Determined to stay its unpopular nuclear course, Iran is now turning to wind power and other renewable energy sources to blow past sanctions. Last year Karin reported that the current regime plans to produce 5,000 MW of solar energy by 2015, and in May this year, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad put aside an additional $620 million to grow the country’s nascent renewable energy program.
Determined to stay its unpopular nuclear course, Iran is now turning to wind power and other renewable energy sources to blow past sanctions. Last year Karin reported that the current regime plans to produce 5,000 MW of solar energy by 2015, and in May this year, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad put aside an additional $620 million to grow the country's nascent renewable energy program.
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This commitment from on high is exactly the push that local alternative energy producers needed to explore their respective technologies, and they’re receiving some support from abroad, but challenges abound.
Mega wind potential
Iran has the potential to produce 20,000 MW of wind energy, according to a recent journal entry in the International Journal of Renewable Energy Research.
Of that capacity, only a small fraction was produced in 2010, which was slightly less than the country produced the previous year.
But local manufacturers who showed off their wares at a recent renewable energy exhibition in Tehran have some confidence that they can surmount the restrictions imposed by international sanctions.
The European Union is prepared to trade in renewables, according to the Wall Street Journal, but a US Treasury spokesperson told the paper that all sales to Iran are banned unless a special license is issued.
Meanwhile, anti-nuclear activists in the US believe that it would be a mistake to trade even in renewable energy since the point of international sanctions is to squeeze Iran so hard that it has no choice but to give up its nuclear program.
Article continues at Green Prophet
Image credit: http://www.payvand.com/news/09/mar/1032.html
