{"id":218344,"date":"2010-01-09T14:27:39","date_gmt":"2010-01-09T19:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldtradelaw.typepad.com\/ielpblog\/2010\/01\/clean-energy-subsidies.html"},"modified":"2010-01-09T14:27:39","modified_gmt":"2010-01-09T19:27:39","slug":"subsidies-and-clean-energy-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/218344","title":{"rendered":"Subsidies and Clean Energy Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes there's a fine line between protectionism and promoting the domestic economy.  From Bloomberg<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

The Obama administration today announced that 183 companies, including <\/span>PPG Industries Inc<\/font><\/a>. and <\/span>Itron Inc<\/font><\/a>., will get a total of $2.3 billion worth of tax credits for clean-energy manufacturing projects in 43 states.<\/p>\n

The tax credits are part of the $787 billion stimulus President <\/span>Barack Obama<\/font><\/a>pushed through Congress last year, and announcement of the companies that got the credit coincides with a Labor Department report that the U.S. lost 85,000 jobs in December.<\/p>\n

The projects getting the tax credit are forecast by the administration to create more than 17,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuilding a robust clean-energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future — jobs that pay well and can\u2019t be outsourced,\u201d Obama said in remarks today at the White House.<\/p>\n

Obama said that, while the U.S. has \u201cpioneered the use of clean energy,\u201d it is being \u201coutpaced\u201d by countries including China, Germany and Japan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want the industries that yield the jobs of tomorrow to be built overseas,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t want the technology that will transform the way we use energy to be invented abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/span><\/span>Here is an excerpt<\/a> from Obama's remarks noted in the article: <\/p>\n

\n

And unfortunately, right now the United States, the nation that pioneered the use of clean energy, is being outpaced by nations around the world.  It\u2019s China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient.  We spearheaded the development of solar technology, but we\u2019ve fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it.  And almost all of the batteries that we use to power our hybrid vehicles are still manufactured by Japanese companies or in Asia — though, because of one of the steps like the one we\u2019re taking today, we\u2019re beginning to produce more of these batteries here at home.<\/p>\n

Now, I welcome and am pleased to see a real competition emerging around the world to develop these kinds of clean energy technologies.  Competition is what fuels innovation.  But I don\u2019t want America to lose that competition.  I don\u2019t want the industries that yield the jobs of tomorrow to be built overseas. I don\u2019t want the technology that will transform the way we use energy to be invented abroad.  I want the United States of America to be what it has always been — and that is a leader — the leader when it comes to a clean energy future.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This all raises some questions for me:  How should governments approach the goal of clean energy?  Should they treat this as a national competition that they want domestic companies to win?  If so, how should they talk about the issue publicly?  Does talking about it as a competition cause trade conflicts?  Would it be better to promote the consumption<\/em> of clean energy, rather than giving aid to specific producers?<\/p>\n

It may be a mistake to make this too much of a national competition, as international cooperation<\/a> seems to have an important role to play as well:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

A U.S. solar power company said Saturday it will help build a series of solar thermal power plants in <\/span>China<\/span>, as the world's biggest emitter of <\/span>greenhouse gases<\/span> <\/span>tries to decrease its heavy reliance on coal, imported gas and oil.<\/p>\n

California-based eSolar Inc. will provide <\/span>Shandong Penglai Electric Power Equipment Manufacturing Co<\/span>. with the technology and information to build the concentrated solar thermal power farms with a capacity totaling 2,000 megawatts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes there's a fine line between protectionism and promoting the domestic economy.  From Bloomberg: The Obama administration today announced that 183 companies, including PPG Industries Inc. and Itron Inc., will get a total of $2.3 billion worth of tax credits for clean-energy manufacturing projects in 43 states. The tax credits are part of the $787 billion stimulus President Barack Obamapushed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4125,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}