A letter signed by 101 public figures in the UK – including Sir Richard Branson – has been sent to Prime Minister David Cameron urging him to promote the benefits of renewable energy in the budget due to be announced this Wednesday, the Guardian reported.

The letter is widely seen as a rebuff to another letter signed by 101 Members of Parliament who called for an end to support for wind energy

The March budget is one of the “biggest opportunities to tackle climate change in the UK…we must ensure it encourages investment rather than create uncertainty and delay further serious investment in the renewable sectors. As a country, we need to be better prepared to deal with rising energy prices,” Branson said, reported in the Guardian.

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North America was the third place regional leader last year in terms of installed wind capacity with a total of 52,184 MW, according to the latest annual statistics recently released by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

The US saw an additional 6,810 MW of new wind power capacity added to various grid systems in 2011 while Canada experienced an increase of 1,267 MW, GWEC reported.

By the end of last year, the US had a total of 46,919 MW of installed capacity, GWEC reported, while Canada had 5,265 MW.

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This weekend marked one year on from the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the ensuing nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. At Fukushima, a series of nuclear meltdowns, equipment failures and releases of radioactive materials made the disaster the largest since the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

The media has been awash with stories on nuclear including the Economist which carries a special report into nuclear power under the title “the dream that failed”. It contains many reasons why nuclear is not the answer to the world’s energy dilemma, but the loudest message is on costs, here are just a few quotes:

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At the end of last week EU environment ministers met to discuss how to fix the EU’s emissions trading system (ETS) by raising the price of carbon. The EWEA blog spoke to Rémi Gruet, EWEA’s senior regulatory affairs advisor on climate change, to discover just what the ETS does and why the EU needs a higher carbon price.

What is the emissions trading system?

The ETS is a kind of market that puts a price on carbon emissions. Big polluters – mainly the power sector – are legally required to limit their carbon emissions. If they emit less than their limit they can sell carbon ‘permits’ on the market, and if they emit more they can buy carbon ‘permits’.

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This is an excerpt of a post by Heikki Willstedt, director of energy policy, AEE. To read the full post (in Spanish) click here.

Oil has reached €90 a barrel and, when the embargo on Iran becomes effective, there are analysts who predict it will rise to €100 a barrel. Energy imports cost more in Spain than they do in emerging countries, so we cannot improve either our competitiveness or our trade balance deficit. In Spain there are no indigenous oil resources, but we do have the wind to generate electricity. A Spanish wind turbine of 2 MW generates the energy equivalent to 7,000 barrels a year. Wind is the Spanish oil.

The International Monetary Fund defines an oil shock as a 26% or more increase in the price of oil. We have had three: 2008, 2010 and 2011.  The current price of oil price in Euros is at a historic high. Just remember that in July 2008 a barrel of oil reached €84 a barrel. We are now 7% above the previous peak price.

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