Conergy AG, down nearly 9% today, has for a German solar company some astonishing news;

According to Forbes, "under Conergy's blueprint, 500, 2 megawatt turbines will be placed near the hamlet of Silverton, New South Wales, from 2009".

Conergy is taking two bets here;

1) Australian Conservative John Howard will lose the forthcoming general election - a pretty safe bet. As remarked on this blog previously, the opposition Labor party is far more willing to throw subsidies at alternative energy and no doubt will.

And now for the point that Forbes did not pick up

2) Australia pretty much has the cheapest electricity in the world, thanks to its vast coal reserves. But the price of coal has been rising very fast, even in Australia. This is apparently all to do with supply bottlenecks, fed by the vast demand created by China - currently building 70 gigawatts of coal-fired power generation every year yet not enough coal to fire them.

So of course, the price of coal is going up - and that starts to make alternative energy a lot more viable, especially if you go in big, like Conergy, right from the start.