Washington (Platts)--5Feb2008

Increasing public concerns about climate change -- and its potential
economic and political security implications -- are driving public and private
investment in new clean energy technologies that could exceed the $7 trillion
mark by 2030, Cambridge Energy Research Associates said Tuesday.

"We are seeing a major shift in public opinion, reinforced by the
expectation that carbon policies could fundamentally change the competitive
landscape of the global energy business," CERA Chairman Daniel Yergin said in
a statement. "This is providing a vital impetus that is moving clean
technology across the great divide of cost, proven results, scale and maturity
that has separated it from markets served by mainstream technologies and
processes," he added.

The CERA report, "Crossing the Divide: The Future of Clean Energy,"
argued that the "rapidly advancing new paradigms of climate change, energy
security and policy implementation and cooperation" among the US, EU, China
and others, "will produce a broad range of opportunities, risks and pitfalls
as the modern energy industry increasingly moves to adopt clean technologies."

The report found, among other things, that there is already a "bubbling"
of clean energy "clusters," or places that are becoming concentrations of
political, technical and financial clean energy experience, including Brazil
in biofuels, Germany in photovoltaics and Spain in wind technologies.

In addition, CERA said renewable power technologies are "poised for
substantial growth," with wind energy likely to make the largest gains,
followed by solar and biomass. Government policy, the report added, "remains
the key driver" for advancing clean energy technologies, largely by putting a
price on carbon dioxide emissions and providing subsidies to kick-start the
technologies, CERA said.

The expected growth in clean energy technologies will be driven by a
number of factors, the report added, including oil and natural gas prices,
the level of government financial support, the pace of technology innovation,
economic growth and approaches taken by the so-called "Big Three" energy
consumers -- the US, EU and China.

The CERA study outlines three different scenarios for future growth of
clean energy technologies, including the "Launch Pad," in which high energy
prices, growing public pressure to cut CO2 emissions and a stable investment
environment combine to drive technology development. Under this scenario, CERA
said global renewable power capacity will rise to 16% of total capacity from
the current 3% and biofuel use will jump from less than 2% to 16% of the total
road transportation fuels market by 2030.

Two other scenarios put the growth in renewable power and biofuels at
lower levels by 2030.