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Building off sharp growth in 2007‐2008, US wind power development in 2009 has been impacted dramatically by the current economic climate-and US wind players must readjust their strategies in the wake of this new competitive environment. The US wind power industry finished 2008 at a record pace with 8,546 MW of new wind plant added, led by Texas, Iowa, New York, Kansas, and Wyoming. EER forecasts a sharp decline in 2009, but a rebound in 2010 and growth of 12 GW per year on average from 2010‐2020 to supply nearly 14% of total US power demand.

Project Nova's innovative aerogenerator wind turbine is based on a pair of giant V-shaped composite wings that will be scaled up to 120m high and rotate around the central axis to create power. Invented by David Sharpe and developed by Wind Power Limited, the aim is for a large-scale demonstrator to be installed offshore within six years and for offshore vertical-axis turbines to provide 1GW of power by 2020.

"We use a translog cost function to model production in the Irish manufacturing sector over the period from 1991 to 2009. We estimate both own- and cross-price elasticities and Morishima elasticities of substitution between capital, labour, materials and energy. We find that capital and energy are substitutes in the production process. Across all firms we find that a 1% rise in the price of energy is associated with an increase of 0.04% in the demand for capital. The Morishima elasticities, which reflect the technological substitution potential, indicate that a 1% increase in the price of energy causes the capital/energy input ratio to increase by 1.5%. The demand for capital in energy-intensive firms is more responsive to increases in energy prices, while it is less responsive in foreign-owned firms. We also observe a sharp decline in firms' responsiveness in the first half of the sample period."

What do BP, Sharp and Sanyo all have in common? They are all among the largest producers of solar modules. And recently Honda and Applied Materials have entered the solar business as well. If you are a renewable energy fan, you have to get excited when large semiconductor equipment experts like Applied Materials get in the game. But the most recent prospective entrant (which I have blogged about) is IBM.

Solar power will not be able to compete with conventional energy until there is a breakthrough in the technology, BP's chief executive has said, in a further sign of the company's move away from renewables towards oil and gas. BP has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in making solar cells and components, but in the past six months it has been closing factories around the world, and announced a sharp cut in its investment in alternative energies, such as solar, from $1.4bn last year to $1bn (£658m) this year. Tony Hayward, chief executive, yesterday told a conference in California: "I think solar is probably the most challenged of all of BP's alternative energy interests." He added: "It is not going to make the transition to be competitive with more conventional power, the gap is too big."