UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has issued latest report how Britain has failed to reach its renewable energy targets. There were lots of talks in Britain about the necessity to revive renewable energy sector but in the end this hasn't resulted in anything except disappointments. The internal UK forecasts show that by 2020 the UK will be getting only 5% of its total energy from renewables, far short of the 15% target that UK signed up to with the European Commission.

This data shows that UK's government is still miles away from turning Great Britain into respectable renewable energy force. It also shows that UK must make quick changes to its energy policy because in the past decade government lacked a credible and comprehensive energy policy. Some other countries, with less available funds than Britain, are doing much bigger changes in renewable energy sector, so it is really a shame that UK still fails to follow renewable path.

Many energy experts agree how solar energy is the only renewable energy source that has enough potential to replace fossil fuels as dominant energy sources in years to come. Many countries are taking these thoughts rather seriously by investing bunch of money into different solar power projects, mostly solar power station. One of these countries is Australia that looks to be taking huge steps into developing solar energy sector by planning to build the world's biggest solar power station with an output of 1000 megawatts in a A$1.4 billion (US$1.05 billion) investment.

According to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd this plant will have three times the generating capacity of the current biggest solar-powered electricity plant, which is located in California. To get a perspective on how powerful will be this solar power plant compared to other types of power plants: most powerful nuclear power plant in United States is Palo Verde 2, Arizona with 1335 MW. Average net capacity of US power plant is about 954 MW and with that in mind we can see that this solar power plant will have bigger power output.

Once Obama became president of the United States it become clear that much more money will be spent by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to boost different sectors that should make United States much more greener than it was during the George Bush period. Going green looks to be big hit among not only U.S. politicians but among the rest of the globe.

If we take a look at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency budget planned for 2010 we can see a substantial increase compared to 2009. EPA's budget will be huge $10,5 billion which is not only the highest EPA budget in history of this organization, but the clear sign that U.S. really wants to fund green projects as much as possible.

U.S. State Arizona is one of the rare U.S. states that are making big steps towards better use of renewable energy as the whole nation attempts to fight global warming and climate change. Since Arizona is blessed with lots of sunshine throughout the whole year it is really all about using its natural advantage by using Sun's energy to gain electricity. Solar power use is constantly growing in this sunny state, and Arizona is one of very few good examples in U.S. of how to harness renewable energy sector for satisfying ever-growing energy demand. Solar energy is most often used in remote locations, but it has to be said how solar energy is also becoming popular in urban areas as well.

Arizona is still dependent on coal, oil, and other fossil fuels to satisfy majority of its energy needs but is definitely making right steps to get rid of this dependence in not so far future. One of the projects that should set the standard for Arizona’s future energy plans is definitely world's largest solar power plant called "Solana" that should become fully operational in 2011. This gigantic solar power plant requires area of 1,900 acres, and should be enough to satisfy energy needs of about 70,000 households. This solar power plant has been symbolically named Solana, which means on Spanish "a sunny place", and should have capacity at somewhere around 280 megawatts. The good news is not only that it will power 70,000 homes, but it will also provide about 1,500 new jobs, which is especially positive in times of global financial crisis like this one now.

While people worldwide are extremely happy that oil prices have been showing trend of constant decline, half less than they were this summer, this could be very bad news for development of renewable energy sector because these options now, given the current oil price do not look to be economically acceptable. While oil prices were skyrocketing, more and more people were looking for alternative options like ethanol, electric cars, solar power and wind. Current oil prices are again on moderate level, and all alternative solutions will have very hard time competing against oil and that could slow down development of renewable energy sector worldwide. Public interest for those energy sources is already falling.

However, even if oil prices continue to sink alternative energy sector still has one major advantage – rising global warming problem, or to be more precise – awareness of global warming. Fossil fuels such as oil are by most researches responsible for global warming phenomena, and if countries worldwide continue to use those energy sources impact of global warming will continue to climb. Of course answer against this is renewable energy sector, and ecology should still get on top of moderate oil prices and boost investments to renewable energy.

According to REFUEL project, which is project commissioned by the EU's Intelligent Energy Europe program to examine the biofuels potential in Europe, Europe has high biofuel potential. This REFUEL project, coordinated by the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands, and implemented by a consortium of seven European institutes with different disciplinary backgrounds concluded that European biofuels target can be met with conventional feedstocks and current technology without major agricultural land use changes or environmental consequences.

Many people are worried that biofuels necessary mean shortage in food supply as biofuel production is direct transformation from food into biofuels but according to REFUEL results current biofuel targets can be met, without any negative effect on food supply and what is equally important current biofuel targets will not require conversion of forestland, grassland and nature conservation areas into arable land, mainly because there are new opportunities for increasing crop and livestock yields in some newest EU member states, which will mean more agricultural land for biofuel feedstock cultivation.