Green is Gold
There's a new gold rush happening, and it's green.

Type "gold rush" + "green energy" into Google and you are rewarded with links to more than 23,000 pages. It seems that green is the new gold, or at least a lot of writers think it is.

Many of the latest references stem from the launch of an investment report from the United Nations Environment Programme by its executive director Achim Steiner, who said:

Just as thousands were drawn to California and the Klondike in the late 1800s, the green energy gold rush is attracting legions of modern-day prospectors in all parts of the globe....What is unfolding is nothing less than a fundamental transformation of the world's energy infrastructure.

The report noted that more than $148 billion of new money was invested in renewable energy during 2007, up a mighty 60 per cent from the previous year. The report also said that investment growth continued in 2008, despite the turmoil in world financial markets.

But plenty of other gold rush/green energy references spring out. For example, The Guardian newspaper in January this year described the rush by American farmers to grow corn for ethanol as "the new gold rush".

National Wind Watch said in April, under the heading "The new gold rush", that "a new breed of prospector is scouring Montana's hills, but wind is the resource it seeks". Meanwhile, WFAA-TV in Dallas/Fort Worth found that "Wind power in Texas is the new gold rush".

And finally - though in fact there is plenty more - there is this, from a New America Foundation commentator:

Historically, we've treated renewable energy and energy efficiency as virtuous, feel-good projects rather than shrewd investments in the industries of the future. It shows: We now trail China and Germany in renewable-power production and lag behind Japan and most of Europe in energy productivity. Worse, we may be missing out on the green gold rush of the century.

July 30th, 2008

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Green is Gold There's a new gold rush happening, and it's green.

Green is Gold
There's a new gold rush happening, and it's green.