A new report is claiming that, with an aggressive infrastructure investment, eight emerging technologies could meet 60 % of new energy demand by 2020. It is also claiming that we could abate more CO2 than is necessary for climate stabilization in just 10 years.
The report, titled "The Gigaton Throwdown", was developed with the support of many, many people who are tied to the cleantech industry. The effort was led, in part, by Sunil Paul, who is a founder of Silicon Valley’s Spring Ventures.
The report estimates that if annual global private investment in cleantech tripled between now and 2020, clean energy investments would be in line with fossil-fuel investments. It is a lofty goal, but the authors say that if we are able to shift investment into ready cleantech solutions, the results would be world changing: climate mitigation, energy security and 5 million new jobs planetwide.
The report highlights the eight emerging clean technology solution areas that are ready for investment and could yield the stated goals.
- Biofuels
- Building Efficiency
- Concentrating Solar Power
- Construction Materials
- Geothermal
- Nuclear
- Solar Photovoltaics
- Wind
According to the report each of the eight solutions listed above could feasibly deliver one giagaton of global energy, and each could avoid one gigaton of emissions from being discharged into the atmosphere by 2020, thus the idea for the name of the report.
Apparently the authors considered plug-in electric vehicles , but the projected adoption of this technology is predicted to be too slow to have an impact by 2020.
For more information:
- Access the 150 page report via the pdf file "The Gigaton Throwdown"
- Check out the Gigaton website
- Watch this Videos
- Read this Announcement Letter
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