Less Than 10 Percent of Green Stimulus Money Spent
Good morning, a competitive football game on Saturday between USC and Notre Dame left us breathless and then a little deflated but we’re back and ready to tackle the week.
First up, governments have only spent about 9 percent of the $177 billion in stimulus funds devoted to green energy and cleantech projects, according to a new report by New Energy Finance (by subscription only).
The New Energy Finance study’s author, Anna Czajkowska tells Bloomberg that the process has been slowed by (surprise!) government sluggishness in drafting the disbursement rules.
Some of the money may never be spent, because the nascent economic recovery has taken away the imperative to spend cash in Japan and Spain, according to the report.
South Korea, which has what is generally considered the greenest stimulus plan, and the U.S. have spent 20 and 12 percent of their money respectively.
The U.S. plan devotes $66.6 billion to green stimuli and Earth2Tech reports that the states will fund as much as $12.4 billion in energy efficiency measures by 2020.
Japan’s previous government doled out 45 percent but Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s government could cancel the rest of the spending.
About 5 percent, or close to $9 billion more, of the stimulus money should be released by year’s end.
