
history of technology innovation and a skilled sci-
ence and business-literate workforce. India offers
an extremely attractive market for Environmental
Technologies, Equipments and Services. The total
market size was estimated at USD 5.29 billion in
2006 by the US Department of State. Since the
early 1990's the market for clean technologies has
been growing at an annual rate of 15%.
Indian cleantech investments are estimated
to total around US$150 billion over the next ten
years, according to a new HSBC 6 report. The
report estimates a reduction in carbon emissions
by 18% over that period compared to business-as-
usual projections. Wind energy (in which India is
already the world's fourth largest market), hydro
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