Clean tech cash going kerching

Good morning campers. It’s not unusual to see these hundreds-of-billions-of-dollar estimates for the value of investment into sustainable energy.

But there are fewer organisations with such a global view of the world as the United Nations. It says that “global investment in sustainable energy broke all previous records, with $148.4 billion of new money raised in 2007, an increase of 60% over 2006. Total financial transactions in sustainable energy, including acquisition activity, was $204.9 billion.”

Interestingly, much of this is down to wind, which is getting harder to get excited about in terms of innovation, but certainly a step in the right direction.

Lots of things will drive further investment into this, says the report, such as carbon taxes and new government policies. If the assumption of continued growth actually happens, then we could be looking at a $600bn market by 2020.

Greenbang’s point is that it’s great, but unless this cash is moved rather fast into the right innovations, we will face a depletion of oil before new technologies have been developed.

And that will mean no Eastenders or oven chips.