A green economy is an economy that aims at reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without degrading the environment. It is closely related with ecological economics, but has a more politically applied focus. The 2011 UNEP Green Economy Report argues "that to be green, an economy must not only be efficient, but also fair. Fairness implies recognizing global and country level equity dimensions, particularly in assuring a Just Transition to an economy that is low-carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive."
Clean technology, in short cleantech or climatetech, is any process, product, or service that reduces negative environmental impacts through significant energy efficiency improvements, the sustainable use of resources, or environmental protection activities. Clean technology includes a broad range of technology related to recycling, renewable energy, information technology, green transportation, electric motors, green chemistry, lighting, grey water, and more. Environmental finance is a method by which new clean technology projects can obtain financing through the generation of carbon credits. A project that is developed with concern for climate change mitigation is also known as a carbon project.
Renewable energy commercialization involves the deployment of three generations of renewable energy technologies dating back more than 100 years. First-generation technologies, which are already mature and economically competitive, include biomass, hydroelectricity, geothermal power and heat. Second-generation technologies are market-ready and are being deployed at the present time; they include solar heating, photovoltaics, wind power, solar thermal power stations, and modern forms of bioenergy. Third-generation technologies require continued R&D efforts in order to make large contributions on a global scale and include advanced biomass gasification, hot-dry-rock geothermal power, and ocean energy. In 2019, nearly 75% of new installed electricity generation capacity used renewable energy and the International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that by 2025, renewable capacity will meet 35% of global power generation.
According to data from the US Energy Information Administration, renewable energy accounted for about 13.1% of total primary energy consumption and about 21.5% of total utility-scale electricity generation in the United States in 2022.
Clint Wilder is a business journalist who has covered the high-tech and clean-tech industries since 1985.
Ron Pernick is an American author and the co-founder and managing director of Clean Edge, a developer and publisher of thematic stock indexes tracking clean energy, transportation, water, and the grid. He is an accomplished market research, publishing, and business development entrepreneur with more than three decades of high-tech experience.
Clean Energy Trends is a series of reports by Clean Edge which examine markets for solar, wind, geothermal, fuel cells, biofuels, and other clean energy technologies. Since the publication of the first Clean Energy Trends report in 2002, Clean Edge has provided an annual snapshot of both the global and U.S. clean energy sector markets.
Solar power includes solar farms as well as local distributed generation, mostly on rooftops and increasingly from community solar arrays. In 2022, utility-scale solar power generated 145.6 terawatt-hours (TWh), or 3.4% of electricity in the United States. Total solar generation that year, including estimated small-scale photovoltaic generation, was 204 TWh.
The renewable-energy industry is the part of the energy industry focusing on new and appropriate renewable energy technologies. Investors worldwide have paid greater attention to this emerging industry in recent years. In many cases, this has translated into rapid renewable energy commercialization and considerable industry expansion. The wind power, solar power and hydroelectric power industries provide good examples of this.
The Dirty Energy Dilemma: What’s Blocking Clean Power in the United States is a 2008 book by academic Benjamin K. Sovacool, published by Praeger. In the book, Sovacool explores problems with the current U.S. electricity system and ways to overcome them.
The energy policy of the Obama administration was defined by an "all-of-the-above" approach which offered federal support for renewable energy deployment, increased domestic oil and gas extraction, and export of crude oil and natural gas. His presidency's first term was shaped by the failure of his signature climate legislation, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, to pass, and then climate and energy disasters including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 and then Hurricane Sandy, which took place during the 2012 election. In his second term, Obama lifted the ban on crude oil exports and approved liquified natural gas exports; his planned regulatory approach to reducing greenhouse pollution in the electricity sector, the Clean Power Plan, was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Deploying Renewables 2011: Best and Future Policy Practice is a 2011 book by the International Energy Agency. The book analyses the recent successes in renewable energy, which now accounts for almost a fifth of all electricity produced worldwide, and addresses how countries can best capitalize on that growth to realise a sustainable energy future. The book says that renewable energy commercialization must be stepped up, especially given the world’s increasing appetite for energy and the need to meet this demand more efficiently and with low-carbon energy sources. Wind power and other renewable energy sources offer great potential to address issues of energy security and sustainability.
Solar Energy Perspectives is a 2011 book by the International Energy Agency.
Clean Tech Nation: How the U.S. Can Lead in the New Global Economy is a 2012 book written by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder. The book surveys the expansion of clean technology and renewable energy over the past decade. It tracks the growth of wind power and solar photovoltaics and shows that these markets grew 20 fold from 2000 to 2010. Factors which are driving the global expansion of clean tech are identified, as are the new economic opportunities which are being created. China, the United States, and Germany are leading the way. Clean Tech Nation is the sequel to the 2007 book The Clean Tech Revolution.
Clean Edge, Inc., founded in 2000, is a U.S.-based developer and publisher of thematic stock indexes tracking clean energy, transportation, water, and the grid. The firm's first index, the Nasdaq Clean Edge Green Energy Index (CELS), was launched with Nasdaq in 2006. Financial products tracking the firm's indexes and universes exceed $2.5 billion in assets under management.
Peter L. Corsell is an American technology entrepreneur and investor. A repeat entrepreneur in the sustainable energy industry, Corsell founded GridPoint in 2003, and Twenty First Century Utilities in 2015.
Energy subsidies are government payments that keep the price of energy lower than market rate for consumers or higher than market rate for producers. These subsidies are part of the energy policy of the United States.
The green bubble is an economic theory that the world is facing an over-investment in renewable energy and that the current levels of debts in many clean technology companies are unsustainable. As the interest rate rises many clean technology projects will go bust, a major setback for the renewable energy industry.
Green recovery packages are proposed environmental, regulatory, and fiscal reforms to rebuild prosperity in the wake of an economic crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). They pertain to fiscal measures that intend to recover economic growth while also positively benefitting the environment, including measures for renewable energy, efficient energy use, nature-based solutions, sustainable transport, green innovation and green jobs, amongst others.
