I have some colleagues who study Africa, and we've talked several times about how there's a huge untapped market for renewable energy products, particularly in West Africa.  The key being the marginal cost of production.  In many small villages, there is still little or no electricity absent village generators.

And when you are in someplace like central Nigeria, and you are producing electricity with with a 1500 W generator using gasoline. Well, the per kw price is pretty darn high.  You look at something like that and you figure that your getting something like 3.75 kwh per gallon of gasoline.  Even at 0.50 USD per gallon, that's still 0.133 USD per kwh. And considering that getting gas delivered to a village probably raises fuel costs two to three times, small scale wind and solar are intensely competitive. The problem is primarily one of financing.  But, with the marginal cost of electricity so, so, so high, any increased start up costs are overwhelmed by decreased costs of operation.  And with the alternative being so expensive, it's possible to actually make money selling to what we think of as people to poor to buy...

Yet, ironically, some of the best markets for micro to low utility grade renewables are precisely in these countries that lack developed infrastructure.  Particularly so when you look at products like these: (in German)

If you look to the product page for the VAT ENAIRGIES 6, which has a top output of 6kwh, you'll see that it kicks in at about 7 mph (11 kph) and at somewhere between 13-16 mph (21-26 kph) you're hitting that 0.75 kwh sweet spot that is comparable to 1500 W generator working at half load (which is what they use to calculate how long a tank of gas will last.)

 The thing weighs around 1800 lbs or 800 kgs.  Which means it's heavy, but you can get it to a location on a truck.  Walking away from Copenhagen, one of the sticking points seems to be finding a way for poor villagers in Africa to turn on the lights without jacking up carbon emissions even higher than they are now.

The easiest weigh to start displacing electric production that uses fossil fuels is to start targeting these applications where the marginal cost is quite high because it makes money to do the right thing here.  This isn't only true in developing countries.  The little wind turbine whose picture I put up here is produced in Munster, NRW, DE and production is starting soon in Muncie, IN, USA (my hometown)  They are for use for street lights and use both a small vertical axis turbine and solar panels.  Street lights are another great area for renewables.  It's a huge cost to get lines to the location (particularly with urban sprawl in the US) and to keep the thing up.  A little money upfront here can go a long way towards saving money in the end.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg