Bloomberg recently made the comment that the clean energy revolution is ahead of schedule. Of course not everyone agrees and the debate rages on - typically between a future based on fossil fuels or one based on solar and wind energy. Advocates for fossil fuels say they provide a better solution than renewables based on (1) costs (2) having reliable baseload power when the sun isn’t shining or wind isn’t blowing and (3) dealing with scale - including the rapidly increasing energy demand from emerging economies. As I wrote on a recent post on the solar singularity, my view is these arguments no longer stand up to scrutiny. The case for solar is stronger than ever due to a sharp decline in price and improvements to battery technology.

The five largest power stations in the world are hydro ... the biggest hydro station in the world is 30 times the size of a typical coal-fired power station

A debate that focuses only on fossil vs wind / solar oversimplifies the energy sector and discounts the drivers for why countries make energy decisions– namely available resources, energy security and existing capital investments. One result of this polarized view is that hydropower is often left out of the discussion. Our mission at Cleanleap is to share knowledge on clean technology in emerging economies so projects are deployed more effectively so we think its also important to focus on hydro.