Readily available credit and high oil prices were a boon for clean energy businesses. Fortune smiled on technologies like wind and solar when money was cheap, and when the gap in price between traditional fuels and low-carbon alternatives was narrow enough to make the alternatives look profitable.
But credit markets have seized up and the price of a barrel of oil has fallen nearly 60 percent since hitting record highs this summer. The picture now is much bleaker for clean energy, and concern is widespread among business leaders who are facing diminishing demand for environmentally friendly hardware and services.
That should make one of the chief messages to emerge from the annual Oil & Money Conference in London this week – high-cost oil is here to stay – a source of optimism for the clean energy sector.
Despite the sharp dip in the price of a barrel in recent months, “the low energy price age is over,” said Nobuo Tanaka, the executive director of the International Energy Agency. He said demand was likely to remain steady from parts of the world like China and India, and that supply may not catch up with demand once any recession had run its course...
But credit markets have seized up and the price of a barrel of oil has fallen nearly 60 percent since hitting record highs this summer. The picture now is much bleaker for clean energy, and concern is widespread among business leaders who are facing diminishing demand for environmentally friendly hardware and services.
That should make one of the chief messages to emerge from the annual Oil & Money Conference in London this week – high-cost oil is here to stay – a source of optimism for the clean energy sector.
Despite the sharp dip in the price of a barrel in recent months, “the low energy price age is over,” said Nobuo Tanaka, the executive director of the International Energy Agency. He said demand was likely to remain steady from parts of the world like China and India, and that supply may not catch up with demand once any recession had run its course...
