A recent collection of nuclear news over at the Energy Collective suggests that Japan and South Korea are taking major steps to sign lucrative nuclear deals - with relatively little competition from Westinghouse or Areva. And China is planning to increase nuclear capacity nearly eight-fold by 2020 by building reactors locally using Westinghouse AP1000 technology.
European and Asian high-speed rail manufacturers are courting U.S. government officials in hopes of securing contracts for some of the $8 billion dollars of federal stimulus funds ear-marked for domestic high-speed rail (HSR) projects. Notably absent from the list of companies vying for the cash are American companies. Without the development of a domestic high-speed rail manufacturing base, much of the HSR technology and expertise will continue to come from overseas, with many of the new jobs being created overseas as well.
European and Asian high-speed rail manufacturers are courting U.S. government officials in hopes of securing contracts for some of the $8 billion dollars of federal stimulus funds ear-marked for domestic high-speed rail (HSR) projects.
According to Greenwire, foreign manufacturers are hosting country visits for federal and state government officials to see their high-speed train technologies, as well as dropping not-so-subtle hints that they will build new domestic manufacturing facilities, or expand existing ones, if they are awarded contracts.
States are also feverishly competing for federal funds. According to NPR, forty states and the District of Columbia have already filed applications requesting more than $100 billion for high-speed rail projects. The most ambitious project is a proposed $40 billion, 800-mile HSR network in California spanning from Sacramento to San Diego. Although the Federal Railroad Administration has yet to award any of the $8 billion in government funds to any state or project, companies from Germany, France, Canada, Japan, and China are hoping that early efforts to charm government officials will pay off down the road.
Notably absent from those promoting their HSR technologies are American companies. That's because the United States ceded international leadership in the transportation technology in the 1960s, when Japan became the first nation to construct a national high-speed rail network.
Benchmarking clean-tech competitiveness: A new report by the Breakthrough Institute and Information Technology & Innovation Foundation provides the first comprehensive analysis of competitive positions among the U.S. and key Asian challengers in the global clean energy race.
The report examines the competitive position of each nation in core clean energy technologies, including solar, wind, and nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, advanced vehicles and batteries, and high-speed rail, as well as the government strategies each nation hopes will strengthen its position in the global clean technology sector. The report also offers recommendations for U.S. federal policymakers for regaining U.S. competitiveness.
In yesterday's Washington Post,
prominent U.S. business leaders John Doerr (from Kleiner Perkins) and
Jeff Immelt (CEO of GE) joined the growing chorus calling on
the nation's leaders to prepare America for the clean-energy race. They
warn that the U.S. is quickly falling behind in "the next great global
industry" -- green technology -- with the risk of damaging America's economic
competitiveness.
Doerr and Immelt's observations mirror recent reporting by the Breakthrough Institute and several major news sources -- including Time, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal -- that
show the U.S. trailing Asia in terms of clean-energy investment and
deployment. On the question of which nation is leading the U.S. in the
clean-energy race, Doerr and Immelt don't mince their words:
"We are clearly not in the lead today. That position is
held by China, which understands the importance of controlling its
energy future. China's commitment to developing clean energy
technologies and markets is breathtaking.
Consider: Chinese cars are more than one-third more
fuel-efficient than U.S. cars. China is investing 10 times as much on
clean power, as a percentage of gross domestic product, as the United
States is. China is on track to create 150,000 jobs through the
deployment of 120 gigawatts of wind power by 2020 -- an amount
equivalent to today's global total and nearly five times America's."
Joe Romm of Climate Progress relies on outdated sources and erroneous misstatements to attack the Breakthrough Institute for publishing an op-ed urging Congressional support for President Obama's energy education initiative.
On Monday, Joe Romm of
Climate Progress publicly attacked the Breakthrough Institute for publishing
an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle -- called
"Will America lose the clean energy race?" -- which urged Congress
to fully fund President Obama's energy education initiative and scale
up direct pubic investments in clean energy to boost U.S. economic competitiveness
and accelerate the nation's transition to a clean energy economy.
Romm never mentioned the central focus of the op-ed -- President Obama's energy education program (RE-ENERGYSE) and the Breakthrough Institute's efforts to rally support behind this program -- and instead attacked it for what he calls "willfully misleading nonsense" about Asian countries' planned investments in clean energy, while apparently defending the smaller investments in the proposed Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act.
Romm asserts that the op-ed "attacks" President Obama and Democratic
leaders, when in fact the op-ed is aimed at supporting the President's
RE-ENERGYSE program and calling for larger public investment in clean
energy to compete with Asian challengers. The RE-ENERGYSE initiative
is currently in danger of being cut by Congress at a time when the U.S.
is severely lagging in energy science and technology education, and
last week the Breakthrough Institute organized over 100 universities, student groups and other organizations to submit a letter urging Congress to fully fund the initiative.
Romm makes several factually
incorrect statements about Asia's plans for clean energy investment
that contradict research in publicly accessible reports and analyses,
including those by the Center for American Progress (which employs Romm).
Here is a fact check to correct Romm's misstatements
and clarify the details of investment plans in Asia:
1. The op-ed states, "China alone is reportedly investing $440 billion to $660 billion in its clean-energy industries over 10 years."
Romm's response:
"the China figure -- while it is certainly impressive and definitely should motivate U.S. action (as I have argued) -- is "reported" and cumulative over 10 years. It is part of their stimulus and NOT just R&D, but an investment in clean-energy industries broadly defined"
Facts: China's planned investment of $440-$660 billion over 10 years is indeed part of an economic stimulus package, but not the original $586 billion stimulus that is passed late last year, as Romm implies. The new investment, according to a recent paper by Andrew Light and Julian Wong of the Center for American Progress (CAP), is part of a planned second stimulus package that is "dedicated solely to new energy development over the next decade, including generous investments in wind, solar and hydropower." China is planning to make a sustained commitment to clean energy investment by building on the clean energy investments in their first stimulus package rather than being content with a one-time investment.
China's massive clean energy investment plan is indeed "reported," or planned. A top source for Breakthrough Institute's figures are analysts at CAP, who have repeatedly published the same figures, including recently in Congressional testimony. These numbers were reported early by the AFP and have since been republished several times, including recently by the Washington Post in an article similar to Norris' and Jenkins' op-ed, titled "Asian Nations Could Outpace U.S. in Developing Clean Energy."
The Breakthrough Institute has never suggested that China's investment is centered solely around R&D, nor have we suggested that U.S. clean energy investments should be solely focused on R&D, despite Romm's ongoing effort to misrepresent our position, which strongly supports direct public deployment of clean energy technology (see here for a summary of Breakthrough's clean energy investment policy recommendations).
The 40th anniversary of the US moon landing highlights lessons for the emerging clean energy race. While there are key similarities and differences between the space race of the Cold War era and clean energy race of today, one thing is certain: the need for vigorous and sustained public investment to drive dramatic technological innovation.
This week marks the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's moonwalk, the event which made the US the first and only nation to accomplish one of the greatest technological feats in human history. While space-race aficionados will argue that US-Soviet competition continued beyond the 1969 moon landing, for the layperson, Armstrong's 'small step' marked the end of the space race.
In 2009, the United States faces a new global competition, one that will have far greater implications for the future of our nation and the world: the clean energy race
The dual challenges of climate change and increased economic competitiveness are driving nations to develop new energy technologies that harness earth's abundant renewable resources. This technology is increasingly viewed as central to our economic fortunes with renewable energy and other clean technologies poised to be the next big growth sector. On several occasions President Obama has acknowledged that:
'The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy.'
We've heard calls for a New Apollo project for renewable energy before, and I will not discuss the merits of such a scheme here. Instead, on this historic anniversary, I will compare the space race of the Cold War era and the clean energy race of today--both similarities and differences are apparent, and both offer insights into America's current standing in today's clean energy race.
As Congress debates climate and energy legislation, Asia is moving rapidly to win the clean energy race. So warns a new article in the Washington Post that should serve as a wake-up call to America's leadership at the highest level.
Despite Obama's intentions to increase America's international competitiveness, the article reports that the amount and scale of investments in renewable energy programs coupled with ambitious renewable energy use targets are putting these Asian nations on pace to surpass programs set forth by both the U.S. economic stimulus package and the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the massive climate and energy bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.
Citing Breakthrough's Jesse Jenkins, the article warns:
"If the Waxman-Markey climate bill is the United States' entry into the clean energy race, we'll be left in the dust by Asia's clean-tech tigers," said Jesse Jenkins, director of energy and climate policy at the Breakthrough Institute, an Oakland, Calif.-based think tank that favors massive government spending to address global warming.
Building on the $30b down payment made in their stimulus, South Korea plans to surge ahead in the clean energy race with a $85 billion, five year public investment in clean energy technology and innovation.
This week, South Korea has upped the ante for green public investment as it continues to make swift progress toward becoming a clean-tech economy. Already, a staggering 80% of South Korea's $38 billion stimulus package has been earmarked for green investments.
And today, the South Korean government announced that it will invest $85 billion more over 5 years to encourage the growth of green industries and technologies. That's more than doubling South Korea's recent promise to invest $40 billion over five years in a "Green New Deal," and the equivalent of 2% of the East Asian nation's total GDP. If the United States were to invest a comparable share of it's national wealth in clean energy technology, the sum would total over $275 billion annually.
