Climate Change The New Economy
All analyses of the global energy picture today say that the wind industry has a ‘bright future’. Having experienced double digit cumulative growth for nearly twenty years, wind is unique among modern manufacturing industries, to the point where the fastest growing job in the United States is ‘wind energy technician’.
But how bright? Our recently released Global Wind Energy Outlook explores a range of possible futures for the wind energy.
There are two overarching questions which will have more than anything else to do with the rate and scope of wind power’s expansion out to 2020, 2030 and to 2050: 1) Will humanity once and for all join forces to combat the existential threat of climate change? 2) Is there some miraculous technological breakthrough just around the corner that will transform the power sector without the need for wind, solar and other existing technologies? It doesn’t seem likely, but it can never be ruled out. But before we look at the future, it is useful to look at what has changed recently.
