The Growth of Renewable Energy

I was going through Washington Post articles and one caught my eye. It is called "Renewable Energy is Growing Very, Very Fast. It's Just Still Not Fast Enough." It says how renewable energy production increased by a big amount from last year. The worldwide investment in renewables in 2014 was $270.2 billion which was a 17% increase from 2013. There were many solar projects in Japan and China and offshore wind farms in Europe. Surprisingly half of the investment was in developing countries.Solar and wind were the two many sources for the new energy; taking 92% of the investment. About $150 million investment was in solar and $100 million in wind. Since countries are investing more in renewables, the price of solar and other technologies has gone down. The new technologies are more energy-efficient which means we are investing more in renewable energy, but are now making a lot more money on it. China was the biggest investor with $83 billion than the U.S. with $38 billion and then Japan with $35.7 billion. Renewable energy is now 9.1% of the world's energy consumption which is a 0.6% increase.

This article made me happy that renewable energy is growing fast, but it is still kind of slow if that makes sense. Just like the article title says it is just not fast enough. Billions of dollars are going into renewables, but renewable energy is only 9.1% of energy production. That number is so low! It is not even in double digits yet. I know renewable energy technology is expensive, but it getting cheaper now so hopefully more countries invest. Maybe if people stop buying their stupid SUVs and we can get cheaper solar panels that would help by a huge amount. In college I want to major in sustainable energy management so this information gives me confidence that I will get a job after graduation. The U.S. is the second biggest investor in renewables, but of course we are behind China like everything else in the world. Hopefully every country in the world invests in renewable energy so that the world can be a sustainable, healthy place to live.