Follow the money

An interesting report today from the UN that says in 2008 worldwide investments in renewable energy sources such wind and solar power exceeded investments in traditional fossil fuel sources, mainly petroleum.

The investment in renewable energy hit $140 billion worldwide, compared to $110 billion in fossil fuels. Clearly, fossil fuel investments have a long head start when it comes to total investment dollars, but it's interesting to see that renewable sources are currently seeing greater dollars coming in.

A few reasons for this: worldwide concern over climate change and the increasing cost of finding new fossil fuel reserves.

Often, new and alternative energy supplies are compared in price to existing fossil fuel resources, and frequently the alternatives lose out. But that's a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, with a better benchmark for renewables being the cost of finding and extracting new resources -- which is getting more expensive whether you are talking about renewable energy or fossil fuels. In the Pacific Northwest, we are growing in population, and using more energy per person as well.

For Puget Sound Energy, the investments in renewables continue, with an expansion at our Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility (seen in the photo above) this summer and the continued development of the Lower Snake River Wind Energy Project, which will be one of the largest wind farms in the nation.