Sun and Wind

This section is a talk with Douglas Pertz, President and CEO, Clipper Windpower and Thomas Werner, CEO, SunPower.

The titans of renewable energy walked onstage along with the moderator. These powerful men started off the conversation with how this economic recession has effected their sales. Douglas Pertz quoted T. Boone Pickens, Chairman, BP Capital Management by saying "This wind stuff is dead as hell!" Then the conversation moved on to comparing the price of renewable energy commercially to just average commercial energy. Solar is 35ç per kilowatt hour, compared to commercial energy, which is on average 10ç per kilowatt hour. The moderator and the audience wanted to know how solar prices could go down. Thomas Werner stated that the "scale equals cost reduction." So therefore, the more solar energy we can get out there, the cheeper it will get. It is exactly like inflation in a country. On the note of producing more renewable energy, Clipper Windpower's goal is to install 200 giga watts of wind energy intalled by 2020+. Right now, the average annual giga watts installed is eight. I belive that our country is going to have to revert to at least 50% renewable energy by 2020.