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It stood to reason that collapsing prices for oil would make clean energy relatively more expensive. That would dampen the public's craving to install solar panels and build wind turbines.

Well, let's try to reason again. A lot of opposing forces are shaking the old assumptions. In the jaws of bargain oil, the U.S. Department of Energy expects Americans to increase their use of renewable power this year by almost 10 percent. Why is this time different?

Consider solar power. Over the past 18 months, the price of oil has fallen by 75 percent, yet the installation of solar panels proceeds apace. The advocacy group Solar Foundation reports that jobs in solar energy increased last year by more than 20 percent. Most of them were for installers.

As for wind power, Denmark-based Vestas, one of the big three wind-turbine companies, says that business continues to boom in North America, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Its stock price doubled last year.

What's going on? For starters, while the price of oil has fallen, so have the costs of green energy technologies. For another, strangling air pollution in China and India has fed a desire for clean energy greater than the urge to find the cheapest source.