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<\/p>\nThese two want to lead the green race.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In a call with reporters today, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that the U.S. needs a comprehensive energy and climate change law to beat China and lead the cleantech industry.<\/p>\n
He said\u00a0China\u2019s emergence as a green superpower couldn’t be ignored.<\/p>\n
“The U.S. should sit up and take notice,” Chu told reporters.<\/p>\n
A climate change law would bring long-term certainty and “help U.S. [renewable energy] companies become more competitive,” he explained. It would also ensure that more capital flows into the sector.<\/span><\/p>\n All we’ve seen so far in energy legislation is the House’s\u00a0Waxman – Markey legislation<\/a>, which contains a cap-and-trade provision.<\/p>\n On the Senate side, last week Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) and his co-sponsors \u2014 Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) \u2014 took steps to revive their stalled climate change and energy bill as they met with Senators from carbon-dependent states and key industry groups<\/a>, including the powerful American Petroleum Institute.<\/p>\n Chu said he was talking to lawmakers from both parties to get them to support a climate change bill. He declined to say with whom he was talking.<\/p>\n Underscoring China\u2019s growing role as a global renewable energy leader, Bloomberg New Energy Finance figures released today show that in 2009 China replaced the U.S. as the world’s largest investor in renewable energy<\/a>. New Energy Finance also reports that last year alone, China invested $34.5 billion in wind turbines, solar panels and other cleantech solutions. The U.S. spent about $18.6 billion.<\/p>\n Asked about these figures, Chu said that he hadn\u2019t read the report, but that\u00a0 “based on what you are seeing in China these days they seemed believable.”<\/p>\n He added:<\/p>\n The [Chinese] leadership increasingly sees economic opportunity in cleantech… Having missed the industrialized revolution and the semiconductor revolution, they do not want to miss this opportunity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The Obama administration has\u00a0been very clear\u00a0that it wants to beat China and lead the cleantech race<\/a>. And, there’s growing concern\u00a0at the White House that China and its huge stimulus could actually end up winning.<\/p>\n Over the past year, a number of Chinese renewable energy companies, eager to grow their U.S.-market share, have announced plans to open manufacturing lines here<\/a>.<\/p>\n For example, Chinese energy company A-Power Energy Generation Systems recently proposed building a 600 megawatt wind farm in Texas<\/a>. The project has rattled some on Capitol Hill<\/a>, including Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who has urged the DOE not to give A-Power and its partners stimulus money because the project\u2019s turbines would\u00a0largely be made in China.<\/p>\n\n