Some rather startling news from across the pond broke late last week when BP announced it could be shopping it wind and solar businesses, which it estimated could fetch about $7 billion. The company has made some rather high-profile investments in the United States renewable energy markets in recent years and claims to have a worldwide pipeline of 15,000 megawatts in potential wind projects.

"We intend to grow this business predominantly for its equity value," said chief executive Tony Hayward in British press accounts.

Maybe BP is cashing out in a hot market. But the company that built an advertising campaign around the moniker "Beyond Petroleum" surely knows that government mandates in the U.S. are just starting to kick in, so the market surely has not yet reached its top. Maybe, as the press accounts speculated, a new regime is further distancing itself from the legacy of its predecessors. Or perhaps it is seeking partners to share risk.

That shouldn't be a problem. As my colleague Marty Rosenberg recently pointed out, upheaval in world energy markets and a diving dollar could make American utilities cheap and attractive investments for the Europeans. That has already happened in spades in the wind industry, with major acquisitions in 2007 by Iberdrola, E.ON and Energia de Portugal.

Whatever the reason, when an oil giant decides it might leave the renewables business at a time when every other energy player is trying to burish its "green" credentials, you have to wonder: What's going on here?