Friday, April 8, 2011

Coke and other news items

Nice annoucement from Coke this week on their display racks.  Here's a part of the story that ran:  "Cola is rolling out 100 percent recyclable display racks for its drinks, in what it calls an industry first.
The “Give it Back racks”, freestanding units made of corrugated cardboard, are designed for use in grocery and convenience stores.
Coca-Cola says the racks are a first step toward a comprehensive, closed-loop retail equipment program, in which the company will recover displays and reuse or recycle them. The corrugate displays will later be joined by a rack made entirely of recycled PET plastic."

Also, good and bad news on the update on wind power production in the US in 2010:  "Wind power provided 26 percent of all new electric generating capacity in the U.S. last year, down from 39 percent in 2009, according to figures out today.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report for 2010 shows that the country’s cumulative installed wind capacity grew by 15 percent last year, with the addition of 5,116 MW. The U.S. now has 40,181 MW of wind, which is enough to supply electricity to over 10 million homes.

But after several years of keeping pace with natural gas as joint top sources for new electric capacity (see chart), in 2010 wind fell behind. Compared to wind’s 26 percent for 2010, natural gas installed nearly 40 percent of the year’s new electric generating capacity.  AWEA blames the drop on what it called unstable and short-term policies for wind development"

From a financial perspective, what are the "unstable policies for wind development"?  My guess is that it relates to the fluctuations in state and federal grants, tax credits, etc, that make or break the viability of these projects.  The renewable industry is still very dependent on credits and grants to bring a project in with a reasonable ROI.  Obama's call to reduce oil imports by one-third will require continued government support if we will see renewables grow at a reasonable, sustainable level over the next few years.

No comments:

Post a Comment