Lest you think theres never good news in the world of climate change/alternative energy, heres big news indeed. As the energy website Energy Post writes, Eon, Germanys largest energy company, announced that it will sell off its conventional power generation assets and focus on renewable energy and power distribution instead. This is as if Shell decided to get out of oil! A breathtaking move, that shows how far the Energiewende has come. And not just in Germany, but also in the rest of Europe and North America: Eon is very much an international player. And lest you think this can only happen in carbon-emissions-obsessed Germany, check out the recent announcement of David Crane, CEO of the U.S. Fortune 500 power company NRG. Heres how the NY Times described it -- and note that Crane credited some of his thinking on the subject to the divestment movement! Tom NRG, which built a leading electricity business from coal and other conventional power plants, is aiming to reduce its carbon emissions 50 percent by 2030 and 90 percent by 2050, the company said on Thursday. David Crane, the company’s chief executive, made the announcement at a ceremony breaking ground for the company’s new headquarters in Princeton, N.J., conceived as a green-energy showcase that will open in 2016. “The power industry is the biggest part of the problem of greenhouse gas emissions, but it has the potential to be an even bigger part of the solution, Mr. Crane said in an interview before the announcement. Since 2005, the company has reduced its carbon emissions 40 percent, executives say, and the new goals would use this year’s projected level of 125 million metric tons as a baseline. Few power companies have made similar commitments, although they have become common in corporate America and are part of the impetus for NRG’s move... “If divestment from fossil fuel companies becomes the issue that preoccupies college campuses around America for the next decade, Mr. Crane said, I don’t relish the idea that year after year we’re going to be graduating a couple million kids from college, who are going to be American consumers for the next 60 or 70 years, that come out of college with a distaste or disdain for companies like mine. He added that renewables were the segment of the power sector showing the greatest growth. energypost.eu/eon-new-corporate-strategy-focus-renewables-distribution-networks-customer-solutions-divest-power-generation/ Heres that NYT piece: nytimes/2014/11/21/business/energy-environment/nrg-sets-goals-to-cut-carbon-emissions.html
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 17:30:01 +0000
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